Update: Taxes, taxes everywhere and not a job in sight and when is a stimulus not a stimulus? When it creates no jobs and you tax the crap out of people…
ZOMG! What are these people thinking?! They sold Obama as a Clinton Like Pro Business Moderate Dem. Ha I say HA! AS IF!!!!
Tell me that doesnt look like Joe Biden all the way on the right? Remember when 100 billion dollars was a lot of money?:
…A huge new income surtax. The bill’s main financing comes from another tax increase on top of the increase already scheduled for 2011 under Mr. Obama’s budget. The surtax starts at one percentage point for adjusted gross income above $350,000 in 2011, rising to two points in 2013; a 1.5 point surtax at incomes above $500,000, rising to three in 2013; and a whopping 5.4 percentage points in 2011 and beyond on incomes above $1 million.
This would raise the top marginal federal tax rate back to roughly 47% or 48%, if you include the Medicare tax and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. With the current top rate at 35%, this would be the largest rate increase outside the Great Depression or world wars.
The average U.S. top combined state-federal marginal tax rate would hit about 52%. This would be higher than in all but three (Denmark, Sweden, Belgium) of the 30 countries measured by the OECD. According to the nearby table compiled by the Heritage Foundation, taxpayers in at least five U.S. states would pay higher marginal rates even than Sweden. South Korea, which Democrats worry is stealing American jobs, would be able to grab even more as its highest rate is a far more competitive 38.5%.
House Democrats say they deserve credit for being honest about the tax increases needed to fund their ambitions. But then they also claim that this surtax would raise $544 billion in new revenue over 10 years. America’s millionaires aren’t that stupid; far fewer of them will pay these rates for very long, if at all. They will find ways to shelter income, either by investing differently or simply working less. Small businesses that pay at the individual rate will shift to pay the 35% corporate rate. When the revenue doesn’t materialize, Democrats will move to soak the middle class with a European-style value-added tax.
Practice your ‘European’ style living now. I will go with Germany..dance Dieter dance!!
The new payroll taxes and penalties in the health care proposal:
…A new payroll tax. Unemployment is at 9.5% and rising, but Democrats will nonetheless impose a new eight percentage point payroll tax on employers who don’t provide health insurance for employees. This is on top of the current 15% payroll tax, and in addition to a new 2.5-percentage point tax on individuals who don’t buy health insurance. This means that any employer with more than $400,000 in payroll would have to pay at least 25% above the salary to hire someone. Result: Many fewer new jobs, with a higher structural jobless rate, much as Europe has experienced as its welfare states have expanded.
Other new taxes, including an as yet undetermined levy on private health plans. This tax, which Democrats say could raise $100 billion or so, would make it even harder for private plans to compete with the government plan, which would already benefit from government subsidies and lower capital costs. For good measure, the House bill also gets the ball rolling on tax increases on foreign-source corporate income….
In other age old philosophical questions, when is a stimulus NOT a stimulus? When Team TOTUS, who said we would see IMMEDIATE results from the stimulus, is now saying it worked as expected and was NOT supposed to work right away..Uhmm wha? Ed at HotAir has it covered
…Old White House spin: Porkulus has stimulated the economy and “saved or created” 150,000 jobs. New White House spin: Stimulus? What stimulus? ABC’s Yunji de NIes reports from somewhere down the rabbit hole, er, the White House briefing room:
Turns out the $787 billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (AARA) was not designed for full economic recovery, but rather to “stabilize” the downturn. That’s the word from White House officials today, who held off-camera briefings with reporters on how the AARA is working so far.
“This legislation was designed to cushion the downturn,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “That’s why we have always talked about this as one function of economic recovery.”
When pressed about the change in terminology, Gibbs said he was not trying to temper expectations after the fact….
Update: Via HA, House GOP Conference releases this video last night on the stimulus:
BBR: Update: Wyden’s Middle Way…Health Care: House Proposes New Payroll Taxes, Value Added Tax, to fund health care bill….
Bumped: Now that CBO scored the Kennedy draft, the Wyden Bennett bill is getting a chance, here is video from 2 months ago and a WSJ piece up TODAY!
Update: WSJ has an excellent interview up with Ron Wyden D-OR, who has what sounds like a FABULOUS proposal that will address many of the issues we have without taxing us to death or rationing our care, please go read it!
…less-radical approaches, like the one Mr. Wyden is co-sponsoring with Utah Republican Bob Bennett. “The country has bailout fatigue,” Mr. Wyden explains. “The Congressional Budget Office said our proposal was budget neutral in the short term and that it would essentially start bending the cost curve downward in the third year.”
