Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama’s Success: The Poor Get Poorer, And The Rich Get Poorer
Townhall.com ^ | April 11, 2013 | John Ransom

Posted on 04/11/2013 5:08:47 AM PDT by Kaslin

President Barack Obama wants your money now. Like, right now.

Talking Points Memo has the details … breathlessly:

“A new provision in Obama’s budget ‘[e]nds a loophole that lets wealthy individuals circumvent contribution limits and [ac]cumulate millions in tax-preferred retirement accounts,’” Talking Points Memo wrote, quoting a budget summary released by the White House, which will reveal its new budget Wednesday.

I can’t wait!

OK, so basically, the guy chronically incapable of self-restraint when it comes to federal spending is going after people who save money for retirement by imposing a caps on IRAs. His argument will likely be that he’s only going after greedy IRA owners who have too much money anyway.

The question I’d pose to him would be: Between the government and folks with IRAs, who has too much money? But that’s beside the point.

Fact is that all the money in any IRA -- even Mitt Romney’s superstorm IRA -- will be taxed at some point or another. The whole IRA scheme is a way for the government to ensure that old folks pay a steady stream of income taxes to the government.

After all, the money in an IRA is not “tax-preferred,” as the White House asserts.

No surprise there that they got that wrong.  These guys aren’t CPAs. They don’t even know how to do their own taxes right.

Money in an IRA is rather “tax-deferred,” meaning the government is going to get their money one way or another -- it’s just going to take a while. 

In the end, in fact, the government will get more taxes, if they could only wait.    

Because the government actually requires IRA owners to spend down every single penny in an IRA. And when they spend it, taxes follow.  Being a government program, there are already stiff penalties for people who save too much in an IRA. Any money left in a million-dollar IRA is subject to immediate income tax, plus penalty, plus the death tax.

The taxable rate on an IRA of this size can easily approach 90 percent. Those are tax rates that we can only find in the wet dreams of French President Francois Hollande. 

And it’s that 90 percent tax rate that is the “loophole,” or “tax-preferred,” treatment Obama aims to get rid of.

Why?

There are two objectives here for Obama. He’s president now. He needs money now. It doesn’t matter if it costs the government and IRA owners more later. As long as he can get the money now, now, now.  The stomping of feet and fingers in the ears by Obama is implied.

The second objective for Obama is to put the rich in their rightful place.

As former Congressman Bob Beauprez observed about the scheme:

“In 2010, in a rare unscripted, off-teleprompter moment, [Obama] showed both his arrogance and his disdain for earned success by industrious Americans. ‘I do think at a certain point you've made enough money,’ [the president] told a Quincy, Ill., audience. It was only ‘fair,’ Obama continued to argue, that government should confiscate the rest by raising taxes.”

So there; Obama is the guy that we always said he was.

It doesn’t matter to the White House that this budget gimmick will only raise $9 billion over a 10-year period.  It doesn’t matter that liberals already are punishing poor and middle income Americans with a payroll tax increase.

And for what? Social Security?

Social Security is an anachronism that provides neither sociability, nor security.

At a 4 percent rate of return, the average wage earner in the United States would be able to save $402,294.32 for retirement if, instead of paying 12.4 percent in FICA taxes, they were able to have segregated “social security” accounts. At a 4 percent return, those contributions turn into $664,437.14 in retirement income over 27 years. This allows a person to retire at 60, and to die broke at the age of 87, and still pay taxes. 

Furthermore, under this plan, it would be your account -- assuming a liberal didn’t poach it via tax policy. By contrast, if you retire at 62 under social security you get a little over $1,000 a month.

Which scheme do you think generates higher taxes for the government over time? The one that pays more money, of course. Only a liberal wouldn’t understand that.

The late Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, explained it to us:

“The honorable gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer provided that the rich were less rich,” she said, explaining the certain type of wealth-envy by which liberals plague the rest of us. “That way one will never create the wealth for better social services, as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.”

I subscribe to Thatcher’s comments exactly. Well, minus the “honorable gentleman” part.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 04/11/2013 5:08:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

the government is the one with too much money


2 posted on 04/11/2013 5:10:16 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

...and the cronies get richer at taxpayers’ expense.

FUBO!


3 posted on 04/11/2013 5:14:09 AM PDT by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The poor need to work harder to resolve the gap between their own earnings and those who have greater earning capacity

The poor aren’t doing their share


4 posted on 04/11/2013 5:18:58 AM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....History is a process, not an event)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

One thing we do know.

This will not affect Congressional millionaires nor Obama.


5 posted on 04/11/2013 5:18:59 AM PDT by Venturer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
But most importantly, the Obama’s have become über rich - something they weren't just a few years ago. Not bad for two lawyers that can't practice law, huh?
6 posted on 04/11/2013 5:21:26 AM PDT by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob 'urban yutes' and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
Obama’s Success: The Poor Get Poorer, And The Rich Get Poorer

Not really, it's more like this:

The Moochers get more freebies.

The Middle Class gets poorer and smaller.

Producers are called names and get higher taxes.

Obama's pals get billions and billions in handouts.

The Obamas live like King and Queen while lecturing others about "Fair Share" and "Skin In The Game".


7 posted on 04/11/2013 5:33:00 AM PDT by Iron Munro (Welcome to Obama-Land - EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

... all by design.


8 posted on 04/11/2013 5:36:04 AM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Romans 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gov_bean_ counter
Remember the last scheme which was to move your IRA into a Roth by simply paying the taxes due. That was pay me now rather than pay me later. For those who moved into a Roth, the day of ,ahem, now you can pay me later too has arrived.

Of course this will not affect most people BUT like any change of the tides, the move to lower the thresholds begins with the first step.

9 posted on 04/11/2013 5:53:08 AM PDT by Mouton (108th MI Group.....68-71)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
The left has no problem with the poor getting poorer, as long as the rich get poorer as well.

And of course they grow rich on account of their good intentions.

10 posted on 04/11/2013 8:19:05 AM PDT by skeeter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: skeeter

What good intentions?


11 posted on 04/11/2013 8:55:52 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.”


12 posted on 04/11/2013 9:05:21 AM PDT by skeeter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Poor people are only happy when everyone else is poor, even if they are poorer as well.


13 posted on 04/11/2013 9:06:27 AM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Huh? You can’t be serious


14 posted on 04/11/2013 9:15:04 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I should qualify my statement....poor liberals think that way.


15 posted on 04/11/2013 9:25:55 AM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

That’s much better. Thanks


16 posted on 04/11/2013 9:53:07 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson