Obama's promise to raise taxes on the rich? Just campaign bullsh**t, says Valerie Jarrett

[Mark Crispin Miller]

"Jarrett even made a pretty startling admission, one attendee told me. Asked why Obama said he wants to raise taxes on upper-income people for no other reason than to level the playing field, "She basically told me he said what he said during the heat of the campaign, and that's not his true belief."

When fat cats talk

By CHARLES GASPARINO

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/when_fat_cats_talk_naULc0NwjWT3zlHYrsi8jM

It took continued 9-plus percent unemployment, falling approval ratings and a[n ostensible] "shellacking" in the November elections, but President Obama finally appears to understand that

he actually needs at least some of those fat cats in the business community, if he's going to fix the economy anytime soon.

At least that was the feeling to come out of a private dinner this month, where two key Obama advisers met with 20 or so top business leaders.

The meeting was at the swank Manhattan home of Betty and John Levin, a man who made a fairly large fortune as a hedge-fund manager and investor. Other guests included Loews Corp CEO James Tisch, Ajit Jain of Berkshire Hathaway, Honeywell CEO David Cote and John Myers, the former president of GE Asset Management.

Days later, Obama would sign on to the extension of the Bush tax rates, as well as tax cuts on capital gains that mostly benefited the "rich" -- while still referring to Republicans and their business allies as "hostage takers."

But there they were, Valerie Jarrett and Austan Goolsbee, two of the president's top advisers, sitting down with the business elite, listening and taking copious notes as the fat cats lectured them on the administration's multiple economic failings, how to fix the economy in the future -- and why all Obama's class-warfare rhetoric has made a bad situation even worse.

Several guests I later spoke to were surprised by the lack of that rhetoric at the dinner. After two years of Obama dishing about the greed of the rich and how the business elite needs to pay higher taxes, they didn't expect his envoys to show a desire to learn something about how the private sector creates jobs.

Yet Jarrett listened intently as one guest lectured her on supply-side economics -- how, after the Reagan tax cuts, both businesses and the overall economy prospered, while the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP fell.

Jarret even made a pretty startling admission, one attendee told me. Asked why Obama said he wants to raise taxes on upper-income people for no other reason than to level the playing field, "She basically told me he said what he said during the heat of the campaign, and that's not his true belief."

We can only hope. [Speak for yourself, white man.--MCM]

The conversation struck another interesting note on taxes: Jarrett asked someone if he'd be willing to pay higher taxes if the federal government could guarantee that whatever he sent to Washington would be funneled into a lockbox that could be only used for deficit reduction -- a plan, she claimed, that the president floated to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who she said shot it down. (McConnell's press aide says no such plan was floated; Jarrett had no comment.)

I'm told Levin set up the meeting. He wanted to show the White House that business leaders shouldn't be defined by the worst of the lot -- namely the Wall Street risk-takers who gambled, lost and nearly destroyed the economy before they were bailed out. So he reached out to Cote, who was a member of the president's deficit-reduction commission.

Levin and others were said to have come away from the meeting pleasantly surprised by Goolsbee's and Jarrett's eagerness to be "constructive" and listen to different points of view, especially when they seemed to concede the president's $800 billion stimulus package didn't really work and that the Democrats who claim that the Social Security system is in "surplus" are using fuzzy math.

But the night had reminders that this is still the administration that spent a year attacking job-creating businesses and pushing for job-killing taxes, even as unemployment remained near 10 percent. One guest accused the president of using overheated rhetoric when attacking opponents, and even people who aren't necessarily opponents, like those in the business community. I'm told that "Jarrett shot back that the Republicans are guilty of the same tactics. She reminded us that it was Mitch McConnell who said his top priority was to end the Obama presidency when his top priority should be getting the economy moving."

My source says that didn't sway the crowd: "Everyone agreed that McConnell made a stupid statement but that doesn't mean the president should have been relentlessly attacking the business community."

Later, several people said that it's just plain dumb for the president to claim that raising taxes on the rich would have brought in trillions of new revenues. "That's just static analysis," someone noted. "It doesn't count how much raising taxes causes business activity to decline, which in turn means lower tax revenues in the future."

Goolsbee insisted that the administration has no choice, because that's the way the Congressional Budget Office does its accounting, and "they're the ultimate umpire."

"Well, change the umpire," snapped someone in the crowd.

"Goolsbee acted as if he was powerless on that issue," another guest told me.

Here's hoping he's a lot more forceful if he tries to convince the president to listen to some of the people in the room that night.

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