President Barack Obama‘s most trusted economic analysts, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers stated last Sunday that middle-class taxes might have to go up to achieve two things: offset budget deficits and/or pay for the president’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

President Obama to raise taxes.

Geithner was the one who responded to tax hikes aimed at reducing the federal deficit. Summers, on the other hand, commented that the increase in taxes would be to fund the proposed health care system that President Obama has championed over and over again.

This amidst the president’s campaign way back before election time, when he repeatedly promised to the nation by saying, “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.” Geithner defended President Obama and the tax hikes by saying:

“If we want an economy that’s going to grow in the future, people have to understand we have to bring those deficits down. And it’s going to be difficult, hard for us to do. And the path to that is through health care reform. We’re not at the point yet where we’re going to make a judgment about what it’s going to take.”

All this in a time when the president’s popularity ratings are dropping, especially after President Obama was branded a racist for his comments regarding the infamous “Gates and white policeman” issue.