A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. Altogether, Mr. Obama is promising at least $4.3 trillion of increased spending and reduced tax revenue from 2009 to 2018 -- roughly an extra $430 billion a year by 2012-2013.Where is all that money going to come from? There the Obama campaign indulges in fantasies about how much can be raised from taxing the top earners and ending waste and loopholes. How many times have we heard from presidential candidates that they're going to close up waste and loopholes and find untold billions in savings? It never happens.
The money won't come from taxing the wealthy.
Raising the tax rates on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $200,000-$250,000, and phasing out their exemptions and deductions, can raise only a small fraction of the amount. Even if we have a strong economy, Mr. Obama's proposed tax hikes on the dwindling ranks of high earners would be unlikely to raise much more than $30 billion-$35 billion a year by 2012.And that doesn't take into account how the wealthy are very smart about finding ways to minimize their tax burdens so that we never get as much money from raising their taxes that advocates tell us we will.
Then the Obama proposals dip into their happy world where they can find all sorts of waste and loopholes to be terminated.
n his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention on Aug. 28, Mr. Obama said, "I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime -- by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens." That comment refers to $924.1 billion over 10 years from what the TPC wisely labels "unverifiable revenue raisers." To put that huge figure in perspective, the Congressional Budget Office optimistically expects a total of $3.7 trillion from corporate taxes over that period. In other words, Mr. Obama is counting on increasing corporate tax collections by more than 25% simply by closing "loopholes" and complaining about foreign "tax havens."There is no way that he is going to find the money that he talks about for all his new proposals and promises to expand other spending, even if he immediately withdrew our troops from Iraq.
Nobody, including the Tax Policy Center, believes that is remotely feasible. And Mr. Obama's dream of squeezing more revenue out of corporate profits, dividends and capital gains looks increasingly unbelievable now that profits are falling, banks have cut or eliminated dividends, and only a few short-sellers have any capital gains left to tax.
When it comes to direct spending -- as opposed to handing out "refund" checks through the tax code -- Mr. Obama claims he won't need more revenue because there will be no more spending. He even claims to be proposing to cut more spending ending up with a "net spending cut." That was Mr. Obama's most direct answer to Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the last debate, right after Mr. Schieffer said "The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFARB) ran the numbers" and found otherwise.
The Joint Tax Committee reports that the bottom 60% of taxpayers with incomes below $50,000 paid less than 1% of the federal income tax in 2006, while the 3.3% with incomes above $200,000 paid more than 58%. Most of Mr. Obama's tax rebates go to the bottom 60%. They can't possibly be financed by shifting an even larger share of the tax burden to the top 3.3%.So when you listen to Barack Obama's campaign proposals, just remember that he's either going to have to renege on the new spending he's advocating or he's going to have to increase taxes on a lot more than that top percentile.
Mr. Obama has offered no clue as to how he intends to pay for his health-insurance plans, or doubling foreign aid, or any of the other 175 programs he's promised to expand. Although he may hope to collect an even larger share of loot from the top of the heap, the harsh reality is that this Democrat's quest for hundreds of billions more revenue each year would have to reach deep into the pockets of the people much lower on the economic ladder. Even then he'd come up short.
And with the Democrats having the large majorities in both houses of Congress that the polls seem to be indicating we'll see next year, there won't be any check on all the new spending and taxes that both they and he want to see. And remember, once any bill goes through Congress, it will be larded up with even more spending that get added just to smooth its way to approval. If you think spending was out of control under Republican governance, wait until you see the Democrats in charge!
And once new programs and spending levels get approved, we'll never get rid of them. That new spending will become the new baseline. It will go on and on.
And we'll all be paying for it.
4 comments:
I completely agree with this. Obama is an idealist who plans on integrating widely expensive illuminati socialist plans, without a single practical plan to finance them. Everyone who votes for Obama thinking they;e going to get some free money and no taxes are going to be in for surprise. Sure at first we'll see him minimizing superfluous expeditures to finance his programs, like... ohh say defense and military spending, a whole 25% is already being proposed by democrats, but then there won't be any left to drain, and then its onto his constituents.
The Democrats are now talking about taxing 401k gains at Mr. Obama's new and improved cap gains tax rate. I suppose that next they will be declaring that unearned income from pensions, IRAs and such retirement programs as well as earned income are income which decreases SS payments and also eliminate the full retirement benefit of no limit on income. Think about this; until 66 years of age for most people now, you lose 1 dollar for every 2 dollars earned over $13,560. If the above were placed in law and if you received SS of 14,000 a year and if you have an income of $28,000 above the $13,560 limit you would lose all SS. So instead of having a total income of $55,560 you would have $41,560. Nice thought and the way the Democrats are talking now, even before the election, I wouldn't bet against this happening.
Obama telling everyone he is going to do things--with no plan...what's new! He is totally unprepared to run this country. I can't wait to see these illuminati Obama supporters come back to your website after he is elected and everything comes tumbling down. Obama is a puppet. He is a puppet the democrats are using to lure the public into voting for him and turning America democratic for years to come, in Congress and the Supreme Court...meanwhile, Obama has NO idea what he's doing....and if Obama is a puppet….what does that make his supporters??
He has told the American people he plans to spend more money, and no one has bothered to ask themselves where he is going to get this money from? The socialist illuminati want us to pay for it, and whatever we can't afford, just add it to our deficit. It seems like we'll never have a surplus again.
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