The Latest in Obama?s String of Broken Promises

The media has spent the last week dwelling on President Barack Obama's demand to raise taxes on families earning more than $250,000. The other side of the coin -- receiving less attention but meriting far more -- is his determination to preserve the Bush tax cuts for those under the $250,000 threshold. This disingenuous attempt at avoiding tax increases on the middle class comes right on the heels of the greatest tax increase in United States history, a tax increase that hits people of all income levels.

It's no secret that the Obama administration has been riddled with contradiction and hypocrisy. But this latest election ploy is just too much. Mere weeks after the Supreme Court declared Obamacare the biggest tax increase in U.S. history, Obama pleads with Congress to sustain the Bush tax cuts for individuals making less than $250,000 -- am I the only one who sees the duplicity in this?

The truth is that families earning less than $250,000 will, in fact, see their taxes go up thanks to Obama's signature piece of legislation. Obamacare contains 21 different tax hikes, 12 of which are expected to hit middle-class families according to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Came. So, rest assured, none of us are exempt from this monstrosity.

Here are just a few taxes coming our way: A penalty for individuals who don't buy insurance (Senator Orrin Hatch estimates that one in 10 taxed for not buying insurance will be below the federal poverty level), an increase in the federal cigarette tax, an excise tax on indoor tanning, and an excise tax on medical device manufacturers, a fee on drug makers, and an annual fee paid by insurers, all of which will be handed down to the consumer in some form or another. And these are just four of the 21 we know about; not included are the retroactive taxes we will incur for Obamacare's $1.76 trillion price tag.

All of this comes after Obama vowed this in 2008: Let me be absolutely clear. If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up. Not your capital gains tax. Not your payroll tax. Not your income tax. No taxes. Your taxes will not go up. It's as if Obama thinks we are nothing but mind-numb robots with short term memory loss.

And just after that broken promise, another followed. Obama said this in a July 2008 speech: And, by the way, unlike John McCain, I'll pay for my plan by cutting wasteful spending. This from the man who has added nearly $5.3 trillion to our national debt.

It is laughable to deny the outright insincerity and double standards of this administration. Words are empty, especially when they are followed by a string of broken promises. The tax hypocrisy of the Obama administration is the latest in the broken promise line.

We all remember these words from President George H. W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention: Read my lips: no new taxes. And we all remember those words helped to seal his fate in 1992. Obama would be wise to heed the example of one of his predecessors.

Kayleigh McEnany is a writer and political activist who graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and studied at Oxford University. She is the founder of www.RealReaganConservative.com. She writes every Tuesday for the International Business Times.