Above The Law, a website devoted to Law Firms it seems, takes a look at what will happen to the income of associates if Obama is elected. Here is their analysis of a fictional associate making over 164 grand a year:
The effect is enormous. Betsy’s marginal tax rate goes up from an already ridiculous 42.5% to 51.4%—not including the new 6.2% marginal tax on your employer. Subject to how she structures her withholding, Betsy’s take home pay drops an average of $515 a paycheck—less in the early months of the year, but much more in the later months of the year. Add in the effects on her bonus, and Betsy loses nearly $20,000/year in take-home pay.
I added a third column: how big a pay cut would you have to take to receive the same take-home income? The answer is that Obama’s tax increases have a bigger effect on your income than a law firm cutting New York salaries by $34,000.
Yeah, someone making 160 grand isn’t hurting but don’t forget a couples income is considered as one in the eyes of the IRS and many couples living in the high cost of living areas can easily make that amount. That’s going to hurt.
The thing is that someway, somehow, all these programs Obama wants to institute, including the Global Poverty program, will need to be paid for somehow. How? By taking it from the backend of our employers. Those people who sign our paychecks. But those businesses can only stay afloat if they make a profit, basic economics. So they keep those profits by taking away raises, benefits, new employees and so forth.
Which means we are back to 1978 and Jimmah….
But Democrats being Democrats, they don’t think we should keep our own money…..it should be controlled for the common good. Here’s Jay Tea at Wizbang about his own state, New Hampshire, a state with a anti-tax history:
One of the hallmarks of New Hampshire politics has been a staunch anti-tax platform. We are the only state with neither a sales nor an income tax, and most of us like that.
But that could be coming to an end.
There’s a group of people pushing to rework the state’s tax structure. The Boston Globe is lauding them, pointing out that the state has a $50 million deficit in the first year of our two-year budget. Obviously, something has to be done, and these people say that raising taxes is the solution.
I find myself wondering what the hell happened. Astonishingly, the Boston Globe answers that question. But they have to bury the info, lest too many people manage to put two and two together and come up with “Democrats.”
Way, way down in the 12th paragraph, the Globe realizes it can’t cover up the essential facts any longer:
The debate over taxes is the latest sign of political change in New England’s most conservative state, where Democrats currently control both houses of the Legislature, and Lynch, a Democrat, is in his second term. Last year, some conservatives cringed as lawmakers approved a 17 percent state budget increase. Others marveled at the state’s adoption of civil unions for same-sex couples.
That’s right. Feeling their oats, the Democrats jacked up the state budget 17% (I’ve read it as 17.5% in other places, places I trust more than the Boston Globe, but even 17% is bad enough) in a single year.
After years and years and years of getting hammered as “tax and spenders” and derided and mocked and run down, the Democrats finally got swept into office in 2006. And as soon as they did, they spent the hell out of the state’s coffers, and now need to jack up taxes to pay for it all.
This is “change,” all right.
There’s that change word again….where have I heard that term before recently hmmmmm?
See author page
He has actually been quite open about his tax system changes if you chose to look. Hope and change ain’t cheap, especially if you let a Marxist set the price. You can also imagine what his capital gain/dividend tax increases, which are even more draconian, will do to the stock market. Hopefully enough high-income professionals will realize that this is not all fun and games, but it will hit them like a ton of bricks. They can’t all be like Warren Buffett who after a lifetime of structuring everything around paying low taxes complains he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. But Obama is a clever and dangerous character, he structured his definition of “rich” so that enough of the “poor” can salivate at the thought of stealing from them and vote Obama in.
This is the definitive Obama guide. It’s the most comprehensive thing your can imagine, from family to tax proposals. Read and weep.
http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm
And, when the economy tanks, Obama will blame us … just like Carter did.
Re: “And, when the economy tanks, Obama will blame us … just like Carter did.”
Or the way Republicans blamed Bill Clinton for everything that has gone wrong under George W. Bush?
Yeah $164,000 is a high starting point, especially when 75% of the households in the U.S. do not make $57,343 a year.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/SavingandDebt/P134742.asp?GT1=7392
$164,000 puts the person in the top 1% of households and here just one person is doing it.
One of my pet peaves is when economic writers pick numbers way above the average nation. For instance it’s couples making $130,000 a year (top 5% of households) and not $50,000 a year which is more realistic.
New Hampshire’s budget deficit is just over 18% of the budget based on the last 9 months. In 2003 it was just over 20% and in 2004 it was 37.8% of the budget. So while the good times were rolling, New Hampshire’s budget deficit was getting worse. I don’t know what New Hampshire would have done with a 50% cut (to pay back past debt). Maybe they would have had a road infrastructure program and a state justice system and then had the cities pay for the schools, firemen and police officers without any outside help. People in the end would pay more taxes, just to the cities and not to the state. There also wouldn’t be any parks, state universities or colleges (unless those schools greatly raised their fees), state hospitals etc.
