"I'm all for higher taxes...on everybody else".
Posted on 09/30/2009 6:33:07 AM PDT by reaganaut1
A liberal think tank with close ties to President Barack Obama says the administration and Congress should consider raising taxes on Americans to help close federal budget deficits, an opening salvo in what is likely to be a protracted debate on tax policy.
In a draft report, the Center for American Progress says the size of projected budget gaps requires considering options including tax increases as well as curbs on annual spending and entitlement programs supported by Democrats.
Such ideas could pose problems for Mr. Obama, who pledged during the campaign to not increase taxes on families making less than $250,000. The report, which will be released on Wednesday, said the administration can't rely on taxing richer Americans and companies to reduce the deficit to sustainable levels by 2014 because those groups would see 40% tax increases.
"In all seriousness, responsible people know that additional revenue has to be part of the mix even if they believe in lower taxes in general," the report concludes.
The center's president and chief executive, John Podesta, who is an Obama adviser, said the administration should consider a tax on consumption, such as a value-added tax system similar to that in use in the European Union. Mr. Podesta suggested that its impact should be limited to protect lower-income people, who otherwise might be hit particularly hard.
"As progressives we need to debate the policy merits and likelihood of enacting a range of options -- including designing a small and more progressive value-added tax, changes to the corporate tax code, and taxing upper income earners beyond reversing the Bush tax cuts," Mr. Podesta said in a statement Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hell no.
you can’t cut government you know. The LSM would have a cow. Raise the taxes, that’s all they know even if it turns the Great Recession into the Great Depression II.
Top income earners, such as the top 10%, who pay more than all the bottom 90% combined? Those earners?
A lot of bad crap and a lot of bad people have been coming out of CAP.
These people need to be actively opposed. ‘Pod.
Gonna create a Black Market just like in other countries with VAT.
These ‘progressives’ crack me up. They really believe we will follow all their dictates. Boy, are they in for a surprise.
‘Starve the Beast’ seems to be working! Seen the tax receipts lately?
I would actually consider supporting some kind of VAT, so long as income taxes were lowered to 5% or 10% (or even eliminated altogether). Consumption taxes harm the economy less than taxes on production (income).
Given that there is no way that scenario will happen, the VAT must be opposed - and it will. The Democrats are trying really hard to get blown out in the 2010 midterms. If the Dems float a VAT, that will give the GOP a HUGE target to attack over and over and over again. A VAT is essentially a tax on everything - it doesn’t take a Madison Avenue marketing professional to dream up politically devastating attack ads on this one.
Raising taxes will, of course, increase the deficit. And these parasites on the left know it.
"I'm all for higher taxes...on everybody else".
“Progressive VAT?”
1. How in the world do you make a "progressive" (meaning continually getting worse as you go along like cancer or our current income tax tables) VAT tax? Most of the VAT tax is paid by manufacturers and resellers along the line on their incremental price increases. Ford has no way of knowing whether the car they sell to their dealer will be sold to a millionaire or to a person making $15k a year who is stretching beyond his means to buy the car. The only way I could see doing it would be to give low income people yet another "tax" credit on their income tax forms, so April 15 will become the biggest welfare payment day for half the country and the Day of Dread for the Atlases who are carrying the country.
2. Corporate taxes in the US are the second highest in the world, and are complicated beyond the range of both theoretical quantum and relativistic accounting. I cannot see Obama either reducing their rates or simplifying them, so they will only get worse. (And corporate taxes are an accounting fiction anyway - they are really paid by either the shareholders in reduced profits, employees in reduced pay, or customers in increased prices. The corporation isn't a person so it never really pays taxes, only passes them through.)
3. Taxing upper income people more. Cha-ching! That is where they plan to really get the money. The others are just a smoke screen to get the third through. But even the middle class and the poor will be hit by reversing President Bush's tax cuts. So much for the "No one under $250,000 will pay any tax increase." But then that was broken within days when the tobacco taxes went up.
In the ‘70s conservatives were trumpeting the VAT as an alternative to income tax. No way the “progressives” would give up the income tax.
Well, first off, a VAT will apply to everyone, rich and poor. I believe that is mentioned in the article.
Second, I would support a VAT as long as it *replaced* income tax, payroll taxes, motor fuel taxes, telecommunications fees, etc. *and* if congress used it to reform state and local consumer’s use tax laws (that involve interstate transactions - they can’t control state and local sales taxes on intrastate sales).
Of course then you’d see that you are paying $20 for a $10 item and everyone would get angry. For the first time they would be able to see what they are actually paying in taxes.
So I would say that they can go ahead and reform taxes to something simple and transparent and raise our taxes like crazy. Once the Americans see their real tax burden, the bums, both Dems and Repubs, will get the boot.
Never give government a new opportunity to tax - they'll simply add that method on to what they already steal. Look at states like Ohio - they have property tax, and sales tax, and state income tax, and city income tax.
“No way the “progressives” would give up the income tax.”
Exactly. It’s the best way to damage the economy quickly.
And the socialists in France and Germany are cutting taxes.
What does that tell you?
You’ve missed several.
Motor fuels tax, telecommunications taxes, telecommunications fees, toll roads, public user fees, “unclaimed property” escheat (one of the most onerous non-tax taxes around), etc. etc. etc.
These are the " best and the brightest" among us, and that's all they can come up with ?
steve8714 wrote:
In the ‘70s conservatives were trumpeting the VAT as an alternative to income tax. No way the “progressives” would give up the income tax.
The difference is that now, when Progressives suggest a VAT, they are talking about an additional tax in the form of a VAT. They have no intention of giving up the income tax. It’s just that with the income tax tweaked and tuned to the point it is now, where it is actually a welfare distribution system for nearly half the people in this country, it doesn’t really generate the revenue they need. Adding a VAT will get them more revenue.
They think the pie is a fixed size, and by attacking it with two knives taking slices in different places, they will get more out of it. They fail to realize that the pie shrinks when they do this.
At least the Sustainable Socialist party (R) actually tries to stimulate growth in order to increase revenues to fund their socialist schemes.
| From the desk of cc2k: |
Right - that’s why I would only support it if income taxes were constitutionally limited to a very small rate or eliminated completely. Since that will never happen, the VAT is a non-started.
I would also prefer to tax consumption instead of income
or capital gains. We need to encourage saving and investing.
Yep. The left wing base wants to feed, and the slop isn't available. What will the Socialist/Marxist in Washington do? The slaves a rebelling, and they're already making their bricks without straw. How will the democrats come up with more and more freebies without the slaves?
Avoid anything with an attached tax like a liberal plague. Be creative. There's other ways to get what you need. Starve the beast.
This isn't a deficit-reduction proposal, it's a job creation program for bureaucrats.
Rangel: I’ll show Silvio Berlusconi who’s tanned.
| You'd have to find a way to means-test the customer at the time the purchase was made, or mandate, enforce, and monitor a record-keeping system to track all the purchases so that the taxes could be assessed at the end of the year, according to your income.
They are almost at the point where half the voters pay no income tax. Add in "60% of the voters get free money every April 15," and you have a permanent voting majority for soaking the other 40% until they leave. |
I agree completely. What makes me laugh is that Podesta speaks of a progressive VAT. What is that?
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That assumes the Donks are trying to refund VAT taxes actually paid. They don't care about that. What they'll do instead is wave their arms and say that everyone making less than X gets a 'refund' of Y. Presto, another measure by which income is re-distributed... which is what they are really after.