We were willing to give President Barack Obama a Compromise rating on this promise when a new cigarette tax went into effect. But the latest health care bill includes more broad-based taxes that are pushing us toward Promise Broken.

We should state at the outset that if you think Obama only meant he would not raise income taxes on people making less than $250,000, then you might think Obama is keeping his promise. The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, and Obama said he would extend those tax cuts for those making less than $250,000. We still have that promise rated In the Works. People who make more than $250,000 will likely see their taxes go up, just as Obama promised during the campaign.

But Obama's campaign rhetoric took him beyond just income taxes. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes," Obama said. It's that "not any of your taxes" that is the sticking point.

The health care law that Obama signed on March 23, 2010, raises taxes on some things regardless of income. Two taxes in particular stand out. A tax on indoor tanning services begins this year. And in 2014, people will have to pay a fine, levied through their income taxes, if they don't have health insurance. Neither of these taxes are pegged to income.

Obama has made the case that the tax penalty for people who decline to buy insurance should not be considered a broken promise on taxes. If that tax, better known as the individual mandate, were the only new measure we were considering, we might be inclined to rate this a Compromise. But the fact is, if you're a happily uninsured smoker who likes to tan, you are facing a triple whammy.

Obama made many other tax promises that are rated In the Works, and may ultimately move to Promise Kept. But this promise was so broadly phrased that almost any type of revenue-generating measure could have contradicted it. We're now willing to rate it Promise Broken.

“We are better than that. We are smarter than that.” - O

• a bridge project that does not qualify for the Jobs Bill
  
• a bridge project that does not provide new jobs because it wouldn't even start before 2015
  
• a bridge repair project at a bridge that does not need repairs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
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Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to “put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that’s our priority.” He said Republicans are calling the bill a “failure” because they are “using a different benchmark for success than we are.”

Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.
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The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent
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“Wall Street has moved to K Street,” [someone tell OWS - B] said Barbara Lang, president and chief executive officer of the DC Chamber of Commerce, referring to the Washington street that’s home to prominent lobbying firms. “Those two industries clearly have grown in our city.”
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The flow of federal dollars in and around the nation’s capital helped the region weather the economic slump better than most areas and is contributing to its recovery. The unemployment rate in the Washington metro area in August was 6.1 percent, compared with 10 percent in San Jose [aka silicon valley - B],
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“The region did experience a shorter, shallower recession than San Jose,” said Sara Kline, a Washington analyst at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “The federal government stepped in to take efforts to dampen the recession. It was focused to some extent in the D.C. area as well, given the presence of federal workers there and contractors. That insulated it from more of a downturn.”

Federal government spending for programs excluding Social Security and Medicare in fiscal year 2011, which ended on Sept. 30, rose to $2.38 trillion from $2.3 trillion the previous year

Obama’s raised more money for Democrats from Wall Street donors than all Republican candidates combined