We know what they would of done, they’re doing it….raising taxes. It worked out so well in the 70’s why not try it again. And your class warfare is pointless seeing as how the friggin article I pointed to was directed at and about associates in law firms who can make that kind of money.
“Or the way Republicans blamed Bill Clinton for everything that has gone wrong under George W. Bush?” Actually I don’t think it’s just Bill Clinton that is to blame, it’s the entire American leftist movement. People who scream about Americans abandoned in New Orleans when it was one of their own who neglected to get drivers for the buses to drive them to safety. People who scream when America has a President who refuses to surrender to the mob who want America defeated.
People who scream that their supporters are too dumb to get a Photo ID to prove who they are, so the US should allow everyone in the world to vote in our elections, so that they can achieve their goal of defeating America.
Carter addressed the nation on the “economic malaise,” which btw, was a 14% inflation rate. He specifically blamed the American public for “not doing enough” and that we must take “responsibility” for the economic condition (at the time, a recession with a high inflation rate). His considered solution was to raise taxes, “to curb recessionary trends and not to exacerbate inflationary pressures.”
Bottom line, Carter blamed us for a tanking economy. He had no economic policy.
What the ‘free market’ proponents fail to realize is that when the lower and middle classes are doing better, with through unions, lower taxes, higher minimum wages, or any other measures, they have money to purchase what the businesses are producing.
Also, while higher cap gains taxes do increase taxes, that is a short run phenomenon. When cap gains taxes are lowered, there is a selling frenzy, which levels off after all the pend up demand to sell has been reached, then things level off again and revenues drop.
Raising taxes and having government doll out that money for needs is actually more efficent than having corporations do them. This is fairly obvious. A governmental system has Budget X dollars and their objective is to see that Y citizens receive Z number of dollars. They can be straight-forward in the dolling out and the satisfying of NEEDS (see: NOT DESIRES. Healthcare, insurance safety nets, etc). Whereas corporations might have a Budget of X dollars. Their objective however is to make more dollars, not actually provide healthcare or see toward the fulfilling of needs. They’re objective is to fufill the DESIRES of the shareholders, not the NEEDS of the stakeholders.
Government is useful. Its high time people stop being dogmatic and short sighted about its uses. It works where the market cannot.
If there is vast excess of wealth, cut it and apply it to portions of society that require it to flourish — thus increasing the ‘net worth’ of the society. It is society that grants the money. Society can take it away. Don’t like it? Live on an island by yourself and masturbate to Ayn Rand.
Raising taxes is NEVER a good solution to anything.
Quite the contrary.
Get the gov’t out of the pockets of business and let them run their businesses and make money. More revenue means more growth and more growth means more jobs. More growth and additional jobs mean more taxes for the gov’t.
On the other hand if you up wages, mandate benefits, and increase taxes you will retard growth, decrease employment and tax revenues.
The usefulness of gov’t is very, very debatable.
Those who want a tit to rely on will find it more useful than those of us who don’t want to rely on anyone other than ourselves and our on independence and ingenuity.
Those who relied on the gov’t during Katrina didn’t fare nearly as well as those who used self-reliance, self-determination, and ingenuity to prevent themselves from being a statistic.
I have a better idea, Calm Eye. Instead of the US capitalists’ capitulating to support your sorry ass, why don’t you move?
Venezula is calling…. DOH! They’re in deep dodo with your ideas. But you’ll be happy…
And we are not in doo-doo ourselves?
– The dollar is falling like a rock, deregulation has led to profiteering and Enron-like speculation and market manipulation in oil,
– outsourcing jobs, open borders and lack of enforcement against hiring of illegal workers that allow foreign workers to come in and take more of the jobs that are left,
-BILLIONS unaccounted for in Iraq, private contractors that do jobs that our servicemen used to do, but for hundreds of thousands more and without having to follow rules, chasing a lie in Iraq while the real threat is in Afghanistan and Pakistan
– A president who says “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
“I am truly not that concerned about him.”
– G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden’s whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)
Who is government, but us, grouping together for our own best interest? Sure, if it goes overboard it becomes communism (on the left) or fascism (on the right.)
In fascism, in the direction we are swinging right now, the monied hold all the power, the middle class disappears, and politicians are bought out so that the government is no longer we the people, but them.
So of course that government is feared. We need to reinstate government by, for and of the people.
While your post is chock full of clueless commentary, these are the gems that I selected:
Sweet, another Leftist troll who likes to parrot those blatantly dishonest talking points.
Robert, do you have any idea what the remainder of those quotes contain?
Any idea at all?
Didn’t think so.
Who, pray tell, do you plan to vote for in Nov?
Actually I don’t know what you are referring to about the rest of the quotes. As I remember, they were from an interview, please enlighten me as to what was in the rest.
If actions speak louder than words however, pulling the resources out of Afghanistan, and putting them into Iraq, was tantamount to giving up, partially at least, on Bin Laden.
