It all sounds so good…. 95% of Americans getting tax cuts. Tho even the most shallow of thinkers have to wonder how this can be when the non-partisan Tax Policy Center notes that 38% of Americans have no tax debt at all.
But let’s leave the most simple of mathematical errors behind. After all, it’s the “intent” that matters, yes? And while Obama’s perceived American utopia may be admirable in that intent, he seems a bit old to still indulge in such fantasy.
And the numbers indicate Obama’s promises are fantasy indeed. The headline that says it all, bringing reality home, is Alan Reynolds opinion piece in the WSJ today… How’s Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?
gasp…. and we thought the bail out was bad??
You see, it’s not just about Obama’s “95% of American’s getting tax cuts”. He’s got other spending plans for the nation. And they aren’t going to come for the price of a flashed, charismatic smile, or a set of rented Greek columns.
The new president, whoever he is, will start out facing a budget deficit of at least $1 trillion, possibly much more. Sen. Obama has nonetheless promised to devote another $1.32 trillion over the next 10 years to several new or expanded refundable tax credits and a special exemption for seniors, according to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution’s Tax Policy Center (TPC). He calls this a “middle-class tax cut,” while suggesting the middle class includes 95% of those who work.
[Mata Musing: so *that’s* how he gets from here to there on the 95%]
Mr. Obama’s proposed income-based health-insurance subsidies, tax credits for tiny businesses, and expanded Medicaid eligibility would cost another $1.63 trillion, according to the TPC. Thus his tax rebates and health insurance subsidies alone would lift the undisclosed bill to future taxpayers by $2.95 trillion — roughly $295 billion a year by 2012.
But that’s not all. Mr. Obama has also promised to spend more on 176 other programs, according to an 85-page list of campaign promises (actual quotations) compiled by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. The NTUF was able to produce cost estimates for only 77 of the 176, so its estimate is low. Excluding the Obama health plan, the NTUF estimates that Mr. Obama would raise spending by $611.5 billion over the next five years; the 10-year total (aside from health) would surely exceed $1.4 trillion, because spending typically grows at least as quickly as nominal GDP.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Altogether, Mr. Obama is promising at least $4.3 trillion of increased spending and reduced tax revenue from 2009 to 2018 — roughly an extra $430 billion a year by 2012-2013.
Let me repeat that in numbers…. Obama proposes adding to the American taxpayers shoulders, an approximate:
Let me put all those zeros into perspective for you. This is, assuming the cost of $5 bil a month in Iraq, the equivalent of 71.6 years of an Iraqi war.
Or, for you fashionistas, if the GOP bought Sarah Palin $150K worth of clothes monthly, Sarah and family would be set in Armani style for 2.3 million years.
Prefer to think in oil? This figure translates to 28.66 billion barrels of oil priced at $150 per brl. That’s enough to cover US current needs of 7.6 billion barrels annually (365 x 21 million daily) for almost four years of the “greatest transfer of American wealth”. Seven years if oil is at $80 per brl.
And that’s on top of buying the oil we need in the interim….
Now… have we got a grip on the total spending figure yet?
There is no doubt the eyes glaze over with the amount of zeros, and it’s easier to bring it down to something tangible for the mind to absorb. And BTW… these zeros got to me during this too. So if any of you back check me and find I’ve got a decimal place in the wrong spot… feel free to let me know.
So where is Obama planning on getting that estimated $4.3 trillion? If we go to the portion of his economic plan most Americans… i.e. Joe the plumber… are familiar with, Obama’s tax increase “on the wealthy” who *gross* $250K or more will only raise perhaps $30 to $35 billion over the next four years from his tax rates on salaries, dividends and capital gains. And that’s assuming the economy is decent. Quite a hefty price to pay for Joe the Plumber types in exchange for so little dent in the overall bill, eh?
Okay… giving him the benefit of the doubt, only $4.265 trillion more to go… Wait… let me put that into perspective too.
