Federal Budgets and Class Warfare

Spread the love

Loading

Over the past year, as the candidates jockeying for the Republican nomination raced to the right, the Obama campaign has sought to re-energize its base by tacking left. The president not only embraced the frustration expressed by Occupy Wall Street protesters—which was real—but he adopted their economic populism.

Central to fixing the country’s problems, he has argued, is making the wealthiest Americans pay their “fair share,” even though the top 5% already pay 59% of all federal income taxes, while 42% of filers have no federal income tax bill at all (or got a check from the government via the earned-income tax credit). Warren Buffett’s secretary became the public symbol of this strategy, even appearing at the president’s State of the Union address. (Mr. Buffett, of course, did exactly what lower capital gains taxes are designed to encourage: He invested!)

I don’t believe in class warfare, and not because I don’t want to pay more in taxes.

~~~

The president asserts that 98% of Americans do not need to pay more in taxes, that we just need those earning more than $1 million to pay a minimum of 30% in federal income taxes. But according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, this plan would generate only $1.1 billion in revenue for the coming fiscal year. To put that in perspective, the federal government this year is spending $1.2 trillion more than it is taking in.

Whether you support it or not, the president’s tax plan is a political strategy, not an economic one. It will have virtually no bearing on the federal deficit or our ability to finance current spending levels.

The Republican presidential candidates have unveiled tax plans that are just as divorced from reality. They say they’ll make the Bush tax cuts permanent while also eliminating the deficit. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Republicans who emphasize economic freedom would have a lot more credibility if they’d stop promising a free lunch. Any candidate who says we can cut taxes and balance the budget is either delusional or dissembling.

Both parties’ candidates are also promising major reductions in spending. But there’s one small catch: They don’t have the courage to tell the public which programs they’ll cut, and how they’ll reduce entitlement spending, to balance the budget.

This is a problem not just for voters but for businesses. Nearly every CEO and business leader I speak with says virtually the same thing: They are hesitant to make major investment decisions until they know how Washington intends to grapple with its huge deficits. That uncertainty is a major drag on job creation because the price of uncertainty for business is paralysis. Companies with healthy balance sheets that could be creating jobs are sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see if the federal government will begin increasing market stability by reducing long-term deficits.

Michael Bloomberg’s piece

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

4 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

President Obama’s budget was defeated 414-0 in the House late Wednesday.

The vote came as the House worked its way through its own fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, written by Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan. Republicans wrote an amendment that contained Mr. Obama’s budget and offered it on the floor.
The plan calls for major tax increases and yet still adds trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.

House Democrats have their own alternative they wrote, which closely tracks the president’s deficit numbers, though it changes some of the details of his plan.
That plan will received a vote today.

Senate Democrats have said they will not bring a budget to the floor this year, though Republicans in the chamber have talked about trying to at least force a vote on Mr. Obama’s plan there as well.

Last year, when they forced a vote on his 2012 budget, it was defeated 97-0.

Washington Times for more.

Apparently ending oil industry tax breaks isn’t going to be part of the mix.

Senate blocks effort to end to oil industry tax breaks

Senate blocks effort to end to oil industry tax breaks

By Lisa Mascaro and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked an effort to end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry, brushing aside President Obama’s argument that the five big oil companies were doing “just fine” while consumers were struggling with painfully high gasoline prices.

The measure to kill the industry tax preferences failed on a 51-47 procedural vote Thursday. It needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican-led filibuster that was supported by some Democrats from oil-rich states.

. . .

Had the measure passed Congress, about half of the $24 billion in savings over 10 years would have been reinvested in tax breaks for biodiesel, wind, cellulosic ethanol and energy-efficiency programs. The other half would have been used to reduce the federal deficit.

Meanwhile, consumer gasoline prices continue to rise. Several northeast U.S. refineries are closing down their operations. The reason given isn’t a lack of petroleum; rather, it’s a low demand for their product.

Prices are climbing as demand declines. The apparent problem is that profits can actually be increased by reducing production.

Is that the sort of corporate behavior that should be rewarded with tax breaks?

“Got a Budget”? This Government and this country needs to sew up it’s apparently deep pockets half way.

The “blame game” is getting OLD..

Fair Share. Fair Share. What exactly is the “figure” or “percentage” in “Fair Share”? And why is the answer to this question so elusive to our figures in Gov’t especially OBAMA since this is his meme? What really is driving this Warfare on “fair share”…

Then “what if”? What if the “fair share” [whatever that figure is] was actually paid by the wealthy??? What will the next meme of the Left be?

That they now have to pay “more then their fair share” ? Because ‘fair share’ just isn’t “enough anymore”?

Brings us back to the question of “when is enough – enough”?

See? Another “false reality” “inflated drama” “straw men” to drive a Political Agenda. So little they have to their credit they have to use “false realities” of class warfare to divide…

….because the “real reality” is – The President and the left’s ideology – huge spending and waste, socialist agenda and redistribution, Fraud, their hatred and vile…they don’t really have a leg to stand on.

Another reality check – You know what drives the ‘real poverty’ in this country? The Government.

@FAITH7:
Good points, FAITH.
It is NEVER enough, is it?
The Left is like a baby bird in the nest.
Every time a parent bird comes back with food for the nestlings they all act like they are starving.

And your example about what is fair…..
It reminded me that only a few years ago we were having a parallel debate with Leftists who were positive they knew what temperature the earth ought to be, both now and forever.