Obama Starting To Talk Up a VAT Tax

First you destroy the economy, then you create all sorts of new government spending that runs up a huge deficit, and then you decide America needs to take drastic action to reduce the deficit and pay for all the entitlements with massive tax hikes.  Obama has now reached that final step:

President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.

Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, "I want to get a better picture of what our options are."

After Obama adviser Paul Volcker recently raised the prospect of a value-added tax, or VAT, the Senate voted 85-13 last week for a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" resolution that calls the such a tax "a massive tax increase that will cripple families on fixed income and only further push back America's economic recovery."

For days, White House spokesmen have said the president has not proposed and is not considering a VAT.

"I think I directly answered this the other day by saying that it wasn't something that the president had under consideration," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters shortly before Obama spoke with CNBC.

After the interview, White House deputy communications director Jen Psaki said nothing has changed and the White House is "not considering" a VAT.

Baloney. A VAT tax has been an option since day one, the only question was how to sell it to Congress.

Of course, with reconciliation now the plan for all controversial bills he only has to sell it to Democrats and that won't be that hard.