But then, Obama’s told us he’s no dummy. And I’ll give him that. Dishonest and secretative, yes. Dumb? Nope. He’s promised the US taxpayer he’ll find that cash for all his socialist/welfare government programs by closing loopholes and tax havens for corporations.
That comment refers to $924.1 billion over 10 years [Mata Note: or $9.24 trillion for that period] from what the TPC wisely labels “unverifiable revenue raisers.” To put that huge figure in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office optimistically expects a total of $3.7 trillion from corporate taxes over that period.
[Mata note: or $5.54 trillion shy]
In other words, Mr. Obama is counting on increasing corporate tax collections by more than 25% simply by closing “loopholes” and complaining about foreign “tax havens.”
Nobody, including the Tax Policy Center, believes that is remotely feasible. And Mr. Obama’s dream of squeezing more revenue out of corporate profits, dividends and capital gains looks increasingly unbelievable now that profits are falling, banks have cut or eliminated dividends, and only a few short-sellers have any capital gains left to tax.
In short, Obama’s already faulty math depends upon a national and global economy that does not exist.
So what about Obama’s promise to take a precision “scalpel” and cut spending, as he promised to Bob Schieffer in the final Presidential debate?
Mr. Schieffer said “The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFARB) ran the numbers” and found otherwise.
When CFARB “ran the numbers,” they relied almost entirely on unverifiable numbers eagerly provided to them by the Obama campaign. That explains why their list of Mr. Obama’s new spending plans is so much shorter than the National Taxpayers Union fully documented list.
But nothing quite explains why even the vaguest promises to save money are recorded by CFARB as if they had substance.
Mr. Obama is thus credited with saving $50 billion in a single year (2013) by reducing “wasteful spending” and unnamed “obsolete programs.” He is said to save Medicare $43 billion a year by importing foreign drugs and negotiating bargains from drug companies. Yet even proponents of that approach such as the Lewin Group find that cannot save more than $6 billion a year. So the remaining $37 billion turns out to depend on what the Obama campaign refers to as undertaking “additional measures as necessary” (more taxes?).
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq will decline, regardless of who the next president is. Yet the CFARB credits John McCain’s budget with only a $5 billion savings from troop reduction in Iraq, while Mr. Obama gets an extra $55 billion. .
[Mata note: this does not apparently take into account Obama’s promise to send troops to Afghanistan…]
First thought? Obama better ask McCain to borrow his economic “hatchet”. Second thought? Obviously lots of zeros in Obama’s math is not his forte…
Giving Obama all the benefit of the doubt, yet again, he’s now looking for a spare $75 billion by 2013 to meet his “closing loopholes and tax havens” goal. Which then brings us to his “draconian” cap and trade trading scheme. Or, in plain language the government sales of rights to pollute… er… emit carbon dioxide.
But the cap and trade hits Joe the plumber and main street right where they live.
The effect on U.S. families and firms would be like a steep tax on electricity, gasoline and energy-intensive products such as paper, plastic and aluminum. Whenever Mr. Obama claims he has not (yet) proposed any tax increase on couples earning less than $250,000, he forgets to mention his de facto $100 billion annual tax on energy. (The McCain-Lieberman cap-and-trade plan is more gradual and much less costly.)
CFARB assumes Mr. Obama’s cap-and-trade tax would raise $100 billion in 2013 alone, but the actual revenue raised would be much lower. Like every other steep surge in energy costs, the Obama cap-and-trade tax would crush the economy, reducing tax receipts from profits and personal income.
So what’s the bottom line on us… the “scam’ees”, so to speak, with all this political double speak and hidden costs? Not a clue in actual numbers… But remember this… Obama’s tax rebates benefit the bottom 60% of taxpayers… the same who were only responsible for 1% of the federal tax revenue in 2006. The 3.3% with incomes above $200,000 paid more than 58% of the tax revenue. The remaining percentile? They’ll be getting annual gov’t checks in the form of tax credit rebates.
