Obama’s Tax Plans Range From Unrealistic To Downright Dishonest
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It’s a promise he’s already broken and will likely have to break again. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have already increased tobacco taxes—which disproportionately hit the poor—to pay for extending health coverage to 4 million children in working low-income families.
Now, lawmakers are looking for more revenues to help pay for providing medical insurance to millions more who lack it at a projected cost of $1 trillion over the next decade.
The floated proposals include increasing taxes on alcohol, which could raise $62 billion over the next decade, and a new tax on sugary drinks such as soda, which could raise $52 billion.
Senate Democrats this week pretty much rejected a proposal by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to tax health benefits, an idea that Obama repeatedly criticized during the presidential election campaign but has refused to take off the table.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said negotiators are still looking for revenue alternatives. Asked during an interview with The Associated Press if they included tax increases on families with incomes less than $250,000 a year, Schumer said, “There are lots of things on the table now.”
The health care bill is a long way from Obama’s desk, but tax experts say the debate illustrates a stark reality: It is simply implausible for the vast majority of Americans to get a free ride while the nation tackles such an incredibly difficult—and expensive—issue.
“We’re all going to have to contribute,” said Eugene Steuerle, a former treasury official in the Reagan administration and now vice president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Paying for Obama’s agenda might be easier, Steuerle said, if the nation wasn’t already facing massive federal budget deficits for the foreseeable future.
“The dilemma is trying to do the new while the old is still unpaid for,” Steuerle said.
The federal budget deficit is projected to hit an unprecedented $1.8 trillion this year—on top of a national debt that has already topped $11 trillion. Obama insists that any bill on health care or climate change not add to the debt.
Obama says much of the $1 trillion needed for his health care overhaul will come from cutting costs. So far, drug companies and hospitals have agreed to provide 10-year savings of $235 billion.
Health care experts say cost cutting alone won’t produce enough money to insure the nearly 50 million Americans who lack coverage. Moreover, Congress is obligated to follow budget rules that might not recognize many of the promised savings.
“The administration has an extremely difficult educational problem on its hands,” said Henry J. Aaron, a health care expert at the Brookings Institution. “They understand that at some point tax increase are going to be necessary across the board.
“Yes, for the middle class, too,” he added.
Obama made a firm tax pledge during the presidential campaign, repeating it numerous times in the weeks and months leading up to Election Day: no tax increases for individuals making less than $200,000 a year or couples making less than $250,000.
“Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes,” Obama told a crowd in Dover, N.H., last year.
But less than a month after taking office, Obama signed an expansion of child health care financed by 62-cent tax increase on each pack of cigarettes.
Obama also signed an anti-smoking bill in June that grants authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. To pay for the new program, a fee is being imposed on the industry—and presumably passed on to consumers—estimated to generate more than $5 billion over the next decade.
While not directly increasing taxes, a House-passed version of Obama’s plan to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for causing global warming would similarly increase American families’ home energy bills by $175 a year on average, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Obama hasn’t offered a detailed plan to fix health care, though his aides are working with lawmakers as they craft proposals. Obama included only a down payment for health care reform in the budget proposal he unveiled this spring.
He proposed limiting itemized tax deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000. The plan, which faces stiff opposition in Congress, would limit deductions for mortgage insurance, state and local taxes and charitable contributions, raising about $270 billion over the next decade.
Obama also proposed a series of business tax increases and accounting changes that would raise an additional $30 billion.
Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the OMB, said Obama’s cost reductions and tax increases add up to “a plan which gets you really close to what you need.”
“Congress has other ideas,” Baer said. “We’ll work with them.”
The appeal of Baucus’s proposed tax on health benefits was the amount of money it could raise. Currently, employer-provided health benefits are not taxed, regardless of how generous they are.
One version of it would tax health benefits that exceed the value of the basic insurance plan offered to federal workers, raising about $420 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. But limiting it to individuals making more than $100,000 a year and couples making more than $200,000 would raise only $162 billion.
The math illustrates how difficult it is to raise enough money to pay for expensive programs, when tax increases are limited to the wealthy.
“We’re living in an era, over a period of 20 years or more, in which the idea that tax rates would actually be boosted is unutterable,” said Aaron, the health care expert. “That has to stop.”
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Liberals are just lying thieves. Nothing more, nothing less. Well, I suppose they are something more as long as you call cheats, power hungry, arrogant, unfair, etc. something “more.”
QUOTE: ““We’re all going to have to contribute,” ”
So, what hes saying is that over half of everyone’s income is going to have to pay for bailouts for companies like AIG who wasted taxpayers money on junkets? How has any of the bailouts helped ANYONE other than CEO’s and execs line their pockets? Did anyone’s house get saved because of this? Did anyone’s house payments go down because of this?
