Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 16

From an August 5 interview with NBC's Chuck Todd:

OBAMA: Normally, you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't and why we have instead cut taxes. So I guess what I would say to Scott is his economics are right, you don't raise taxes in a recession. We haven't raised taxes in a recession. We don't have a...
TODD: But you might for health care. You might for the highest -- for some of the wealthiest.
OBAMA: The -- we have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect in the middle of a recession. Even the proposals that have come out of Congress, which, by the way, were different from the proposals I put forward, still wouldn't kick in until after the recession was over. So he is absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up -- take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

According to OMB Director Peter Orszag:

The Budget proposes allowing most of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire in 2011, as scheduled, for couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 per year.