RON HART: Looking forward to being less productive : NewsHerald.com: "I really do not want to be that 'greedy' guy whom Obama so hates. 'Greedy,' loosely defined in Obamanomics, is 49 percent of voters. For the record, if you make $249,000 per year or less you are fine; somewhere around $250,000 and above, you are officially evil and he is coming after you. I want to appease the new administration and not be too productive. So, upon Obama's passing his new redistribution plan, I will slow my work schedule, lay off a few people (Obama's got their back) and let someone else bust his tail since I will now be able to get 'redistributed wealth' from those poor fools who are ambitious, energetic, work hard and have made good decisions."
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This column is funny, but the topic is serious. If Obama wins, I think a whole lot of wealthy individuals and businesses will be pulling back and waiting for a more favorable climate in Washington. Why take the risk of losing your money when, if you succeed, the gains will be more heavily taxed so the feds can "spread it around"? And with the guarantee of increased regulation, the chances of success are reduced or eliminated entirely. Obama made it pretty clear for the coal industry: build a coal fired power plant if you like, but the Obama Administration will see to it that you go bankrupt paying the penalties for the greenhouse gas emissions. The price of electricity will "skyrocket" under his policies, he says.
Should be an interesting four years for the business community, what with that target pinned to their chest.
3 comments:
If we take the Dems at their word, taxes for the $250k-plus earners will return to Clinton-era levels. Is that what high earners did during the 90s? Pull back and wait for a more favorable climate?
I personally believe that no matter who wins tomorrow, taxes for all of us will increase, because we have so many unavoidable expenses (Iraq, bailout, etc.) But then, I am often wrong.
Obama's magic number changed from $250K to $200K last week, and then Biden dropped it to $150 in one of his speeches. I believe Bill Richardson then said it was $135 or something a few days ago (he is supposed to be our new Secretary of State or something).
Obama's word doesn't mean much anyway. Obama said he'd accept public financing for his campaign, and then he went back on his word so he could greatly outspend McCain. Once he is in office, he will find some clever way to spin and obfuscate nailing the middle class to redistribute wealth to those he deems more deserving, and calling it something else. I think Obama will prove to be even better at rationalizing his policies than Clinton was.
Obama is proposing a fantastic amount of new spending that couldn't possibly be financed without slamming the middle class. I don't doubt the strategy will be for Obama to raise taxes like crazy and then claim that McCain would have done it, too. That assertion can't be refuted if McCain loses. (However, McCain's spending priorities would have been much different--that much is certain.)
If taxes go up in this economy, we are looking at some very hard times.
Obama, contrary to your post, has been very consistent on taxes. The bottom line is that $250K or more means an increase (due to the top rate resetting to 39.6 and using a new FICA band to underwrite health care reform and repay Bush’s borrowing from the Social Security fund).
And, in the band from $200-$250, no increase for any married couples, no change for most, and if you’re under $200K, every married couple is slated for a cut. That has been consistent throughout the campaign.
I don’t know where Biden gets his number.
The lower RIchardson figure is for single childless people. We haven't had a president in a generation who was tax-friendly to single people and Obama and McCain would be no exception; as a single person myself, I can conclusively say that they both suck on this point, but under the circumstances I’ll allow it. I guess that's what comes of a generation of politicians trying to moralize through the tax code with red herrings like the "marriage penalty". The $250K figure is and always was for married couples. This tax plan of Obama's has probably changed less than any other economic policy on either side.
Obama's spending proposals are dwarfed by McCain's, believe it or not. Part of it is McCain's very costly promises regarding taxes on unearned income, and another problem is the very large areas of government spending that McCain has ruled off-limits to spending cuts. Also I think it's safe to assume that McCain would not do much about the pork-encrusted monstrosity that is the Medicare drug "benefit", seeing as that was a Republican proposal supported by the drug companies.
And McCain's one big funded spending promise, the $2,500/$5,000 health care credit, is funded by massive proposed tax increases on health benefits -- which fall squarely on the middle class and on business.
Overall, from a fiscal conservative standpoint, both candidates are scary. But as all too often, the Republican is the more profligate. The Obama proposals cost $3.6 to $5.9 trillion over 10 years, and the McCain proposals cost $5.1 to $7.4 trillion over ten years, according to the Tax Policy Center.
No matter what, cleaning up after Bush will be excruciatingly expensive. When you blow $3 trillion on an insane war and another $1.6 trillion on an ill-advised tax cut at the same time, and then pay for it by borrowing from the Chinese, and store up more costly foreign policy trouble by overriding your own field commanders’ best suggestions for getting bin Laden, and allow a shaky credit derivatives market to expand 100 times over from $600 billion in your first year to the size of the world's entire GDP within six years, and beg the American people to shop their way out of war and recession, at a time that our own health care system is so broken that GM spends more on health insurance than on steel for its cars, it doesn't leave your successor with any good options.
Personally I'll disqualify the one who is proposing the bigger borrow and spend number, and that's McCain. And it isn’t just more borrowing and spending. It’s bad advice and misplaced priorities too. His primary economics adviser is Phil Gramm, who did more than anyone else to stoke the credit derivatives market that has gotten us into such trouble His economic plan manages to cost more than Obama’s and yet do less on reducing middle-income taxes, fixing health care and investing in our infrastructure and R&D. It’s basically Bushonomics on steroids, and that is a quick path to national bankruptcy. We didn't fight enough wars, he claims; we didn't cut investment or capital gains taxes enough, we didn't cut taxes for high income earners enough -- that's his line of reasoning. The Bush administration has been a calamity, on economics and on so many other matters that would be OT in this post. Why repeat it?
I cannot begin to see how anyone could justify McCain's insane level of borrowing combined with minimal or zero tax benefit for most ordinary Americans and complete cluelessness on how to invest in the economy and our infrastructure.
And as for a tax “increase” in this economy, the Obama tax take proposal, at 18.2 percent of GDP, remains a lower tax take as a percentage of GDP than under Reagan or Clinton. A half percent higher than McCain, that’s true. But who said that a lower tax take guarantees economic growth? Clinton grew federal revenue from 18 to 22 percent of GDP, and our economy soared. Bush took us right back down again, and our economy just posted its first ever complete cycle in which average earnings went down and ended up utterly in the tank. How could this be? Well, as long as Republicans go on denying that tax distribution matters, that borrowing matters, that deficits matter, that mindless deregulation matters, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
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