Obama suggests value-added tax (VAT) may be an option

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.

Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are."

After Obama adviser Paul Volcker recently raised the prospect of a value-added tax, or VAT, the Senate voted 85-13 last week for a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution that calls the such a tax "a massive tax increase that will cripple families on fixed income and only further push back America's economic recovery."

For days, White House spokesmen have said the president has not proposed and is not considering a VAT.

"I think I directly answered this the other day by saying that it wasn't something that the president had under consideration," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters shortly before Obama spoke with CNBC.

After the interview, White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said nothing has changed and the White House is "not considering" a VAT.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_tax

:sarcasm:

He considers everything.

Whether that is good or not is open for debate.

:shrug: There are a number of things that are off the table for him.

Any kind of sales tax like this is regressive and hurts working folks and people on fixed incomes most.

Michael Reagan advertises on the radio for this kind of "Fair Tax" ... that ought to tell you something right there.

I agree with another post -- end the wars, cut the Pentagon budget -- billions and billions could be saved.

Or reform the income tax ... make it very progressive, cut the loopholes for the wealthy and corporations, and tax "investment" income at a higher rate than income derived from actual work.

But a VAT?

NEVER!

Not that it is saying much but it is sad when the idea being presented by progressives is far more regressive than anything the Republicans have come up with.

Tax the top ten percent (sorry richies...that's the cost of doing business in the U.S.), get the hell out of Iraq and start letting 12 million undocumented folks pay taxes (Social Security, Unemployment etc.) and become Americans. They're here anyway. Why should their crooked employers get away with paying slave wages and forcing the rest of us pay for their social services?

The VAT is the invisible tax that will kill jobs and be the final push toward offshore manufacturing by those who have resisted doing so.

As you say, just let the Bush tax cuts expire. But, the problem is that will be "visible". It is the correct thing to do. Let's hope Obama will do it.

Conservatives won't support it because, well they're conservatives. Liberals won't support it because a VAT is regressive.

The Senate has already shot down the idea of a VAT.

The VAT will be the deathknell of US-made goods.

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