Four months ago I wrote in this space about the possibility of a value added tax or VAT - a federal sales tax on virtually anything purchased by everyone - as a way to pay for President Obama's obscenely expensive ideas. At that time I said it would be the perfect shell game - take hard earned money from everyone, everyday and use that money to "give" them things like a national health care system. Some in the administration were advocating the idea. Others were refusing to rule it out. And now, it's front and center again.

Continued...

John Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff and co-chairman of President Obama's transition team, said in a recent interview that some form of a VAT is "more plausible today than it ever has been." He went on to say that such a tax may be regressive, but can be balanced by exempting some products and using "the money to support low-wage workers." (source) More of that spreading the wealth around. Only problem is that a VAT wouldn't only affect the wealthy. It would not replace the federal income tax burden currently on the middle class and would therefore be a whopping tax increase (even on those making well under Candidate Obama's promised income ceiling of $250,000).

But Mr. Podesta isn't really part of the administration anymore, right? He's now a private citizen with no real clout, right? Maybe, but White House Budget Director Peter Orszag is part of the administration and does have the clout. And Mr. Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health care. That advocate is Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel) who claimed in his book Health Care, Guaranteed, "a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments." (source)

Ten percent more for everything you purchase. A tax increase that will easily amount to thousands of dollars per household per year. All that extra revenue to pay for new government programs the American people do not want and more power the federal government does not need.