Bush Endorses "Largest Tax Increase in American History"

CTJ's Executive Director Bob McIntyre forwarded the following news story to CTJ staff today.

Bush Endorses "Largest Tax Increase in American History"

Washington, April 3, 2007 — In a speech yesterday to the U.S. Naval Academy football team, President Bush implicitly endorsed what critics called "the largest tax increase in American history," by failing to call for repeal of the entire Internal Revenue Code.

According to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the taxes that Bush would keep on the books will total $2.5 trillion this fiscal year, and almost $15 trillion over the following five years. A consortium of conservative organizations, led by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, condemned Bush’s action as "an assault on American taxpayers and Christianity itself."

A spokesman for the White House said that the President’s action was "potentially an oversight," and that "an investigation is already underway" to evaluate the charges. "If anyone in the White House, the Treasury Department or any other executive agency is implicated in this scandal they will be out the door by the weekend," the spokesman asserted.

Democratic leaders in Congress refused to comment officially on the President’s huge proposed tax increase. Speaking off the record, however, a top advisor to a leading Democratic presidential candidate said that the candidate is "looking to see if there might be a middle ground" that both sides could agree upon.

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