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What Does $40 per Week Mean To You?
Natural Born Conservative ^ | December 24, 2011 | Larry Walker, Jr.

Posted on 12/25/2011 7:47:12 PM PST by NaturalBornConservative

- Let's see, to me one thing it means is that the federal government will be adding another $120 billion to the national debt. For my friend Jeff, at Liberty Works, it means – we've been bamboozled again. -

By: BoomerJeff | Liberty Works

"... On Thursday Obama ramped up the theatrics and gave us a preview of his New Year strategy for diverting attention away from his manifest failures. He stepped to the microphones to prove he identifies with the struggles of the helpless against those cruel Republican Scrooges (transcript). His tone dripping with pious solicitude, he began:

We’ve been doing everything we can to make sure that 160 million working Americans aren’t hit with a Holiday tax increase on January First…If you’re a family making about $50,000 a year this is a tax cut that amounts to about a thousand dollars a year. That’s about forty bucks out of every paycheck.

So far the President’s math is correct, since most employees are paid either bi-weekly or semi-monthly.

It may be that there are some folks in the House who refuse to vote for this compromise because they don’t think forty bucks is a lot of money. But anyone who knows what it’s like to stretch a budget knows that at the end of the week or the end of the month forty dollars can make all the difference in the world…

So on Tuesday we asked folks to tell us what it would be like to lose forty bucks every week.

Wait a minute! “Every week?” He just changed it from $40 out of every paycheck to $40 every week! But the temporary tax cut is worth only $19 every week to his hypothetical $50,000 per year family.

You’d have to earn $104,000 a year for Obama’s Social Security tax markdown to be worth $40 every week.

Obama then quoted some of the emails from his “folks” about how they would deal with the loss of $40 per week.

Joseph from New Jersey would have to sacrifice the occasional pizza night with his daughters. My 16 year old twins will be out of the house soon – I’ll miss this.

Richard from Rhode Island wrote to tell us that having an extra $40 in his check buys enough heating oil to keep his family warm for three nights. In his words, and I’m quoting, If someone doesn’t think that 12 gallons of heating oil is important invite them to spend three nights in an unheated home.

Pete from Wisconsin told us about driving more than 200 miles each week to keep his father in law company in a nursing home. $40 out of his paycheck would mean that he could only make three trips instead of four.

Dinner out for child who’s home for Christmas, a pair of shoes – these are the things that are at stake for millions of Americans. They matter a lot.

Obviously these emails are absurd. If you earn $104,000 and have to give up $40 per week, are you really going to have to deny your kids a pizza or a pair of shoes? Will you shiver for three nights without heating oil?

Of course, there are some folks to whom $40 every week would be make a real difference:

To each of these people Obama’s temporary payroll tax cut is worth not $40 but $6.80 per week.

But much of the media have already begun to help Obama plant a false perception in the minds of uninformed voters that Republicans would deny everyone $40 per week. (For example, see the headline here.)

Obama knows that informed voters will figure out the deception. But he doesn’t care about informed voters. They won’t vote for him anyway."

Related: Endless Stimulus | Payroll Tax Cut


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: budget; obama; socialsecurity; taxes
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To: NaturalBornConservative

It means that I’d be wishing I didn’t have to return someone else’s paychecks.


21 posted on 12/25/2011 8:41:29 PM PST by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: NaturalBornConservative

Compared to half of the country being out of work, it doesn’t mean anything.

O is trying to blackmail the country with twenty bucks a week, to accept policies that are killing us.


22 posted on 12/25/2011 8:51:50 PM PST by marron
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To: NonValueAdded

Can’t even buy a muffler for $40! Damn sure can’t fill up my truck with it. It would take at least 3 of those $40. It’s all gimmicks, put the $40 back in Social Security. By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal budget. At present the limit is $106,800 (it rises to $110,100 in 2012). But if the cap is lifted and it includes all taxable income, it will be able to tackle the problem of increasing benefits, from an increase of revenues. A benefit of lifting the cap on the taxable income, but not increasing the benefits make some suggest that the revenue from high income earners will lead to solvency of social security.


23 posted on 12/25/2011 8:57:41 PM PST by Colorado Cowgirl (God bless America!)
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To: NaturalBornConservative

It is only $20 a week. $1,000 per year.


