It appears that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus failed to get the White House memo about tax increases not being tax increases prior to drafting his latest version of ObamaCare.<\/p>\n
During yesterday\u2019s now-infamous exchange<\/a> with ABC\u2019s George Stephanopoulos, President Obama insisted<\/a> that the provision in Baucus’ bill that taxes families up to $3,800 annually for failing to get health insurance (aka the “individual mandate”) is not a tax increase and therefore does not violate his oft-repeated campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.<\/p>\n Hat tip to Chris Frates and Mike Allen of Politico<\/em> for pointing out<\/a> that the first sentence of Page 29 of the Baucus bill reads: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all. According to Frates and Allen:<\/p>\n And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax: \u2018The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So who\u2019s lying now?<\/p>\n