How Obama will tax the middle class
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How Obama will tax the middle class
By making everything they buy more expensive
Few of President Obama’s 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: It’s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.
Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. “It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,” Mr. Summers said—except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, “We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
These aren’t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it.
The liberal establishment is even further along in finally admitting that Mr. Obama wasn’t, er, telling the truth. A piece in the New York Times over the weekend declared in a headline that “the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say.” And it quoted Leonard Burman, a veteran of the Clinton Treasury who now runs the Brookings Tax Policy Center, as saying that “This idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5%, that’s a basically unstable way of governing.” They’re right, but where were they during the campaign?
In an editorial on February 26, “The 2% Illusion,” we wrote that the feds could take 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning more than $500,000 and still have raised only $1.3 trillion even in the boom year of 2006. The rich are fewer and less rich now, while the Obama budget is nearly $4 trillion.
Democrats already plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts, but that won’t raise enough money. So they’re proposing an income tax surcharge on “the wealthy,” but that won’t raise enough either. Democrats have no choice but to soak the middle class because only they have enough money to finance the liberal dream of yoking the middle class to cradle-to-grave government entitlements.
Democrats have already taxed the middle class by raising cigarette taxes to pay for the children’s health-care expansion. They’re also teeing up average earners with their cap-and-tax energy bill. Mr. Obama had hoped that cap-and-tax would raise some $646 billion over a decade, but Democrats in the House had to give most of that away in bribes to business to pass their bill. To finance ObamaCare, they’re also proposing another 10-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax on firms and individuals that don’t purchase health insurance. But this won’t raise enough money either.
So waiting in the wings is the biggest middle-class tax increase of them all: a European-style value added tax, or VAT. This tax would apply to every level of production or service, and it is beloved by politicians in Europe because it raises so much money so easily without voters noticing. Ezekiel Emanuel, a White House aide and brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has advocated a 10% VAT to finance national health care. Look for a VAT to be one of the prominent options when Mr. Obama’s tax reform commission issues its report later this year.
The undeniable reality is that you can’t run a European-style welfare-entitlement state without European-style levels of taxation on the middle class (and eventually without low European-style growth and high jobless rates). It’s looking more and more like Mr. Obama’s no-middle-class-tax pledge was one of the greatest confidence tricks in American political history.
Just another tax and spend Liberal, while the economy is in the crapper all he wants is to start new social programs and stick it to the working man.
And how is this going to help out the middle class?
Talking about inflation, we are going to have inflation compounded with this hair brain ideal.
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Cap n Tax will filter down to every freakin American, especially the middle class. Higher prices for everything -
hyperinflation.
Almost seems as if Obama and co. are -deliberately- trying to throw our country
into a huge crisis economically. We all know how they use crises to their advantage.
Not good.
Meanwhile, Obama has spoken of wanting a "civilian security force", and the WH web site now
is asking for all Americans to report people who spread critical information about Obama's health care bill.
Right. And we thought the Clintons and their misuse of FBI files and the IRS was bad.
Really not good.
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How Obama will tax the middle class
By making everything they buy more expensive
Few of President Obama’s 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: It’s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.
Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. “It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,” Mr. Summers said—except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, “We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
These aren’t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it.
The liberal establishment is even further along in finally admitting that Mr. Obama wasn’t, er, telling the truth. A piece in the New York Times over the weekend declared in a headline that “the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say.” And it quoted Leonard Burman, a veteran of the Clinton Treasury who now runs the Brookings Tax Policy Center, as saying that “This idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5%, that’s a basically unstable way of governing.” They’re right, but where were they during the campaign?
In an editorial on February 26, “The 2% Illusion,” we wrote that the feds could take 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning more than $500,000 and still have raised only $1.3 trillion even in the boom year of 2006. The rich are fewer and less rich now, while the Obama budget is nearly $4 trillion.
Democrats already plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts, but that won’t raise enough money. So they’re proposing an income tax surcharge on “the wealthy,” but that won’t raise enough either. Democrats have no choice but to soak the middle class because only they have enough money to finance the liberal dream of yoking the middle class to cradle-to-grave government entitlements.