I would love to see the numbers on average tax obligations from state to state, city to city. NYC is probably amongst the highest. Add to that cost of housing, utilities, etc. $160,000 sounds like a lot until you shadow it against the cost of living in NYC.
Obama is proposing raising taxes on people making over 250K/year. In many parts of the country that’s not even close to rich, but in the industrial swing states it sounds rich to the voters he’s got to collar, so let’s let that go for now.
He’s also proposing raising the capital gains tax. Sounds good to that same constituency but it’s a big mistake. Here’s what happens:
1. Capital gains tax rate rises.
2. A wave of selling prior to and in anticipation of the tax increase occurs, and new investment slows down markedly.
3. The value of 501K’s and IRA’s drop.
4. Upon seeing their monthly statements, working class voters turn on Barack, while cutting down even more on discretionary spending.
5. The spending cutbacks perpetuate the recession that Bush and McCain swear we’re not in. What a pair of Bozos.
What O should do is what he did towards the end of the primaries when he called out Hillary and McCain on their cynical calls for a gas tax cut, which would have done nothing to ease the pain but might have fooled some of the people some of the time. He’s got to explain, in clear terms, the damage that a higher cap gains tax would do, even though, at first glance, it appears to be a gesture to the working men/women of the country. And he’s got to be big enough to reverse himself, as he’s already come out in favor of raising the cap gains bite.
O’s got to be the go to guy for the truth. If he ends up pandering, he loses some of the luster he’s earned.
End of story.
http://www.loosekannon.com
Hi All,
Note that the article referred to in Above the Law does an analysis of a $280k income. The net increase taxes appears to be 20k. To say that a increase in taxes of less than 8 percent of gross income not necessary is to ignore the 9 trillion dollars of debt we have at this time. The money has been spent and it is time to start paying the bill. For all of us in the top 1 percent to suffer a 7 percent increase in income taxes seems a very small price to pay. Check the article out and you will note that the amounts used assume a income of $280k.
Humbly, M.
I think this may be true in the short run, but in the long run people have to do business. Did the economy grind to a halt when cap gains were higher? No. When cap gains are lowered, there is a bubble of selling that gives a boost to the economy, but after a while it is business as usual again.
People with money have to put it somewhere. A good fiscal plan with appropriate regulation encourages investment in ways and areas that are beneficial to a nation, and discourages harmful investment.
That is precisely what is NOT happening right now. The real estate bubble bursts, and the next bubble is oil. With the commodity oversight greatly reduced in 93 and 2000, pushed through respectively by Wendy Gramm (chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption on Jan. 14, 1993) and her husband Sen. Phil Gramm, (co-sponsor of the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which shielded Enron’s and others’ trading activities from regulators,) we have the present unregulated speculation on oil, the so-called “Enron loophole”
Where is McCain on this? Well ask his chief economic adviser and campaign chairman, who is that…? oh yea, Phil Gramm! (For the record, McCain does say he is for closing the loophole, but his choice of Gramm for his economic advice lets us know where his heart is.)
Combined with the devaluation of the dollar, partially, at least, a result of over 20 years of ‘free trade’, that has decimated our manufacturing economy, we have the oil prices we see today.
We now are in a deregulated situation where the ‘free market’ rules. If you like it, vote for McCain, if you don’t, Obama. It’s that simple.
The Revolution has begun folks- call him Marxist, call him Socialist, call him whatever you want as you cringe in fear of losing your enormous wealth. You and yours have ridden the wealth train for decades now, beginning with Reagan’s lie about “trickle down wealth” and ending with the Bush Policy of “you deserve more”. Guess what folks- there are a WHOLE lot more of us than you and we will change the world, like it or not. Maybe you should move to Mexico. After all, that’s where you sent all of our jobs.
Bill,
that is funny. You should move to canada. Sounds like you would fit in. Its the person robbing your car that thinks they deserve what you worked so hard for. Bill, you sound like a government handout that thinks you should continue your 30 year streak of living in your parents basement. Ah, and the whole, ‘dem der mexicans toook our jobs’. Priceless. Obviously you don’t understand much about the way the ‘real’ world works. Nice rhetoric. You and your idiot friends should continue to agree with each other. At least I can take sanctuary in the fact you will be too stoned to vote when the day comes.
Liam,
That was so beautifully stated. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Why would someone want to threaten a fellow citizen who probably worked their ass off every day of their life to earn the money they have?
And is anyone here aware of what it’s like to ride the “wealth train”? It’s definitely not a Disneyland ride. For a business owner it is a train that spends its first 10-15 years broken down, with its conductor and passengers starving and poor but with enough balls to get up everyday and keep working towards the success they dream for in the future. Finally, their hard work pays off and the train runs smoothly. Unfortunately, the shithead sitting on a bench a few miles down the track (where he has been sitting for those 10-15 years) sees the conductor as a high and mighty greedy anarchist who hates poor people decides that he should get a piece of everything that rich man has. Why? Because that’s fair; right? One person worked day in and day out for 10 years and the other sat on his ass so it’s only right that the hard worker should pay for the shithead’s life of leisure. Why live the American dream? Why work hard and prosper? So you can pay for Bill’s dentist appointment next week and his beer this weekend. That’s why! That’s enough motivation for me!
