Obama on Tax Hikes During a Recession

The July 11, 2011 Weekly Standard has an amusing quote from Obama from two years ago:

Obama responded by reiterating his opposition to tax hikes during a recession and making an argument about timing. “We have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect in the middle of a recession. Even the proposals that have come out of Congress – which by the way were different from the proposals I put forward – still wouldn’t kick in until after the recession was over. So he’s absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole.”

He was completely right.  Perhaps he wants tax increases now because the recession is over.  Is that the situation?  The recession is over?  How encouraging!