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Obama dumps tax hike on college savings accounts

Obama dumps tax hike on college savings accounts

Score one for the American taxpayer

He announced.
America retaliated.
He ran screaming from his toxic tax proposal.

Today, the White House threw its own plan under the bus by announcing that it would no longer pursue its proposed tax hike on “529” college savings account.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The move followed a public call by House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) on Tuesday for the White House to withdraw its plan. Calls also were coming privately from leaders of the president’s own party. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pressed the case for dropping the plan in conversations with senior administration officials aboard Air Force One, as she flew with the president from India to Saudi Arabia, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A White House official said late Tuesday: “Given it has become such a distraction, we’re not going to ask Congress to pass the 529 provision.”

A “distraction?” I think the word you’re looking for is “complete PR cluster.” It could also translate to, “the Party’s most effective bundlers called and threatened to sit 2016 out if we asked Congress to pass this thing, so we chickened out.”

Whatever it takes to get you through the press cycle.

I’d just like to point out the time timing of this release couldn’t have been worse for the Administration; they couldn’t have pulled the trigger before Boehner made a very public affirmation and call to action on behalf of middle class taxpayers? They had to have known this particular SOTU “promise” was a non-starter.

This was a smart provision for Republicans to latch on to not only because it affects Americans at all stages of life, but because it resonates at a level that exists outside of the political spectrum. People understand things like a gas tax, or a VAT tax, but they may not have an emotional reaction to it. This 529 tax proposal, however, hits all the right nerves because it involves parents, kids, and The Future of America©.

Will this save us from every “promise” Obama made during his State of the Union address? Maybe not—but it’s a pretty good start. Good work, activists!

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Comments

Barack Obama: The fecal version of King Midas.

Oofah.

–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

You really have to wonder when “microaggressions” become “macroaggressions” and create all those “trigger” warnings”…..

postponed, for now

p.s. Andrew, it is called the fecal touch….

Wow! He blinked! First time that I can recall.

Very dumb of the GOP to let this one die.

They should have trotted this pig for about 20-30 news cycles and kept it going like Weekend at Bernies IV.

Does this mean — no free community college?

    Exiliado in reply to BrokeGopher. | January 28, 2015 at 6:30 am

    It means he will pursue other ways to TAX your arse.

    Stupid never sleeps.
    Stupid never rests.

    No. It means that he was hoping that Americans would be so focused on “free community college” that they wouldn’t notice his move to actively punish those who choose to be responsible and help pay their own way. He underestimated the level of attention people are paying these days.

    He’s had a good precedent, though. Most Americans are so focused on Facebook, the Super Bowl, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and Real Housewives, that they barely notice their own kids. That a critical mass noticed this move – and moreover, acted on it – must have come as a real shock.

we’re not going to ask Congress to pass …

This doesn’t mean much.

O doesn’t think he needs Congress for anything he claims is important. He’ll just do it in some more sneaky way. He won’t even pause first to think of a way to blame the Republicans or Fox News when he gets caught; he’s often caught with his pants down that way, but it doesn’t matter in the least.

In this case, his evil minions in the IRS will just have to come up with something sinister. It need not be legal, they’ll be happy to do it. And when nabbed, all the evidence will turn up missing. Again. And they’ll get away with it. Again.

Escaped from RI | January 27, 2015 at 11:28 pm

This wasn’t about revenue. This was about control. The rich and poor can send their kids to four year colleges. The middle class? Community ( or as we used to call it, Junior) College is good enough for the middle class.

    The operative principle is largely the same one that motivated Dems to take insurance away from people who were already buying it and make it too expensive for them to afford — all the while chanting, “Everyone should have insurance!”

    Except they aren’t going to compel people to go to college (yet).

Another broken promise.

So now stupid ideas are called distractions.

What’s the deal with Liberals changing the names of things?

Amy, you left off a word, after “Complete PR cluster” that I believe begins with an F, and ends with K.

How does such a non-starter of a policy proposal get into the SOTU address? That this made it into the SOTU, and that it had to be pulled so quickly, should lead to some real soul-searching among the denizens of 1600 Pennsylvania.

The policies of the Obama Administration increasingly bear all the earmarks of a Friday night beer-fueled bull session.

    Andy in reply to ss396. | January 28, 2015 at 11:23 am

    I loved that he put that out there and I’m annoyed at the GOP for letting him off the hook with it. Americans need to be reminded what Obama is all about.

    The part that is worrisome is his approval rating hit 50%??? This commie thug should be in the 20% range and that’s the part that worries me.

He never intended to do it. He knew it would never fly, not even with his own party. But now, if any Dem is asked, “hey, what happened to free community college?”, they can reply, “damn Republicans nipped it in the bud, the bastards”.

Any time you see a Dem/lib make a proposal that is idiocy on its face even for them, you are really seeing seeds of propaganda planted.

Does anybody beside me think that this was a red herring to begin with?

Let’s think about it from a distraction standpoint:

1.) President Obama puts what he has to KNOW will be a vastly unpopular provision regarding taxing 529 plans into the SOTU speech, knowing all the news outlets and the Republicans will read it in advance so that they can write their rebuttal, and it will eat up a lot of their time in responding.

2.) That causes Republicans to start opposing the 529 plan change, and then spend time, effort and news cycles commenting on just how bad that change would be, while bringing less focus on the other odious proposals in the SOTU address.

3.) Obama then “dumps” the tax hike on 529 programs (which the never intended in the first place), but keeps all the other, less opposed or uncommented upon bad proposals on the table while getting to claim “Hey, I dropped the big thing that you were all opposed to. What do you want from me?”

It’s a big misdirection play in the ‘negotiation’ (for lack of a better word) of his agenda for the year with the American People.

By-the-by: I watched about half of the SOTU address last Saturday morning, until I simply couldn’t take it anymore. For a President that is in his second term, has done several of these, and used to be a Law School lecturer, Obama was ridiculously stiff at the podium. People used to talk about Gore being wooden. Obama only had marginally more presence. I begrudge RBG her nap even less now that I heard the speech. If I hadn’t been gagging so badly at the bad logic and flawed premises, I probably would have passed out from boredom too.