Bill:
Did you ever try to meet a payroll every week? When you do, then you can bitch and moan.
Do you have a house that is not mortgaged and hope to use to proceeds from that house for your retirement? Well, the capital gains tax, Nobama proposes will wipe out a lot of the profit.
You don’t have a clue.
DO YOU MAKE MORE THAN 250,000/YEAR?
Obama would raise the capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for those Americans making MORE THAN $250,000 PER YEAR.
The top capital-gains rate for families making more than $250,000 would return to 20% — the lowest rate that existed in the 1990s and the rate President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut. A 20% rate is almost a third lower than the rate President Reagan set in 1986!
Liam and Bill – and anyone else who believes in McCain/Bush economics –
I am calling you out!
So, I think that you (and I, and the vast majority of Americans in addition to the country itself), will be better off under an Obama economic plan, and you think that the Bush/McCain plan is best.
Are you willing to put your mouth where your money is and look at the two economic plans, piece by piece, fact by fact, including health care plans, head to head, in this public forum?
I think that anyone who supports McCain is afraid to hold a real debate on the economic issues. You are forgiven, however, because your candidate himself is afraid to talk real issues.
I look forward to hear from you.
Real issues? Well, what would Obama know about real issues? If you can answer that, I would be happy to ‘debate’ anything. Lets try to keep in mind issues like track record, and a proven history of ‘knowing the real issues’.
“I look forward to hear from you”
seriously.. where do these people come from?
Is someone who make more money paying a higher tax percentage fair? Hell no.
The fact is that even if tax were a flat rate let’s say 10% with a $5000 deductible, someone making 50000 would pay $4500, while someone making $200000 would pay $19,500. So therefore a person earning more already pays more.
Not only that but take social security. Someone earning over $100k pays the full whack, even though they are less likely to take advantage of social security. I wouldn’t mind, but under democrats social security ends up being used to pay for programs to help lazy people, drug addicts etc.
But forget the above example, the fact is that a higher earner already pays a higher percentage. The US’s tax system is staggered – even some local taxes are staggered, and usually in the areas high earners live.
My mother was a school janitor and my father an engine driver. Blue collar workers. Hard workers. I was the first in my family to go to college and get a degree. My parents were proud that I went to college at 25 and that I can now work to make more money for my family. Now, jealous, socialist, lazy are expecting me to pay more.
But get this, even worse is the fact that the Hollywood elite support this. But then they are super-earners. They don’t make $160k, $200k, or even $500k. These guys make tens of millions on each production. They look at their earnings and say, we can afford it and group themselves in with people that make $200k. They are crazy.
For me to make that anywhere near money I have to live in an expensive location. I may work 60+ hours per week, in a stressful environment. I don’t have a mobile home set up on site, with an army of assistance to pamper me at every whim just before I go on set to play a part. I HAVE TO WORK HARD. And for me giving up a few hours to promote a charity and claiming that is “giving” is an insult – kind of like stepping up to sing before Barak Obama and his cronies (while changing the words of a song to be political) and writing it off as a charitable donation (hey Barbara).
I am sick of people who make less being jealous of me and expecting me to pay more when they know absolutely nothing of my circumstances, and I’m more angry about lazy actors who live in the super rich category telling me to pay more taxes because they THINK I live like they do.
Wake up America. Socialism doesn’t work. People need to get off their backsides, work hard, educate themselves (and not complain you have to work at the same time as college) and improve their own lives. Don’t expect people who’ve already done that to pay for you.
I hope Barak fails, but my guess is that saying that makes me racist – which is another rant.
Thank you for getting me into the topic, Caoimhin.
And, thank you Liam, for being open to discussion.
First, McCain’s ads that say Obama will raise taxes, are, you could say, 95% untrue, or as Rove already said about McCain, don’t meet “the 100% truth test.”
Why? Because 95% of people will have their taxes cut, while the other 5% will revert to where they were before Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country. Remember… just a scant 8 years ago, when our country had a balanced budget and the economy was doing great?
If you say that the present Bush economic policies are working, just look around you! It is wrong, however, to blame this plunge into (we hope not) depression on Bush alone. it began with Regan, who started the deregulation, privatization of government functions, and deficit spending that we see today. It was continued by Bush One and even Clinton, who signed supported NAFTA and other ‘free trade’ policies.
In 1929, we had circumstances much like today. While output per man-hour shot up by 32 percent between 1923 and 1929, wages crept up only 8 percent. In 1929, the top 0.1 percent of the population earned as much as the bottom 42 percent. At the same time, taxes on those with an income of more than $1 million were reduced by 70 percent.
