Not a single reporter questioned President Joe Biden during his first solo press conference for the administration's flip-flopping on its massive tax hike proposal.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a March 17 press briefing that “families” with household incomes totaling over $400,000 will see their taxes increase. The statement contradicted Biden’s indication that individuals — not families — would see taxes increased during an interview with ABC News that aired the same day: “Yes, anybody making more than $400,000 will see a small to a significant tax increase. If you make less than $400,000, you won’t see one single penny in additional federal tax.” The Wall Street Journal summarized that the narrative shift meant that “if you’re a two-income household making $200,000 each, you could get whacked.”
The pro-Biden White House Press Corps didn’t even bother trying to hold him to account for the apparent deception.
Biden actually raised the issue of taxes without being asked about it directly. And no one followed up to question the shift in narrative on tax hikes:
If you notice, didn’t you find it kind of interesting that my Republican friends were worried about the cost and the taxes that had to be had, if there is any tax to be had as they talk about it, in dealing with the act that we just passed which puts money in people’s pockets, ordinary people, to hear them complain when they passed a close to $2 trillion Trump tax cut, 83% going to the top 1%. Do you hear them talk about that at all?
Instead, the American people were treated to a cacophony of embarrassing soft-ball questions, such as the following embarrassing question from White House reporter Zeke Miller of the Associated Press:
One of the defining challenges you face in the coming months is how to deliver on your promise to Americans on issues like immigration reform, gun control, voting rights, climate change All of those right now are facing stiff, united opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill. How far are you willing to go to achieve those promises that you made to the American people?
Yamiche Alcindor, White House correspondent for PBS, gushed that illegal immigrants saw Biden as a “moral decent man,” before pontificating that is precisely why “a lot of immigrants are coming to this country and entrusting you with unaccompanied minors.”
Apparently, neither Miller, Alcindor, or any other reporter considered Biden’s seemingly broken promise that no one making less than $400,000 will “see one single penny in additional federal tax” an issue worth bringing up.
Strategic Wealth Partners CEO Mark Tepper recently underscored Biden’s lack of transparency when it came to his leftist tax agenda on Fox Business:
Biden ran his campaign on raising taxes, and he’s always had several plans along the way. He was just never willing to provide any detail on any of these plans. Zero transparency out of this administration. Now all of a sudden the truth comes out: $200,000 for individuals, $400,000 for families.
The Wall Street Journal also summarized how the Biden administration’s narrative shift on tax hikes is a typical left-wing tactic:
This is a familiar tax bait and switch. Democrats promise they’ll tax only the rich, but there aren’t enough rich, and the rich don’t have enough money to finance the Democratic Party’s endless spending schemes. Millions of the Americans Mr. Biden wants to tax aren’t rich. They are successful Americans, typically at the peak of their earning lives, who might make $200,000 for a few years.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact ABC News (818-460-7477), CBS News (212-975-3247) and NBC News (212- 664-6192) and demand they hold the Biden administration accountable for shifting the narrative on its tax hike plans.
NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck contributed to this report.