Between our electric going up originally 17% in September, but was cut by the PUCO to 8%, and our gas going up 8% also in September, and the cost of food going up approximately 25% in the past year, who is going to be able to afford ANYTHING?
And yet, there is talk about another stimulus, which the previous one horribly failed. We can’t AFFORD another one!
People who are on welfare are going to be making more money for FREE, than those who actually work! Obama, his Administration and Congress is going to be turning this country into a third-world country. Let’s see them take some cuts in their pay and benefits!
Steele,
Too many welfare recipients already receive a combined free benefits totalling more than most working Americans. A family of four gets over 600 bucks a month for groceries, and that is if they do not try to cheat the system and have two or more family members registered to receive benfits. I can afford half of that for my family, and I have to pay taxes on what I earn.
They get free board, most times equivelant to 800 bucks or more a month. I have a mortgage of 560 bucks, and to pay that, I have to pay taxes on what I earn, they do not. I also have to pay real estate taxes for that property every year.
They get free utilities, I do not, let’s say between water, sewer, electric, gas and trash pick up, it averages 350 bucks a month, which the taxpayer foots the bill for, you and I, and when we pay our utilities, we have to pay taxes on those utilities, AND pay taxes on our utilities, AND pay a fee every friggin month to cover those who do not pay their utilities, ON TOP OF HAVING TO PAY TAXES ON WHAT WE EARN TO PAY THOSE TAXES!!!
However they work it, those same two legged leaches that live off you and I get FREE spending cash, I have no idea how much. They can earn up to around $20,000 a year TAX FREE.
They get free medical benefits, paid for by you and I. According to the governemnt, that is worth about 18 grand a year, easy.
That is over $39,000 a year in free benefits, plus the 20 grand in tax free income.
with what I make a year, after taxes, insurance deductions for medical and life for me and my family, I take home less than $35,350 a year, with which I have to pay for my housing, utilities, transportation, food, clothing nad anything else I may need or possibly even afford. On top of that, most things I purchase requires additional taxes at time of sale.
It is not about the executives or CEOs that may have received TARP money or other taxpayer funded handouts. What this is about is those who received the handouts are passing along those tax dollars to even more two legged leaches that have become a dependant of society. That in turn creates even more people who will blindly vote for those who give them all the freebies. How about free daycare while they look for work, which most usually will consist of hangin out at a beauty parlor or barber shop, or who knows where else, talking trash about those who actually produce in this country.
USMCTANKS and ATB below have valid points also.
We need to burn up the phone lines. We need to let the media know how we feel, and we need to get CONSERVATIVES
OOPS HIT THE ENTER BUTTON TOO SOON.
Anyway, we need to get conservatives elected at every level of government. we need to get good solid candidates to run for office for this to happen. contact your local GOP office, find out who they have running for each office, if the dems are running unopposed, either register yourself, or if you know someone who is better qualified, get behind them, and most of all, let the party leaders in BOTH parties know how you feel.
Let them know you will not vote for anyone for raising taxes, or supporting freeloaders for life.
Let them know you are willing to actively campaign AGAINST anyone who has supported the freeloaders or for increased taxes.
Let them know that any candidate they propose for office that is conservatice will recieve your support, including financial, even if that is only $5 a year. If every conservative gave $5 to each local conservative running for office, we would have the funds to defeat the socialists that are trying to surrender our way of life.
The American revolution was in part fought over the fact that taxes had hit a whopping 10%……..
Now Oshithead wants 39.6% + all the other upfront and hidden taxes to boot. Before long it will be 80%!
Only 3% of the population fought in the war. With another 10% willing to help with money or supplies.
13% of the population of this country whipped the most powerful military on the face of the planet at that time.
Last count was 80 million armed citizens.
With 20 million of those holding hunting permits.
What are the other 60 million thinking ??
I have to laugh as the MSM continues to report that the Cap and Trade(tax) bill would only cost a typical family of 4 $175 year. I wrote my senators and asked them if they really believed that for 175$ we can become energy independent, save the world from catastrophic global warming and create millionsof new jobs, I had a suggestion for them. Forget all the BS and just bill us our share. If we can do all that for $175- I’ll pony up! These congressmen must think we’re all dumb as a box of rocks. I was born at night but not last night.
I’m in. I just wish this crap wasn’t incremental. I think the left is eroding our liberties a small bit at a time. Each time, the Real Americans say, “that pisses me off. One more thing and I’m going to do something about it.” Wash, rinse and repeat.
Not only has our government sold the US citizen of present & future into financial slavery but also they will force the population into poverty by taking more & more money from them via taxes.
