The fiscal cliff deal
3 January 2013

http://wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/03/pers-j03.html

Obama exemplified the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party in his remarks Tuesday night following passage of the bill by the House of Representatives. "A central promise of my campaign for president," he declared, "was to change the tax code that was too skewed towards the wealthy at the expense of working middle-class Americans. Tonight we've done that."

This is a lie. The bill actually makes permanent the income tax cuts for the rich instituted under Bush, with the exception of a modest increase in the rate for households making more than $450,000 a year....

...At the same time, the fiscal cliff bill raises taxes on 77 percent of households by allowing a 2 percent cut in the Social Security payroll tax to expire. A typical family earning $50,000 will pay an additional $1,000 in federal taxes in 2013.

Obama reiterated his commitment to attacking entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Calling Medicare "the biggest contributor to our deficit," he pledged to "reform that program." He went on to speak of "further unnecessary spending in government that we can eliminate."