Obama broke his no-new-taxes pledge 15 days after he took office when he signed legislation on Feb. 4, 2009 raising the tax on cigarettes 158 percent - 62 cents per pack.

Obama made his no-new-taxes pledge over and over again four years ago as he campaigned. Not only has he repeatedly and blatantly violated it, but his policies have relentlessly assaulted poor and middle-income family budgets.

The Democrats are obsessing about raising tax rates, while the GOP talks about closing loopholes.

During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase.

Obama not only falsely represented the Republican position - as usual - he shamelessly pretended that he was The One 'fighting so hard to cut middle-class taxes.' Baloney!

Obama and the Democrats' preposterous argument is that we are just one more big tax increase away from solving our economic problems. The inescapable conclusion, however, is that the primary driver of the short-term deficit is not tax cuts but the lack of any meaningful economic growth over the last half decade.