There is no possible way Obama’s plans can be financed by shifting a larger tax burder to the top 3.3%.
If this doesn’t scare you… pocket this… That doesn’t even include his health care plans, “the doubling of foreign aid, or any of the other 175 programs he’s promised to expand.”
AND HE’s NOT ELECTED YET!
In the meantime, Obama… who’s spent [corrected… sorry, was pooped!] $391.313 mil already on his campaign per Open Secrets records as of Oct 17th, 2008… is apparently running low on funds. He and wife, Michelle, are out there stumping for yet more of your dollars. And he’s not even in office yet to blow the rest of the nation’s wad.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, issued e-mail fundraising appeals on Thursday. The candidate warned supporters that “the margins of victory in crucial battleground states will be small.”
Added his wife: “It all comes down to Friday morning when we make the last, tough choices about where we can fight – and how hard.”
Then again, he’s got one expensive party planned in Chicago that will be costing the city over $2 million alone…. a pretty penny that the candidate promises the campaign… or would that be his donors?… will pick up the tab.
No word yet on the cost of the set and rest of the party… but fear not. Obama’s campaign is financially digging at the media for everything from choice camera spots to radio positions to cover costs. If you’re one of those indie media, and not one of the big budget types with “tingling” legs, rest assured there are some free general media slots available. Suggest you bring hankerchiefs as they are apt to be in the “nosebleed” section.
Needless to say, the media is a bit disgruntled, wondering why a campaign that raised $150 mil in Sept is demanding such payments. Obama, ever the trend setter making history, is doing something candidates have rarely done before… charging for coverage.
So all you Obama supporters out there? You’d better dig even deeper to keep your favorite couple partying in the style to which they’ve become accustomed. And who knows if there will be a charge at the gate, or perhaps a coin operated port-a-potty a’waiting you.
You can view Obama’s total campaign summary, and disclosures, at the FEC site. He has disclosed almost $477 mil in individual donations, with approx $200 mil apparently foggy in origin.
By comparison, here’s Open Secrets record for John Mcain’s campaign, totalling $214.89 million.
Obama’s paid out an exorbitant amount of the faithful’s hard earned cash… all only to be a few points ahead in the final weeks against an ol’ white dude, nicknamed “George Bush”. Anyone questioning his budget management like I am??
Well…. if the figures are right… get used to the tons of zeros masked by a smooth baritone, and a “calm, steady hand” picking your pockets. Because an Obama Presidency will be historic, alright. It will not only be the most expensive in history, but it just may shatter the American piggy bank… what’s left of it, anyway.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
And his supporters will love him for every penny he says he’s supposedly spending on”fixing” things, and when his 4 years are up they will blame the next president for the nations terrible state. Thereby skirting out of the history books as a failure (This assuming Obama wins, heaven forbid.)
In my opinion, he’s just getting the money while the getting is good. What happens, pray tell, to all that money if he doesn’t get elected? You don’t think that they track down everyone who donated and give them back their share of what they didn’t use, do you? And if he does win? He will have a big start on a war chest for four years from now. He will not likely be in as good a position to separate people from their money as he is today, so he’s getting as much as he can now.
Thanks for all the work Mata, I’m going to send this one out to all my Missouri friends so they can blast it all over the mighty MO. Also, off to Colorado and Wisconsin it goes. Wish I knew people in all the other states with tight races.
How bad can it get?
What will this mean to those who are supposedly benefiting from these $500-800 “free money” checks each year?
A 25% increase in corporate taxes will translate out to 25% inflation of goods and services prices. Companies pay the taxes, but every dime of taxes they have to pay “trickles down” to the consumer in higher prices. For the low income tax brackets, for that 3-4% check over your earnings you will pay 25% of your income for everything you buy. That’s what you get for your “free money”. By the way, half of your family members will loose their jobs because small and medium businesses will have to cut their workforce to pay for those checks. What a great deal eh?
