Posted on 10/22/2008 2:59:41 AM PDT by billorites
Sen. Barack Obama claims that if only we let him raise taxes on a measly 5 percent of "working Americans," he could do great things.
Well, that sounds just peachy. Tax the rich, give to everyone else. Except there's one little detail the national media don't seem to like pointing out. The math doesn't add up.
Numerous organizations, including the Associated Press, have noted that Obama's proposals spend hundreds of millions of dollars more than his tax hikes raise. What is less well known is that Obama's tax plan itself sends out of Washington far more than it brings in. Obama's campaign twice admits that in the wording of the tax plan.
According to the plan, "his tax relief for middle-class families is larger than the revenue raised by his tax changes for families over $250,000." That sounds like he's giving a net tax cut. But much of what he calls "tax cuts" are actually cash payments to low- and middle-income Americans. Ultimately, he sends out of Washington hundreds of billions of dollars more than it takes in.
In other words, Obama promises more in benefits to low- and middle-income Americans than his plan can finance with his tax hikes on "families" making more than $250,000 a year. And note the word, "families." Even though Obama says that no "family" making less than $250,000 a year will see a tax increase, in fact his plan raises taxes on individuals making $200,000 a year or more.
The bottom line is that Obama is not being honest about his tax and spending plans. It is impossible -- impossible! -- for him to finance his giveaways by taxing only those making $250,000 or more. He will have to raise taxes substantially on people making much, much less than that.
If you think you are going to avoid a tax increase on Obama's watch because you aren't "rich," remember this: A government that arbitrarily picks $250,000 as a dividing line can, using the same purely political considerations, pick any number as a dividing line. What makes you so sure that you will wind up on the right side of that equation once an Obama administration begins making up the difference between the massive number of benefits it promised to deliver and the tiny amount of pain it promised to inflict to finance those benefit?
Want to get really scared? Take your 2007 income and run it thru a 2000 tax program like TurboTax.
Exactly, it doesn’t add up especially when corporate taxes start drying up, as does capital gains. Looks like the sheeple took this hook line, and sinker. I wonder if he made a math error, and meant 25,000.
A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks
behind him.
He asked, ‘What are all those clocks?’
St. Peter answered, ‘Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock.
Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.’
‘Oh,’ said the man, ‘whose clock is that?’
‘That’s Mother Teresa’s. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.’
‘Incredible,’ said the man’. And whose clock is that one?’
St. Peter responded, ‘That’s Abraham Lincoln’s clock. The hands have moved twice,
telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.’
‘Where’s Barack Obama’s clock?’ asked the man.
‘Obama’s clock is in Jesus’ office. He’s using it as a ceiling fan.
Did you notice how the media derides the recent tax cut which gave a few hundred dollars back to taxpayers under certain income level? Now they are crowing that the payments did nothing to help the economy.
So what makes them think taking money from the top 5% and giving it to the lower 95% (40% of which pay no taxes) is going to work? It’s the same thing!
Rich people are smart. (It’s kind of why many get rich to begin with :P.) If they have to pay their taxes, they will figure out (1) ways to shield their income from taxes and (2) spend less. Guess who will get hurt most by that?
No one ever says it, but it is the “rich” who drive a lot of the wealth creation in this country. Look at what happened to the stock market when investors stopped investing due to the recent crisis.
The sick part is that “true believers” like Obama don’t care that if they cut taxes, they actually increase revenue. They are obsessed with “fairness”; well “fairness” for commoners, not “fairness” for the enlightened ruling class.
The Bush tax cuts pumpoed money into the economy. Average people spend their money on goods. Personally, I upped my grocery allowance. I don’t want to give up the little bit of extra food to someone who’s already collecting getting “free money”. It’s mine and I deserve the benefits...not someone who refused to work in school, has three kids by three different fathers or sells drugs on the side.
There is a strong likelihood that the Bush tax rates for 2009 and 2010 will be revoked by a new Congress and returned to Clinton rates. Even if there is a technical recession, they are likely to let us have those Bush rates for only eight, not 10, years. And...they promise to increase cap gains and dividend rates...and heaven help us as the estate rates go from zero on December 31, 2010, to 55% on January 1, 2011. I wonder if there will be alot of feeding tubes pulled on New Year’s Eve 2011.
I believe the “marriage penalty” comes back on again also. This would mean about $8,500 in additional taxes for my wife and I, on top of whatever else they have in store for us. We’ve got 2 more years of college for my youngest son, I hope we can make it. I’ll be 66 next month and have already decided that the only way I can “retire” is to drop dead at work.
It’s not a tax plan.
It’s a cash incentive for a vote and he’s going to have “the rich” pay for it.
He says he is going to let the Bush tax cuts expire. That right there is a tax hike.
And he has a plan for sending US taxpayer money to help world poverty. That right there is money that could be used to lower US taxes.
Could someone please tell me why McCain’s campaign lets Obama and the media get away with ignoring the hike when Bush’s cuts expire?
If I read the Table 1 right, the top 5% AGI is just under 3 trillion. The 2008 federal budget was a little over 3 trillion.
So even if you tax the top 5% at a 100% rate you would still fall short of financing the current government much less sending out checks to the bottom 40%. (You have to send out checks to the top 5% too because you took all their money away.)
Also, how will That One finance all the new spending?
Obama is either a liar or dumber than an anvil.
That’s what I’ve been wondering - not a peep about the tax cuts to expire in 2010...
Probably, McCain fears the word “Bush”.
He needn’t say “Bush Tax Cuts” - just that the tax rates are scheduled to go up in 2010 unless action is taken. McCain will take that action, 0bama won’t. Your taxes will go WAY up, and then 0bama will “give” you a measly 500 bucks.
Other new taxes that have been proposed by Obama:
-a tax on homes larger then 2400 square feet.
-a natural resources consumption tax of heating oil, natural gas, electricity.
a tax to pay for socialized medicine.
Source?
I’m really disappointed by the campaign’s blunderbuss approach this week. There they were given Joe the Plumber and they’ve let it fade into people being if anything more comfortable ‘knowing’ that if they make less than $250K they’re going to be recipients of Obama’s largesse, rather than targets for his taxing.
They should do a full tally of all of Obama’s announced tax increases (including cap gains, dividends, estate, too), and then come out with computed average effects for an individual, a couple, and a family of four various income levels.
Letting Obama get away with the 95% and $250K numbers is political malpractice in my book.
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