The Obama administration has gotten itself into a little pickle. You see, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama made the mistake of promising that he would not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year. But now reality has hit. He really wants to get this healthcare reform passed and he needs to find the money to do it. One option that has been on the table is taxing healthcare benefits as income. Anyone who isn't government educated might immediately understand that this would clearly constitute a tax increase for a lot of Americans, including a lot of 'em making less than $250,000 a year.

So over the weekend, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama's senior advisor David Axelrod about this option. Axelrod did not say what the people wanted to hear: Axelrod said that taxing healthcare benefits would not be an option because that would clearly constitute an increase in taxes for the middle class. Instead. Then, having said that, he immediately reversed course and "left open" the possibility that Obama would still sign legislation calling for taxing health care benefits if such a bill were passed.

Axelrod avoided answering the question directly by saying, "The president had said in the past that he doesn't believe taxing health care benefits at any level is necessarily the best way to go here. He still believes that, but there are a number of formulations and we'll wait and see ... The important thing at this point is to keep the process moving, to keep people at the table, to the keep the discussions going. We've gotten a long way down the road and we want to finish that journey."

Throughout the questioning Axelrod refused to re-state Obama's promise to not raise taxes on the middle class. Are you starting to get the picture here?

So ... tax increases for the middle class if that's what's needed to "keep the process moving." Now I get it.