When people can no longer put food on the table thanks to the high taxes, the guns will come out of the closets.
Fellow Patriots,
We need your help to mobilize quickly and defeat Cap & Trade. The Senate Energy and Environmental Committees began hearings on Cap & Trade yesterday, and a Senate Committee vote can take place as soon as the end of the week. To prevent the Cap & Taxers from succeeding, we are working with dozens of tea parties all across the country to call Senate Committee members and let them know that if they support this legislation, their jobs will be on the line.
Our goal in Houston is to make 10,000 phone calls between now and Friday. As soldiers in the cause, we need your help! Please call the below list of committee members early and often, American Idol-style. Try to call every committee member every day from now until the vote. Please also forward this email with attachment to all your family members and friends and get them to join in the effort. When you finish your daily phone calls, please email callparties@houstontps.org, and let us know how many phone calls you made. Emailing us daily with your numbers is incredibly important, so that we can keep an accurate count and better determine the success of our efforts.
When you make the phone calls, follow the instructions below and attached. You DO NOT have to make phone calls during the day only. Leaving voicemails will be just as effective, and so you can certainly make these calls every evening.
Additionally, we are organizing call parties, where people can meet and greet and make phone calls together over the next few days. Please let us know if you would like to host one of these call parties by replying to callparties@houstontps.org. Just let us know if you are willing to use your home or business as a location where people can meet and make phone calls. You can set up these call parties informally with friends and neighbors, or we can help publicize it for you. Just let us know if you are available.
Below and attached is information regarding who and how to call:
Step 1: If during work hours, call the Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to one of the below committee members in the Environmental Committee or the Energy Committee, both of which are considering this bill. Calling the Switchboard prevents your phone number from being recognized. If it is evening, use the phone numbers next to the name of each committee member:
Democrat Members
Barbara Boxer, California (202) 224-3553 / (916) 448-2787
Max Baucus, Montana 202) 224-2651 / (406) 657-6790
Tom Carper, Delaware (202) 224-2441/ (302) 856-7690
Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey (202) 224-3224/ (973) 639-8700
Ben Cardin, Maryland (202) 224-4524/410-962-4436,
Bernie Sanders, Vermont[1] (202) 224-5141/802-862-0697
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota (202) 224-3244 / 612-727-5220
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island (202) 224-2921 / 401-453-5294
Tom Udall, New Mexico (202) 224-6621/ (505) 346- 6791
Jeff Merkley, Oregon (202) 224-3753/ (503)-326-3386
Kirsten Gillibrand, New York (202) 224-4451/ (212) 688-6262
Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania (202) 224-4254/ (215) 597-7200
Jeff Bingaman, (New Mexico) (202) 224-5521
Byron L. Dorgan (North Dakota) (202) 224-2551
Ron Wyden (Oregon) (202) 224-5244
Tim Johnson (South Dakota) (202) 224-5842
Mary L. Landrieu (Louisiana) (202) 224-5824
Maria Cantwell (Washington) (202) 224-3441
Robert Menendez (New Jersey) (202) 224-4744
Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas) (202) 224-4843
Evan Bayh (Indiana) (202) 224-5623
Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) (202) 224-4822
Mark Udall (Colorado) (202) 224-5941
Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) (202) 224-2841
Republican Members
Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma (202) 224-4721/ (405) 608-4381
George Voinovich, Ohio 202-224-3353 Local Office- 513-684-3265
David Vitter, Louisiana (202) 224-4623/ 225-383-0331
John Barrasso, Wyoming (202) 224-6441/ 307-261-6413
Mike Crapo, Idaho (202) 224-6142
Kit Bond, Missouri (202) 224-5721
Lamar Alexander, Tennessee (202) 224-4944
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) 202-224-6665
Richard Burr (North Carolina) (202) 224-3154
John Barrasso (Wyoming) 202-224-6441
Sam Brownback (Kansas) (202) 224-6521
James E. Risch (Idaho) 202-224-2752
John McCain (Arizona) 202-224-2235
Robert Bennett (Utah) (202) 224-5444
Jim Bunning (Kentucky) 202.224.4343
Jeff Sessions (Alabama) (202) 224-4124
Bob Corker (Tennessee) 202-224-3344
Step 2: When you call, say only the following: “I oppose The American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009, also known as Cap & Trade.” You should hang up quickly, as this will allow the phone line to open up for other callers. If you are asked for your location, stress that this bill affects everyone regardless of their state.
Step 3: After you and your friends finish making phone calls for the evening, email your totals to callparties@houstontps.org.
Attached is more information, including how to contact Texas Senators. Thanks again for all your help in making a real difference and helping us reach our 10,000 phone call target! Call early and often!
Best,
Houston Tea Party Society Organizers