How many of you are aware that vehicles are considered a luxury in communist countries? The vast majority of the general populace can’t afford to buy one. That’s what spreading the wealth with uncurbed taxation does. A car will cost you twice as much as your house. That’s why in those countries you see 200 people crammed into 40 passenger buses and people riding on top to get to and from work. For a time, prices on all manufactured goods will skyrocket. Then they’ll plummet, but by then the common folk won’t have the money to pay.
When consumers can no longer afford to buy goods or pay for services companies will go into into crisis. Massive workforce lay-offs and unemployment will follow. This will make the problem even worst. by further reducing the number of consumers. If you can’t make your mortgage, the bank will foreclose and you’ll be homeless. The stock market will crash again, and much harder than it did in 1929. All of your stocks and bonds? Gone. Then come the run on the banks. They close and you can forget any money you might have squirreled away into savings, it won’t be there. Then the riots on small businesses to steal any and everything they have in stock. Crime skyrockets with people being mugged and murdered over a pocket or purse of spare change.
What would Obama try to do about this? Most likely pass an omnibus unemployment insurance extension bill. Businesses would laugh in his face, after all, they are the ones that have to pay for unemployment and they won’t have it to give because of his taxes. So Obama will try putting teams of lawyers on it to try to force them to pay. More companies will say to hell with him and fold and wait the crisis out or go bankrupt trying to pay. More lost jobs as the vicious cycle continues.
Homes will be abandoned as families band together for mutual support. Everyone that can, will try to do whatever work they can in barter. Some family members won’t return home from work after being mugged and killed for their earnings. Unable to pay for medical care and the long lines at the few clinics will spell more death and disease. Other less fortunates will go to poor farms for housing.
My great-grandparents ran one of those poor houses during the Depression until the 1950’s. That’s was when the town sherriff came by demanding they hand over the money for their back taxes. They gave him the money and he never turned it in. They lost their working farm when the city evicted them. They tried to fight it, but the sherriff claimed they lied and never gave him a damned dime. The farm went up for auction, and that same sherriff bought it with the money he stole from them. He later sold the land for more than it was worth and a hospital and several municipal buildings stand there now.
If you think I’m kidding about what can happen, why not ask those who still survive that lived through the Great Depression what it was like.
Skeptic, now that it’s AM, and my eyes have recouped from all those zeros…. yeeeeash…
I had to run back over the Obama Open Secrets expenditures. According to their reports, Obama has spent $391.313 mil. There’s nothing to “give back” there. I did have $924 mil before. That’s because one of my hundred thousand numbers slipped into the million with an improperly placed decimal point. Funny… I made it thru the trillions okay, and then screwed up the calculation of about 6 numbers, millions and hundred thousands. LOL But then again, the midnight hour had come, and I was ready to stop looking a depressing figures!
The FEC Financial Summary on Obama has different figures for thru Oct 15th. With the difference, I can only assume that includes Obama’s primary spending, while the Open Secrets may be the general.
Per the FEC, Obama has spending/receipts for $521,869,310
He’s distributed $498,894,922 with cash on hand of $65,762,929
He’s raised $476 mil in individual donations… of which $200mil is apparently a little foggy in origin.
Guess all those millions aren’t enough to get him thru the next 10 days…. but generally these bozos keep campaign funds in the coffers for future use. Either for themselves, or to transfer to other peer campaigns.
Excellent job, Mata.
The Obama Campaign would like to fashion its fundraising efforts as a populist movement, driven largely by the working middle-class donating their hard-earned dollars of $200 or less. But is this true?…
Check out the top 2 contributors to 527’s:
Donald Douglas writing for Pajama Medias has also written a good piece on Obama’s fundraising fraud and campaign finance reform coming back to haunt McCain.
I can hardly wait for the 30 minute Obama infomercial to air [/sarcasm]
OMG… that’s a heckuva story by Douglas, Word. I feel like I’m back in the shadow world of Chicago mafias with payola and protection rackets going on under my nose.
