Less than a week to the election, and I’m admittedly perplexed by the amount of stupidity some smart people I know are displaying when it comes to their support of Barack Obama’s “tax-cuts for the middle class”.
These allegedly intelligent friends of mine — living in Hoboken and in the suburbs — make pretty good coin as lawyers, doctors and on Wall Street. As you probably know, they therefore would be the ones paying higher taxes under the purported Obama plan that says people making over $200,000-a-year would be effected in what the Illinois Senator says is an effort to spread the wealth (for more on this philosophy, see Marx, Karl in your local library).
But as I’m about to explain, even the $200,000 number is all part of the biggest lie dropped on the American public since New Coke.
To review, here are some of Obama’s tax promises: To limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of “working Americans.”
But with every big promise by any politican, especially one from someone that has never voted for any form of tax cut in his life, there are loopholes.
And in the case of Obama’s tax plan, the first loophole is all too easy to find.
First, Obama doesn’t take into account allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse as a tax increase.
Unless the cuts are re-enacted, rates will automatically return to levels of eight years ago. Obama says that letting a tax cut lapse — allowing the rates to return to a higher levels — is not actually a “tax increase.” It’s just allowing a tax cut for all Ameircans who pay taxes not be renewed if Obama is elected.
Are you seeing the difference?
When those Bush cuts lapse, your taxes are going up.
Way up.
But thanks to financial sematics that can only be deemed as “fuzzy math”, Obama justifies his promise by saying he won’t be raising taxes on 95 percent of Americans, even while he’s letting tax rates to go up for 100% of Americans who actually pay Federal income taxes.
No matter how Obama characterizes it, requiring people to pay more taxes from one year to the next amounts to a tax increase.
So let’s say you’re married: You’re filing jointly and making $75,000 a year.
The increase will be over $3,000.
For those making just $50,000, this increase will be over $1,500.
Hell, for those poor schelps like Perry Klaussen making just $25,000 a year, he/she will see a tax increase of about $715 more in 2010 than they did in 2007.
Across the board, when the tax cuts lapse, everyone will see big increases in their taxes.
That’s Barack Crock #1.
The next loophole concerns the payroll tax that you pay to support the Social Security system. Currently, according to the Tax Foundation, there is an inflation-adjusted cap, and only the first $94,700 of an unmarried individual’s earning were subject to a 12.4 percent payroll tax. Obama has proposed lifting the cap, adding an additional 12.4 percent tax on every dollar earned above that cap and in spite of his promise.
So for all of you making over $94,700, take a big whiff!
And in Hoboken, that’s more than a few of us.
To break it down simply and without putting you to sleep, half of this tax would be paid by employees and half by employers. But employers will either cut payroll or pass along this tax to their customers through higher prices.
Either way, someone is going to pay the price for the employer’s share of the tax increase.
That’s Barack Crock #2.
Obama has also said that he will raise capital gains taxes from 15 percent to 20 percent. He says he’s going after those who have the audacity to make more than $250,000.
However, while only 1 percent of Americans make a quarter-million dollars, roughly 50 percent of all Americans own stock – and while investments that are through IRAs, 401Ks and in pension plans are not subject to capital gains, those stocks in personal portfolios are subject to capital gains, no matter what the owner’s income is.
So under President Obama (shutter), if you sell off stock and earn a $10,000 gain — instead of paying $1500 in capital gains taxes today, you’ll pay $2000 under Obama’s plan.
That’s a full one-third more.
And it doesn’t matter how much you earn…
For those of you keeping score at home, this is Barack Crock #3.
And when Obama raises taxes on those eeeevil oil and pharmiceutical companies, guess who’s going to pay: 1) Consumers 2) Middle-class people who work for those companies…who will see their jobs go bye-bye when these companies are forced to make cuts to pay for these taxes.
Barack Crock #4…
This all comes from a guy who thinks foreign policy is a popularity contest, and according to his own running mate, will need a practice run on a major crisis to get his feet wet first before being ready to handle it the next time around. A guy who thinks that government-run health care won’t be expensive to implement. A guy who will cut defense spending by 25% in the middle of two wars. A guy who doesn’t believe in domestic drilling. A guy who will sit down with leaders of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela without preconditions. A guy who somehow is rooting for both teams in the World Series (talk about saying anything to get elected). A guy with two years experience in the Senate and no executive experience whatsoever. A guy who doesn’t have one major accomplishment even his own supporters can point to. A guy who put out an ad making fun of John McCain for not being able to send an e-mail, which McCain can’t do because his captors shattered his fingers and both his arms. A guy who supposedly will bring Republicans and Democrats together but voted with his party 97% of the time. And again, with feeling, a guy who says he will not raise your taxes, when it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt above that he will find many different ways to do so.
You want him? You got him. Just don’t say the writing wasn’t blaring in neon on the wall after this guy’s utter bullshit is finally exposed no later than 2010.