Obama's Budget Would "Punish" Middle Class

"No new taxes on anyone making under $250,000. Um... except ObamaCare-- it's legally a tax, you know. Oh, and and on cigarettes, but that's for your own good. And on your deductions. And when I really, really need to, and when I'm spending trillions of dollars, I really need to."

Our dear president is very fond of the word "punish" in regards to those Americans he holds in low esteem. And the American Left has consistently associated the middle class with the suburbs, and boy does the Left hate the suburbs. They suck up all the money with building and maintaining highways and such when that money could be better spent lining the pockets of political cronies invested in urban area to create more Detroits.

So why would Obama not wish to punish the greedy middle class that lives isolated and blind to urban problems-- unlike those rich urban dwellers who live in gated communities and guarded high rises.

From the amusingly biased Politico article (h/t Instapundit):

President Barack Obama rarely misses a chance to call on upper-income Americans to pay more taxes.

But his annual budget is doing more to target middle-class taxpayers than any of his previous proposals, calling for caps on deductions, changes in the way some tax benefits are calculated and a big hike in cigarette taxes — all proposals that would make middle-class Americans pay more. 

[..]

“It’s a concern,” Rep. Allyson Schwartz, a Pennsylvania Democrat who represents some of Philadelphia’s suburbs, told POLITICO in reference to Obama’s proposed deduction cap. “For many people, the mortgage tax deduction is your biggest deduction. It’s very significant. And just as the housing market is coming back, there’s a question about the timing of that.”

Republicans are lapping up the proposals as evidence — despite Obama’s rhetoric — the administration won’t spare the middle class from higher taxes.

“The president keeps breaking his campaign pledge to not tax the middle class — first with his health care law and now with these tax hikes in his budget,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top GOP member on the Finance Committee, told POLITICO. “As I’ve said before, when it comes to this White House and its penchant for wanting to raise taxes, everyone — including those middle-class families the president says he wants to help — needs to watch their wallets.”

Three proposals in the budget would hit the middle class in ways the president has not previously suggested.

The president’s proposal to change the way inflation is calculated means that benefits like the earned income tax credit would grow at a slower pace. His proposed deduction cap would hit people with taxable income as low as $183,000. And, policy experts say the budget plan to raise taxes on cigarettes is regressive.
 

 I just love the way Politico constantly makes excuses, and writes off opposition as merely politically-minded. Ah, the media...

Anyway, cutting through the crap, the upshot of it all is Obama's out to raise taxes and increase spending at a phenomenal rate. A real shocker, I know.