@Rocky_B post #4
Excellent post, I’ve said the same thing. Your posts seems prophetic to me. I see it happening.
Thanks Custer;
If it be prophecy, I pray it’s one that is never fulfilled.
Money + Power = Corruption.
So what are we to think of the most massive fundraising operation of all time?
It will be followed by the most massive federal spending of all time.
And both will take corruption and wastefulness to new lows.
@MataHarley:
I read through the comment section at PL yesterday and someone that does an on-line business said that to disable the AVS you have to go through a number of questions, one by one and click everyone of them. You can’t unknowingly disable it, you deliberately disable the AVS.
Reading this morning over at The American Thinker, the discussion was about why would Obama’s contributers use odd numbers like 257.88 as many had. A couple of people that had worked numbers of years in campaigns said that they thought it would be from breaking down foreign currency. So anyone could be donating, many, many times, even……lobbyists could donate, they could get away with it because, Obama would never know. /sarc
I read yesterday that the way Obama will get the money he needs for his social engineering is to confiscate the 401Ks and replace them with government bonds (ie treasury notes) with low percentages. Just think if he does that with the help of congress the government will own Wall Street and when he begins to sell everything off Wall Street will tank worse than 1929. From the article I read this is one of the long term intentions of the dems just waiting until they had a dem president and dem majority in the congress to implement it. Argentina’s government did this and are now going bankrupt and the people lost all their savings. This is on top of his UN Sea Treaty giving sovreignity of the seas plus offshore oil to the UN and the Global Treaty forcing our military to be under the command of the UN.
I wish I could shake the people voting for this guy who say he has the dreamiest eyes or he feels my pain and he will look after me. They are too dumb to know what a whirlwind they are sowing.
I wonder how much money Oprah gave to THE ONE… lol?
I wonder, if Obama wins, if she will get an income tax break for him… lol?
I wonder if she is friend with Michelle… lol!
What an idiot that Oprah!
Now that was depressing
Friday, October 24, 2008
Barney Frank Explains Why Democrats Should Never Be in Charge, and Won’t Be For Long
http://townhall.com/blog/g/849b5a98-6965-4944-9050-038d067e2a5e
A FEW QUOTATIONS ON SOCIALISM:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
Winston Churchill
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
“Socialism is workable only in heaven where it isn’t needed, and in hell where they’ve got it”
Cecil Palmer
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it”
Thomas Sowell
“The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.”
Frederic Bastiat
“But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you – the social reformers – see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.”
Isaiah Berlin
“The best way to put more money in people’s wallets is to leave it there in the first place.”
Edwin Feulner
“A society that puts equality…ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.”
Milton Friedman
“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion”
Richard John Neuhaus
“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer’s money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to “help.”
Thomas Sowell
“Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.”
Benito Mussolini
“Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.”
George Bernard Shaw
“For socialists, not just the wealth, but the guilt, must be redistributed”
Andrew Sandlin
“All socialism involves slavery”
Herbert Spencer
“When a government takes over a people’s economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs.”
Maxwell Anderson
MM… LOL! I know the feeling. Felt that way working hours on this post!
Today’s WaPo:
“How’s Obama Going to Raise $4.3 Trillion?”
I thought that’s what the Obama coins were for?!
Easy. Online donations from his website.
you know that to the uber-rich leaders of the GOP, you and your ilk are nothing but “white niggers”, right?
poor and middle class white people are niggers too! you should be proud.
there are 2 kinds of republicans:
1) millionaires (or billionaires)
2) moronic dupes who watch fox news so that high school graduates like sean hannnity (a former bartender and construction worker!), glenn beck and rush limbaugh can TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK.
keep on delivering those pizzas and keep on voting against your own economic interests. the last remnants of the confederacy is dying out. obama gets re-elected and you white niggers will cry, moan and bitch until 2016. oh well, only 6 more years of your whiny bleating!!! 🙂