Fact Check: Romney Claims Obama Pledged to Raise Taxes in Second Term

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed in Ohio Tuesday that Obama has not raised income taxes during his first term but will do so if given a second term.

While pundits on the left reacted by saying Romney “admitted” Obama hasn’t raised taxes, they fail to recognize that even if it were wholly true, that angle does not invalidate the fact the economic reality of the primary assertion.

Obama has pledged to do raise income taxes and already would have done it but for the Republican Congressional landslide victory in Nov. 2010. He signed a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts passed by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives in 2011. Obama is on record saying “he will not agree to another extension of the Bush tax cuts.” 

What this means is if we give him a second term, families and small businesses with incomes of $250,000 or more are certain to see tax hikes. The cancellation of a tax cut is, by definition, a tax increase. 

Romney misspoke that Obama has not raised taxes, for his administration has raised taxes on cigarettes and the use of tanning beds, for instance. And even more non-income taxes will be levied upon further implementation of the President’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act.

The bill, known as Obamacare, will raise taxes on medical devices before the president’s 2013 inauguration. This will increase the cost of healthcare for families at all income levels. Human Events lists nine other taxes, including the big one: the Individual Mandate, which Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had to redefine specifically as a tax to find the law constitutional. That tax, levied for individuals who don’t buy health insurance, is a tax on doing nothing — as some have called it, a “birth tax.” 

In short, left-wing pundits who use Romney’s misstatement on Obama’s tax record to deny his allegations of Obama’s plans for future tax hikes are not only being dishonest but they are selling out the poor and middle class to a future of economic misery.