In the ad, Obama makes the case for his economic “redistribution” plan, a term he decided this week to embrace rather than shun. At the core of the commercial is the largest recession era tax increase since Herbert Hoover.

Obama plays to voters in the infomercial by calling it a tax decrease to most voters plus a tax increase to the fatcats on top. The net result is one of the largest tax increases on the American economy in history, and the first tax increase attempted during a recession in 76 years.

In 1932, Herbert Hoover pushed through a tax increase in the heart of the depression on “rich” taxpayers, in the “Economic Recovery Act” of that year. At that time the median household income was $1,000 annually. Like Obama’s economics plan, Hoover’s tax increase applied to only the top brackets making more than $4,000 per year, or roughly 4x the median income. This would be equivalent today to an Obama’s tax increase affecting only households making $200,000 and above, or 4x the national median.

What happened then is now something that all economists agree upon. The increase was a disaster that served to deepen the depression into a new phase of despair. The few companies that were making money laid off even more workers. Unemployment rose. Incomes fell. The economic disaster was deepened and prolonged.

Somebody should have told Obama before he aired an ill-fated infomercial / commercial that proposes throwing oil on fire. You do not raise aggregate taxes during a recession, and then call it a tax decrease for 95% of Americans. Obama’s proposed tax decrease to lower income Americans does nobody any good when they are laid off from work.