No new taxes?

More than once during last year's campaign, Barack Obama got his dander up over the notion that he was a typical big-spending Democrat who would jack up taxes.

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. ... You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

His vice presidential candidate was also on message. During his debate with Sarah Palin, Democrat Joe Biden insisted that only the "rich" would face higher federal taxes under an Obama administration.

"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised," Mr. Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."

Well ...

These pronouncements were what in polite company might generously be called ... flat-out lies.

On Wednesday, a bill earlier signed by President Obama took effect, raising the federal tax on cigarettes by more than 60 percent, to a whopping $1.01 a pack.

And if there's one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, this is it.

The administration claims this is all for the greater good, of course. The money lifted from smokers will be used to massively expand a brand new federal health care entitlement for the middle class, another step in the "progressive" march toward socialized medicine.

Besides, a White House mouthpiece claimed this week, the "no tax hike" pledge applied only to payroll and income taxes.

Wrong. Read the quotes.

Barack Obama may indeed be a new kind of politician. Just not when his lips move.