What is happening now, was happening then. Wages of the middle class have been falling, meaning that there is less spending. Less spending means businesses manufacture less. The way FDR broke the depression was to implement measures that rebooted the middle class. The times when the economy was growing fastest, when our parents could raise a family on 1 job, coincided with higher taxes on those with the highest incomes.
Returning to the point, why should we want to vote for McCain, a self-professed follower of the ‘free market’ (deregulate, privatize, cut taxes on the richest for ‘trickle down’ effect) for 26 years, who has said for about the last 26 hours that what we need is more regulation? This free market economics is a theory that has never worked!
So, does McCain actually believe what Obama and the Democrats have been saying for years, that more regulation is the answer, completely flip-flopping on his free-market heritage, or is he just saying it to get elected?
And by the way – in a news release today:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said his party’s vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, lacks foreign policy experience and called it a “stretch” to say she’s qualified to be president.
“She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials,” Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”
Could Palin lead the country if GOP presidential nominee John McCain could not?
“I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States,” Hagel said.
McCain and other Republicans have defended Palin’s qualifications, citing Alaska’s proximity to Russia. Palin told ABC News, “They’re our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
Hagel took issue with that argument. “I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'” he said. “That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.”
ROBERT —
YOUR OBAMA TAX PLAN IS BIAS 95% WILL GET A WHAT? ITS NOT A TAX CUT ITS A WELFARE….OBAMA MAKE IS SOUND GOOD JUST TO GET YOUR VOTE!
I RATHER VOTE FOR MCCAIN AND PALIN REAL PEOPLE ………….THAN TO VOTE FOR A CORRUPT LIKE OBAMA …OBAMA IS A CLOWN CNN AND MSNBC SAME THING THERE CLOWN!
Hi Rick,
What is it that you like better about McCain’s tax plan?
Okay I can’t just let all these Obama campaign talking points continue unchecked. How about the actual facts instead of rhetoric?
Yes we’ve heard the Obama promises during the debate, a 95% tax cut for all Americans. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Obama’s rant is false.
(See: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html)
By the way, the elderly, who are in worst financial shape than any other group, would get no tax break and in fact most would be taxed even harder under the Obama plan because he wants to tax medicare. Most elderly don’t get child deductions/credits or earned income credit. Hell if they live alone they can’t claim head of household either. But hey that’s all right with Obama huh? After all, they’ve lived long enough and need to die and make way for the young, right?
If the Bush tax plans didn’t work, why don’t you explain why tax revenues increased with his tax cuts? If what Robert is telling us were true they should have plummeted? The reason is that extra money was being circulated. More goods were bought, which meant more people being paid wages, that money gets taxed, but those employees get more money too so they buy more, which results in more wages being accrued and taxed. That’s a net economical boost. If you cut taxes on the rich, they also spend more. There are more taxes than just income taxes Robert. I’ve examined Obama’s tax plan. The ONLY place where he cuts taxes is with income taxes. Instead he increases other taxes, none of which we can take exemptions or deductions on, and establishes new taxes, including a lot of hidden taxes. It’s the old bait and switch. Those who think they are getting a tax break under Obama will loose every dime of it through other taxes and FICA increases for new incentive and spending plans. Saying that 5% go back to what they had to put out before Bush is also a lie with these new taxes.
But when you increase taxes, growth stagnates and declines. Tax the hell out the rich and they start hoarding their money to await better times. The economy goes into a recession. That increases unemployment. I lived through the Carter years of double digit unemployment. Our family was in the lower tax brackets. Believe me, it wasn’t fun. Yes we are in a recession now, and part of that is due to America having to send our money away to the Middle-East, because Dems have blocked domestic oil drilling, new refinery and nuclear power plant construction. Partly because of the 2 decades worth of failed Fanny Mae, Freddie Mae, and Sally Mae loans which was vastly instrumented by Democrat setting us up for today’s organized crisis, for which they blame the Republicans, Bush, and saying McCain will make even worst. I gaurantee you that Obama’s tax plan would change the recession into a deep unrecoverable depression. That’s the socialist plan. They have to totally destroy our economy so they can reorganize us under a new form of government.
BTW the total tax rate before the 1929 crash to all Americans was only 10%. FDR’s New Deal increased the taxes to all Americans by 10%, and to the rich by 20%. When you add in Social Security, that increased it by another 10% That was before FICA taxes, and our current welfare/medicare systems which increased it by another 10%. And it wasn’t taxing the rich that brought us out of the Great Depression, it was the jobs created by the Work Project Administration of 1939 and the military industrial build-up prior to World War II. Unfortunately war is usually an economy booster. And before you say it, yes I know the WPA was also part of FDR’s New Deal.
