Obama and tomorrow's taxes

“Elitists” deride the tea party movement as phony, said Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal. But the anger that Americans feel as they watch President Obama’s runaway spending is real, and it’s growing. “The fear of future federal tax hikes is fueling the tea party movement.”

It’s never good to spend without making the tough decisions about how to pay the bills, said Gail Collins in The New York Times. But Obama “has proposed some really big-ticket savings,” such as cutting agriculture subsidies, to reduce the budget deficit. “The only problem is that Congress seems deeply unenthusiastic.”

Republicans and other tea party participants might regret their “grassroots rebellion,” said Michael Oneal and Janet Hook in the Chicago Tribune. With millions worrying more about whether they’ll lose their jobs than how much they pay the IRS, “the anti-tax, anti-government spending message makes Republicans seem out of touch with present-day reality.”

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The only reason nearly half of Americans think their income tax bill is about right, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air, is that nearly half of Americans pay no income tax at all. But at some point, soon, we’re going to have to start paying for the massive deficits Obama is running up. “And when we do, it will hammer the middle class.”