24 posted on 12/25/2011 8:58:49 PM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: NaturalBornConservative

20 bucks a week actually does make a difference. My weekly budget includes only 120 bucks of pocket money. What comes out of that pocket money is weekly groceries for myself, non-grocery store meals, and entertainment, and a little bit of miscellaneous spending. Chop that by 20 bucks and my standard of living takes a noticeable hit.


25 posted on 12/25/2011 9:00:18 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: EternalVigilance

Excellent!!


26 posted on 12/25/2011 9:00:30 PM PST by The Mayor ("If you can't make them see the light, let them feel the heat" — Ronald Reagan)
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To: NaturalBornConservative

I’m on disability. It means the world to me.


27 posted on 12/25/2011 9:12:11 PM PST by television is just wrong
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To: NaturalBornConservative

It was what I was earning in 1957?


28 posted on 12/25/2011 9:22:49 PM PST by Bringbackthedraft ( WHO YOU ELECT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS WHO THEY APPOINT!)
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Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

To: Bringbackthedraft

It was what I was earning in 1957? A WEEK!


30 posted on 12/25/2011 9:24:09 PM PST by Bringbackthedraft ( WHO YOU ELECT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS WHO THEY APPOINT!)
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To: reg45

The 0bama / Senate Democrat “tax cut” is only worth $160 total since it is only for two months. The House Republican tax cut would have been worth $1040 since it would have been for a full year. So, Harry (Reid) and Little Dickie (Durbin) raised our taxes by $880.


31 posted on 12/25/2011 9:31:03 PM PST by reg45 (I'm not angry that Lincoln freed the slaves. I'm angry that Franklin Roosevelt bought them back.)
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To: reg45

Good point


32 posted on 12/25/2011 9:32:41 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: NaturalBornConservative

$20-$40 a week for teacher union dues. This figure was probably worked out to give teachers the money to pay their dues in states that no longer collect and pass through to the unions for direct contributions to Obama.


33 posted on 12/25/2011 9:43:38 PM PST by OrioleFan
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To: Cyber Liberty
But, since they’re nice enough to let me keep the money for now, I’ll just sock more into the ole 401K.

That's what I've been doing with it. And with my 401(k), I will actually be able to collect something when I retire.

34 posted on 12/25/2011 9:51:02 PM PST by Hoodat (Because they do not change, Therefore they do not fear God. -Psalm 55:19-)
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To: NaturalBornConservative

If this is true, then $40 a week means that I will end up paying $160 more in taxes each month. I make $635 every two weeks in take home. Me and my co workers will be very angry. You who gave me this tax will become an object of wrath. Even I might vote against the GOP over this.

That means the GOP.

I will be hurt, hurt terribly, by this $40 per week tax. Only a fool will raise taxes on my income group. The GOP is marching into a trap yet again.


35 posted on 12/25/2011 10:00:07 PM PST by Wild Berry
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To: NaturalBornConservative
AND the "cost offset" of this "magnificent ZERO'S $40 tax reduction to the American workers" will be recovered over TEN YEARS via the Freddie and Fannie fees. These are the clowns we have running the Gov in the District of Corruption. THROW EVERYONE OF THEM OUT on Nov 6.
36 posted on 12/25/2011 10:01:21 PM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Wild Berry

Well, it’s my monthly utilities plus food and gas. My takehome is about half yours.


37 posted on 12/25/2011 10:05:24 PM PST by BenKenobi (You know, you really need to break free of that Catholic mindset.- metmom)
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To: NaturalBornConservative
Let's see ... I might buy a bottle of Laphroaig if I find myself north of the border in New Hampshire and happen to think of it. It's good whiskey, and it will taste all the better for having kept the revenue out of Coup Deval's grubby hands.
38 posted on 12/25/2011 10:13:20 PM PST by cynwoody
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To: NaturalBornConservative
Wait a minute! “Every week?” He just changed it from $40 out of every paycheck to $40 every week! But the temporary tax cut is worth only $19 every week to his hypothetical $50,000 per year family.

You’d have to earn $104,000 a year for Obama’s Social Security tax markdown to be worth $40 every week.


39 posted on 12/25/2011 11:26:24 PM PST by TigersEye (Life is about choices. Your choices. Make good ones.)
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To: NaturalBornConservative
Can someone help me, here?

Does O. mean "$40/week for the rest of my life, or for the rest of my working life, or for the next five years, or for the next two months, or for the next two minutes? Because the absolute amount of money involved sure as heck is significant to me.

Regards,

40 posted on 12/26/2011 1:00:00 AM PST by alexander_busek
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