The reason George H.W. Bush's reneged "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" pledge backfired so fiercely is that people actually believed him when he delivered the line, with such conviction, in 1988. Nobody believed Barack Obama, including Barack Obama, when he said he would only raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans during the 2008 campaign. So, the idea floated by administration lackeys to raise taxes on middle-income Americans will not create the sense of betrayal that Bush the Elder engendered when he raised top rates from 28 to 31 percent in 1990. That's not to say it won't be without political cost. There's a Machiavellian logic in taxing the few for the benefit of the many. Taxing the many for the benefit of the few--in this case, the bureaucrats seeking to manage health care--holds no such political benefits. This is doubly so during a recession because subtracting even more money from a contracting economy, as Herbert Hoover discovered during the Great Depression, can only make a bad situation worse.

Amen brother Flynn.