Bashing Obama on Taxes

By Robert Parry
August 3, 2009

Across the cable TV news shows on Monday was a smirking cynicism about President Barack Obama supposedly reneging on his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on the middle-class, but this new conventional wisdom rested on a weak foundation.

The cable news programs supported their contention with snippets of weekend interviews with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, although the actual comments didn’t really support the conclusions.

ABC News’ “This Week” got the ball rolling with an off-point Internet headline for its Sunday show, “Geithner Won’t Rule Out New Taxes for the Middle Class.” But Geithner appears to have been referring to “new revenues,” not necessarily a tax on the middle class.