As for the Palin isn’t ready or doesn’t have the experience claim, she is just as ready and experienced as JFK, Jimmy Carter, & Bubba Clinton were when they first sat down in the oval office. So Robert? Why not try another Daily Kos/Obama/Acorn talking point. Leiberman doesn’t think Obama is fit to sit in that chair. Pray tell us what specifically HIS executive experiences include? You’re throwing bricks in a glass house?
In an ideal world, complete cooperation between different countries creates roads paved with gold, leading to a global utopia. But, historically, and in the real world, human nature and nationalism seem to return individual country’s to a goal of self interest and national security. Rogue leaders and unexpected events, such as Putin and Georgia … Iran, atomic bombs, terrorists and Israel … Chavez’s ambitions … Al Quada … Chinese expansion … etc., always seem to upset the international apple cart of idealists. In addition, we should not take for granted our 200+ year experiment of freedom and capitalism, and be so willing to gamble it away for a socialistic notion which stifles the individual innovation and initiative which made this country great … and a standard of living which makes everyone around the world want to live here! And, since many have decided to also make this a partisan political discourse, by assuring us that Obama, the messiah, has all the answers, allow me to respond to that as well. Obama has no experience, or credentials. When given the chance in the senate, Obama did nothing except to show up and vote present 160 times. Despite his flowery speeches, his track record reveals a focus on personal ambition, associations with anti-American racists and terrorists, massive flip flopping, questionable loyalty to political positions and long time friends, a desire for socialism, and forced redistribution of America’s wealth. He casually promises everyone a chicken in every pot, even if it is the chicken that lays America’s golden eggs. Economics 101 … Every farmer knows that even if you get real hungry, you never eat the seed crop. One of the reasons McCain keeps going back to the issue of character is because although Obama makes great speeches, if his character and integrity are questionable, it doesn’t matter how good his plans sound. Policies and promises from an ambitious politician who can’t be trusted, are equivalent to building a utopian sky scrapper on a rotten foundation.
P.S. Today Obama talked about more jobs, something McCain has been insisting on since day one … except Obama wants to raise taxes to the very people who provide jobs, while McCain wants to cut taxes to businesses as a way to promote jobs
The problem with this economy is not that the rich do not have enough money to finance jobs, it never has been.
Most jobs are created by small business, which would benefit more from Obama’s tax cuts. The tax cuts of the last 8 years have increased the wealth of the top 1% hugely.
The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation’s wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%. So why are they not creating more jobs?
It was the same situation before the Republican Great Depression of the 1930’s. Years of Republican administrations had allowed a similar situation. Name a country where unregulated, let-the-market-police-itself, let-the-rich-make-jobs-for-everyone-else economics has actually worked. You can’t.
Is it possible that the lower and middle classes are struggling to get by and do not have the money to buy more?
If you had huge wealth right now, what would you do with it? Make things that the American people don’t have the money to buy? Take that money and invest in producing things in China? Buy up oil futures, gold futures and foreign currency, betting on the dollar to go down?
We used to be the highest producing and exporting country in the world before Reagan. Deregulation and ‘free trade’ (yea, Clinton was also guilty on that one, with NAFTA) have led to this situation. Most small business groups support Obama.
The supposed mavericks McCain and Palin even while adopting the Democratic talking points regarding the need to regulate Wall Street and support Main Street, get spending under control and support alternative energy, in the next breath invoke the name of Ronald Reagan as their shining example of … what?
Isn’t this the same Reagan whose Reaganomics pushed the idea that a good, ‘smaller’ government has less regulation, tripled the deficit while disproportionally reducing tax rates on the highest income Americans, and took the solar collectors off the White House while removing the tax incentives for alternative energy?
Isn’t it Reagan’s ideas, tended and nurtured by years of mostly Republican, Reagan-worshiping congresses that are the cause of our present situation?
This is a Reagan, Republican crisis, top to bottom.
To see just how striking the difference in income is between the average American and the top 1%. go to
@Aye Chihuahua:
Uh, the guy asks a question, and doesn’t answer it.
The tax cuts that will expire are those on the top few percent of income range, and maybe some others.
Whatever expires, must be replaced by a new tax plan.
If you make under $250,000, under Obama’s plan, which would replace the current plan, you will receive more tax savings than under McCain. That is a plain basic fact. Obama does want to raise taxes – on people making over $250,000.
Our choice is simple. There are 2 world views being expressed.
Do you believe that the top 5 percent or so of the population who have about 95% of the wealth, should pay LESS taxes, and DEregulate business? (McCain’s plan, generally the Republican Solution which has been the direction we have been on since Reagan)
——————————–OR——————————————————-
Do you believe that it would be better for our country if the top group of people paid MORE taxes and increase regulation? (Obama’s Plan, the generally the Democratic solution, in effect from FDR in 1932 through Reagan’s election)
This is the basic argument of our times. Do some research, make your decision and vote the way that makes the most sense to you.
What we don’t need is to obfuscate the question with lies or half truths.
