George Washington Drafted to Defend Tax Hikes, from Stefan Jovanovich
Obama invoked George Washington to defend his proposed tax hikes, and the references are to Washington's Farewell Address as President in 1796. The current President and his speech writers tactfully omitted what Washington said in the sentences preceding his insistence that Federal government collect taxes:
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.