David Plouffe, who is widely credited as the architect of President Obama’s 2008 election victory, sent out a memo to fellow Democrats urging them to “go on offense” against Republicans on taxes and not let Republicans set the terms of the debate.
This memo, which was made public by the White House, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Obama healthcare plan by calling the individual mandate penalty a “tax,” sending Republicans into a rabid frenzy to claim the president will be imposing a massive tax on all Americans.
But Plouffe, a senior Obama advisor, said Democrats should not allow Republicans get away with “trying to misrepresent” Obama’s record on taxes.
“We welcome this debate on middle class taxes, and we urge you to seize this opportunity to go on offense to illustrate how the President and Democrats in Congress are standing up for the middle class,” Plouffe wrote.
Among the talking points that Plouffe listed to help Democrats were these:
*That Obama has cut taxes by $3,600 for the typical middle class family.
*That under Obamacare, about 18 million middle class individuals and families will get a tax cut averaging $4,000.
*The individual mandate tax was “modeled” on Mitt Romney’s overhaul of Massachusetts health care when he was governor.
“The bottom line is this though: the Court has issued a clear and final ruling on this law,” Plouffe said. “The last thing Congress should do is refight old political battles.”
But refighting the healthcare battle is exactly what Republicans are trying to do.
“Yesterday, the court blew the president’s cover,” said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said the president continually denied the mandate penalty was a tax. “The reason was obvious: if Americans knew that failure to comply resulted in a tax hike, it never would have passed. And the President wouldn’t be able to claim his health care bill didn’t raise taxes on the middle class, as he did, again, and again, and again.”