McCain’s ads are half-truths – which makes them lies. Yes, Obama will raise taxes, but the question is – who is paying those taxes?
@Robert:
EVERYONE who pays taxes got a tax cut when the Bush tax cuts were passed and implemented.
EVERYONE.
Thus, EVERYONE will experience a tax INCREASE when they expire.
EVERYONE.
How about making the cuts permanent?
How about that?
Especially since it has been proven over and over and over again that DECREASING tax rates results in INCREASED tax revenues.
Raising taxes, especially during times of economic uncertainty will result in further hard economic times.
Really?
You have a source for that?
Cite it please because what I’ve been reading proves your contention to be a fallacy.
From the Tax Foundation: How Do the Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans Affect Taxpayers’ Marginal Tax Rates?
What I know is that tax policy should NOT be progressive.
People should NOT be punished for being successful.
This upper 5% that you refer to, do you know how much they pay in taxes as a percentage of overall revenue intake?
I DO NOT believe in wealth redistribution, which is Socialism. That, by the way, is precisely what Obama is promoting.
Roll the tape:
From the video:
From Michelle Obama earlier this year in Charlotte, NC:
That sounds an awful lot like this:
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”-Karl Marx
Compulsory income redistribution.
Where does Obama plan to spend the money he seizes?
Here is a list of Obama’s 7 proposed tax credits:
The “clean car” tax credit is the ONLY one which is off-set by money actually paid in.
Six of the seven listed in the Obama plan are these “refundables”, money people get from the federal government even if they pay no taxes at all. These are not “tax cuts” but instead welfare grants based on specific social policy. It’s blatant redistributionism, as the money comes from tax increases on the wealthy.
Social policy welfare.
How is that plan in keeping with what America is all about?
You’re absolutely correct.
Please show me some sources to support your contentions.
@Aye Chihuahua:
First, we have a basic difference in opinion, which in some ways comes down to world view. We can cite those who hold our world view all day long.
I believe that it is a better world when income disparities between rich and poor are less, and taxes, which must be paid in one way or another, are used in ways that push the economy in directions that are beneficial to the greatest number of people, and to the greatest good of our country.
If you cut the taxes on those that spend 100% of their income each year they increase spending in this country, right now. If you cut taxes on those that have excess income, they invest – but where? China? Japan? The Euro? Oil Futures? Real Estate Stocks or Real Estate? If you had a million (or 100 million or a billion) to invest right now where would you put your money. You would be most likely, searching for the next bubble, like real estate (was), which by the way, also bubbled similarly in the mid 1920’s, fed by reduced tax rates in place at that time, like this time.
The WSJ article you cite first bases its conclusions on the general disagreement we have. But, taxes are never accidental, they are not a force of nature like the rain that falls on everyone. so the question is, how to engineer it in a way that works.
I support the general concepts of the tax codes being used to provide more for those who, for whatever reason, find themselves in the lower income brackets. The more they have, the more they buy, and the more it flows money back into the economy. This means more jobs, and more investment in producing products that create jobs.
I understand that this may look like people who don’t deserve are getting things for free, but we could just as easily say the same for the CEO’s with golden parachutes walking away with millions while smaller investors lose money or investors who make millions or billions on dividends and pay less in tax rates than their secretaries. As in Monopoly (the game) without regulation, the rich get richer till they own everything.
I would prefer to see wages rise, but generally those on your side of the issues also are against higher minimum wages and unions. Capitalism is great, but when it goes out of control, it becomes a return to feudalism, and just plain doesn’t work, as we are seeing right now. It is like cell growth, when it repairs and maintains the health of the organism in a balanced fashion, it is good. When it doesn’t work, and and certain groups of cells proliferate unregulated by the immune system, it is called cancer.
The following tables (from the blog of Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and this table and graph) clearly demonstrates a relationship between wealth differentials and economic stability, and tax rates. The years of greatest growth and stability in our economy
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/images/2007/09/19/krugmanineq.gif
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates-graph.php
Obama’s tax plan will destroy the Social Security system.
Obama says his income tax plan will lower taxes for 95% of Americans. There is just one problem with this, 40% of Americans already pay no income tax. Obama’s response to this is that these people pay Social Security tax. Well, that’s not income tax, but a contribution to their retirement plan. So if he wins and implements his tax plan, for the first time in the history of Social Security, 40% of the people who will get retirement benefits will have paid nothing for them. Social Security will then loose all pretext of being a retirement plan, and will become a national welfare program.