Democrats have already taxed the middle class by raising cigarette taxes to pay for the children’s health-care expansion. They’re also teeing up average earners with their cap-and-tax energy bill. Mr. Obama had hoped that cap-and-tax would raise some $646 billion over a decade, but Democrats in the House had to give most of that away in bribes to business to pass their bill. To finance ObamaCare, they’re also proposing another 10-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax on firms and individuals that don’t purchase health insurance. But this won’t raise enough money either.
So waiting in the wings is the biggest middle-class tax increase of them all: a European-style value added tax, or VAT. This tax would apply to every level of production or service, and it is beloved by politicians in Europe because it raises so much money so easily without voters noticing. Ezekiel Emanuel, a White House aide and brother of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has advocated a 10% VAT to finance national health care. Look for a VAT to be one of the prominent options when Mr. Obama’s tax reform commission issues its report later this year.
The undeniable reality is that you can’t run a European-style welfare-entitlement state without European-style levels of taxation on the middle class (and eventually without low European-style growth and high jobless rates). It’s looking more and more like Mr. Obama’s no-middle-class-tax pledge was one of the greatest confidence tricks in American political history.
Just another tax and spend Liberal, while the economy is in the crapper all he wants is to start new social programs and stick it to the working man.
And how is this going to help out the middle class?
Talking about inflation, we are going to have inflation compounded with this hair brain ideal.
Just another tax and spend Liberal, while the economy is in the crapper all he wants is to start new social programs and stick it to the working man.
And how is this going to help out the middle class?
Talking about inflation, we are going to have inflation compounded with this hair brain ideal.
I almost fell off my chair when I saw 10%. I have a general affinity for consumption taxes but that assumes that spending is brought under control. Fueling the fire will not help.
PS Won't Kmart and Wal-Mart have to collect VAT too???
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Just another tax and spend Liberal, while the economy is in the crapper all he wants is to start new social programs and stick it to the working man.
And how is this going to help out the middle class?
Talking about inflation, we are going to have inflation compounded with this hair brain ideal.
I almost fell off my chair when I saw 10%. I have a general affinity for consumption taxes but that assumes that spending is brought under control. Fueling the fire will not help.
PS Won't Kmart and Wal-Mart have to collect VAT too???
PS Won't Kmart and Wal-Mart have to collect VAT too???
As far as Wal-Mart and considering the Chicago boy in offfice and how they dont allow Wal-Marts in Chicago they may have to pay double.
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So any speculation here, Since Obama has not been able to run through the Energy Tax (cap & trade) and now that people are speaking out against the Obama Health care Tax.
Will we see the Dems rushing to pass VAT?
They do have this big Porkulus/Stimulus they need to fund and they are out of money.
Its all about the money.
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Well, if you can control ALL the money, you can control..
ALL of the whole country.
Wait, I just figured out about Obama...
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PS Won't Kmart and Wal-Mart have to collect VAT too???
As far as Wal-Mart and considering the Chicago boy in offfice and how they dont allow Wal-Marts in Chicago they may have to pay double.
As far as Wal-Mart and considering the Chicago boy in offfice and how they dont allow Wal-Marts in Chicago they may have to pay double.
Actually, I was talking about Kmart's and Wal-Mart's mainstream clientele. Will the po folk have to pay VAT too or will they be excused?
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Actually, I was talking about Kmart's and Wal-Mart's mainstream clientele. Will the po folk have to pay VAT too or will they be excused?
I would think that this would be added into the cost of goods before it is sold, that would inflate prices for everyone. Many say it will effect the poor people the most.
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Actually, I was talking about Kmart's and Wal-Mart's mainstream clientele. Will the po folk have to pay VAT too or will they be excused?
I would think that this would be added into the cost of goods before it is sold, that would inflate prices for everyone. Many say it will effect the poor people the most.
I would think that this would be added into the cost of goods before it is sold, that would inflate prices for everyone. Many say it will effect the poor people the most.
Yep. That was my point, T.
Is that not taxing somebody other than the rich? Actually, isn't it taxing the po folk?
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Yep. That was my point, T.
Is that not taxing somebody other than the rich? Actually, isn't it taxing the po folk?
I think we are on the same page here John.
I know Huckabee is in favor of a VAT as a way to replace the Federal Income Tax. Im not sure if that would balance out either.
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