…the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act relies on the private insurance market while imposing a series of regulations to squeeze savings from the private sector. It also requires individuals to buy coverage for themselves, the controversial “individual mandate.” The idea, Mr. Wyden says, is to harness the Democratic desire to get everyone covered to the Republican interest in markets and consumer choice.
..I think the way to go,” Mr. Wyden says, “is with a generous deduction that sends a market-oriented message.” He says that means that, if you shop carefully for your health care, you’re going to get your taxes cut.
The typical family of four spends about $13,000 a year for their health care for the year, he says. In the Healthy Americans plan, they set the deduction at $19,000. “If you get a deduction of between $17,000 and $19,000 for a middle-class family of four . . . [that] now spends $13,000 on health care, we’ve got a chance to give millions of people . . . more money in their wallet because they got a chance to shop in a new system driven by informed choice and financial incentives to make those choices.”
And NO EXEMPTION FOR UNION PLANS!
…And Labor? Unions have every right to bargain for the best possible package, he says. “But nobody, be it a CEO or a labor [union] member ought to be getting what amounts to gold-plated coverage with the tax subsidies paid for by somebody who is a modestly compensated woman at a small business who doesn’t have a health plan.”
Sounds like Wyden and Bennett have a feasible answer to the issue, I am letting my Critters know I support it :0)
Microsoft CEO: will move US jobs oversees if Obama tax plan goes through, estimates Dow companies profits would be reduced 10-15% under new tax plan….
Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits. “It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”
Market Mover Thursday: Team Obama Budget Presser…Healthcare funding via new additional tax increases in 2011….
Uh oh. For a bunch of people who like to read about FDR, they seem to be repeating some well known policy decisions that increased the severity and duration of the Great Depression here, ie Smoot-Hawley talk tariffs and tax increases on sources of production….our previous posts here and here
The Obama administration will announce a 10-year, $634 billion reserve fund Thursday aimed at expanding health care coverage – and will pay for half the plan with a new tax hike on wealthy Americans that surprised health care advocates and angered Republicans.
This is NOT the rollback of the Bush tax cuts alone, this is a NEW tax increase to be effective concurrently with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2011…a double whammy, the one-two punch….IMO a bad idea…this is exactly what happened before, they raised taxes before the recession was over and made a Depression…can they be this obtuse? Is it deliberate? Seriously!
Under current law, high earners who are in the 35 percent tax bracket can take deductions at that rate. Under Obama’s plan, they would be capped at 28 percent – meaning instead of getting $3,500 back from $10,000 in mortgage interest or other deductions, these taxpayers would get $2,800. The plan would phase in during fiscal year 2011, just as Obama plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire.
OMB chief Peter Orszag is to announce the plan while outlining Obama’s budget in a press conference Thursday.
8 ‘Goals’ for Healthcare Reform:
Ahead of the release of his budget Thursday, Obama has endorsed eight guiding principles for health reform, the White House officials said on the conference call. They stressed that they intend to work with lawmakers and other stakeholders on how to accomplish the goals, but the principles will lay down a marker for any congressional plan.
Other goals include maintaining choice of insurance and doctors, ensuring affordable coverage, protecting Americans financial health, investing in prevention and wellness, improving patient safety and quality of care and is fiscally responsible, sustainable and portable.
So how is the initiative funded on an ongoing basis? Dunno. He seems to expect to recoup itemizations people get now, but if they keep taxing the producers to death their income will dry up no? Yes, Big Dawg said so and we all did well with Big Dawg policy of growing the economy for everyone, not taking one person’s share to give to someone else…IMO…
And he’ll pay for half his plan — $318 billion over 10 years – with new tax hike on Americans making more than $250,000.
Obama had pledged throughout his campaign to roll back Bush tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000 a year in fiscal year 2011 – a plan that also will be included in Thursday’s budget — but this is different, aimed at reducing the itemized deduction rate for those taxpayers.
Some advocates for universal health coverage said they were surprised to learn that Obama would turn to a tax increase to create a dedicated fund for his program.
Huh, Seems odd to eliminate a subsidy that incentivizes RURAL CARE doesn’t it?
The other half of the $634 billion would come from changes in savings in Medicare, including ending subsides to private insurance companies that participate in the Medicare Advantage programs in rural areas.
From experience in the health insurance field, I can say rural care is an area that can least afford cuts like this. Urban areas are served by many charities and government programs, and their very ‘urbanity’ draws physicians there.
Getting an excellent doctor to a tiny town, and getting the attention of charities and glamorous Hollywood fundraiser types for rural areas is not doable. Seems Obama is not as concerned with the RURAL POOR..Country Mouse City Mouse Class Warfare and it sucks…
ginaswo