This will cause Social Security to lose public support in a massive way. Leave Social Security contributions out of income tax plans. If you take some peoples income taxes to pay others Social Security taxes, Social Security will be destroyed forever.
http://strategicthought-charles77.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-tax-plan-will-destroy-social.html
You’re right Charles:
Barry’s Social Security argument is nothing more than a slight of hand from Obama to give to his supporters to use in argument. But again it fails the logic test. If you start refunding Social Security to someone who is not otherwise able to collect, then legally their Social Security contribution balance should be reduced by that amount. Which means they will recieve less conpensation when they do retire. But that IS NOT in the language contained in Obama’s tax plan and the money WILL NOT come from the Social Security trust fund. It will go directly from taxpayers into the General Fund. So it is nothing more than another Obama class warfare lie. Next he may try to boost this argument by saying that there will be no Social Security as we know it in the future, so the poor should be allowed to get their money out now first. Social Security was a irreversible socialist plan and like it or not, it will never go completely away. At most, there will be reduced benefits due to the massive drain on the system as the Baby Boomer population increasingly works through. The problem behind FDR’s Social Security plan was it required continuous growth in population. We had to maintain at least 3 people working for every one recipient. It did not figure on population stabilizations such as “Nuclear Families” of 2, 1, or no children after the “Baby Boom” of the 1940’s & 1950’s. Then again, he would be foolish to make that “poor should get their’s now” argument because it shows the falacies inherent in socialist programs and would scaring those who are hoping to depend on Social Security once they are too old and infirm to work.
Another problem with why Social Security is on hard times now is because when excess funds started accumulating in the trust fund, neither Republicans, nor Democrats were satisfied with leaving it in there for the lean times. Both found different ways to raid it. They robbed Peter to pay Paul. During the Carter years, when Democrats had a 2/3rds majority in Congress, they passed legislation perverting the system by changing the dynamics, allowing people to collect who were not over age 65. These new incentives cut so deeply into the coffers that Social Security payments now are unable to maintain cost of living increases for seniors.
Hence Obama’s recent statement is but another Socialist Dem “red herring” to confuse the issues.
PS: And Joe the Plumber?
He will do better under Obama’s plan than McCain’s.
Yet, McCain has so little to talk about, he still Joe the plumber is still a talking point.
No wonder in a poll today of people who have already voted, Obama is ahead 53%-35%!
I keep hearing that the “rich” cut-off point is $250k , $200k, $150k…
Under Obama’s plan there won’t be a Social Security cap (currently $102,000).
This means that anyone making over 102K will receive a 7.5% tax increase on income over $102k (your employer also has to match the 7.5%). This is in addition to capitol gains.
Obamas plan is also unlclear about small business tax. Is the $250k gross or net? His plan does not specify. If it is gross, how many of the Obama referenced small busineses that are under $250k can afford to pay any employees? Most of them are home based business and contractors without employees.
Democrats keep saying that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be VP.
Here are the number of years experience each candidate has in the Executive branch of government”
Obama 0
Mccain 0
Biden 0
Palin 8
Palin has 6 years experience as Mayor and 2 years experience as Governor.
The fact the economy is a worry on everyones mind should we really trust what the canidates are telling us about their tax policies. Hanlon has been bashing McCain for the last couple weeks but now he starts an attack on Obama’s tax plan. It also has links to a tax caluclator that would show you how much your family would be effected. Interesting read.
http://www.greenfaucet.com/hanlons-pub/dueling-obama-tax-calculators/91256
Its not Palin’s inexperience that is the problem. It is more what it means that McCain would choose someone who his own campaign staffer called a “whack job“. But let conservative columnist George Will say it:
In an op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post, columnist George Will took John McCain to task once again, criticizing his decisions, labelling him “careless,” and, in the unkindest cut of all, denigrating McCain’s key issue: campaign finance reform.
Previously Will and others had said:
“Famed conservative columnist George Will told a gathering of Senate aides on Monday that Gov. Sarah Palin is “obviously” not prepared to assume the presidency if necessary, two event attendees told the Huffington Post.”
“Appearing at a Senate Press Secretaries Association reception at the Cornerstone Government Affairs office, Will offered a harsh assessment of John McCain’s running mate.”
“Palin is “obviously not qualified to be President,” he remarked, describing her interview on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric as a “disaster.””
“Last week, Kathleen Parker of the National Review penned a column calling on the Alaska Governor to be dropped from the ticket. New York Time’s columnist David Brooks and former Bush speechwriter David Frum have also expressed their doubts about Palin’s capacity for the vice presidential post.”
“Will has already been critical of the other half of the Republican ticket, calling McCain’s handling of the financial crisis “un-presidential” just one week ago. And in offering his take on Palin, the longtime Washington scribe becomes the latest in a list of respected conservative figures who have now soured on the Palin pick.”
“Will, who could not be reached for comment., had also been previously critical of McCain’s choice of Palin, writing a week after it was announced: “The man who would be the oldest to embark on a first presidential term has chosen as his possible successor a person of negligible experience.” One week ago, meanwhile, Will penned a blistering op-ed about McCain, accusing him of practicing “fact-free slander,” holding a “Manichaean worldview,” and “characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence.”
@Robert:
What does this have to do with Obama’s tax plan? Are you posting in the wrong thread? blog? Do you know where you live?
Missy, I was responding to #45 from Don –
@Robert: I apologize.