Surprise: Axelrod refuses to rule out tax hike to pay for ObamaCare

I don’t blame him. The “pile of sh*t” that passed the House on Friday, which even Obama pal Warren Buffett describes as a “huge tax,” already shattered The One’s pledge not to raise taxes on people who make less than $250,000. Now that they’re in for a penny, they might as well be in for a pound:

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I pressed Axelrod on whether Obama will draw a line in the sand and veto any bill that funds health care reform with tax hikes for people making under $250,000 a year — a pledge Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

“One of the problems we’ve had in this town is that people draw lines in the sand and they stop talking to each other. And you don’t get anything done. That’s not the way the president approaches us. He is very cognizant of protecting people — middle class people, hard-working people who are trying to get along in a very difficult economy. And he will continue to represent them in these talks,” Axelrod said.

“But they’re also dealing with punishing health care costs, and that’s something that we have to deal with.”

This wouldn’t be the only health-care “line in the sand” drawn during the campaign that’s now being quietly washed away by economic reality. As for foreign policy, Ax helpfully informed Stephanopoulos that it’s still full speed ahead on negotiations with Iran. You can watch that clip here but I recommend his exchange on the same topic with David Gregory instead, as Gregory presses him on what consequences Iran should suffer for its brutality. Ax has no answers, of course. Note also his insistence (in both interviews) that Ahmadinejad has no say in setting foreign policy, which (a) may be technically true but is meaningless in practice, given that Khamenei obviously supports Ahmadinejad’s vision enough to rig an election for him and (b) may not even be technically true anymore given the astounding power the Revolutionary Guard now has in Iran. If you missed Gary Sick’s short but essential piece in Headlines last night on who really holds the cards there, read it now. The election was more of a coup than you thought.

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