Obama reverses stand — willing to tax health care benefits as income

While campaigning for President, Senator Barack Obama pledged that he would not tax health care benefits as income.  He claimed that such a change in the law would be “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.”

Now that he has become President during Great Depression II, he is searching for ways to enhance revenue.  Reports out of Washington indicate that President Obama is now willing to tax health care benefits.

According to Jackie Calmes and Robert Pear, Administration Is Open to Taxing Health Benefits, NY Times, March 14, 2009:

The Congressional Budget Office says that including health benefits in taxable income could mean $246 billion in additional revenue for a single year. Stopping short of full taxation, as Mr. Baucus and others suggest, would mean less new revenue.