The Tax Shift
 

A friends comments.

"Obama knows or should know that there is no way he can finance his new programs by increasing the burden on the top 5%, even to the point of absurdity. He will raise taxes on everyone and just call it something else. Come to think of it, by raising taxes on corporations (all the smart people know that corporations don't really pay taxes, they just pass it on as the cost of doing business and raise the price of goods) he will have already broken his promise to not raise taxes on the botttom 95%."RR

(da meat)
Obama and the Tax Tipping Point
How long before taxpayers are pushed too far?

What happens when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes? Economists Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard posed this question 27 years ago. We may soon enough know the answer.

Barack Obama is offering voters strong incentives to support higher taxes and bigger government. This could be the magic income-redistribution formula Democrats have long sought.

Sen. Obama is promising $500 and $1,000 gift-wrapped packets of money in the form of refundable tax credits. These will shift the tax demographics to the tipping point where half of all voters will receive a cash windfall from Washington and an overwhelming majority will gain from tax hikes and more government spending.

In 2006, the latest year for which we have Census data, 220 million Americans were eligible to vote and 89 million -- 40% -- paid no income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute), this will jump to 49% when Mr. Obama's cash credits remove 18 million more voters from the tax rolls. What's more, there are an additional 24 million taxpayers (11% of the electorate) who will pay a minimal amount of income taxes -- less than 5% of their income and less than $1,000 annually.

In all, three out of every five voters will pay little or nothing in income taxes under Mr. Obama's plans and gain when taxes rise on the 40% that already pays 95% of income tax revenues.

The plunder that the Democrats plan to extract from the "very rich" -- the 5% that earn more than $250,000 and who already pay 60% of the federal income tax bill -- will never stretch to cover the expansive programs Mr. Obama promises.

What next? A core group of Obama enthusiasts -- those educated professionals who applaud the "fairness" of their candidate's tax plans -- will soon see their $100,000-$150,000 incomes targeted. As entitlements expand and a self-interested majority votes, the higher tax brackets will kick in at lower levels down the ladder, all the way to households with a $75,000 income.

Calculating how far society's top earners can be pushed before they stop (or cut back on) producing is difficult. But the incentives are easy to see. Voters who benefit from government programs will push for higher tax rates on higher earners -- at least until those who power the economy and create jobs and wealth stop working, stop investing, or move out of the country.

Other nations have tried the ideology of fairness in the place of incentives and found that reward without work is a recipe for decline. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher took on the unions and slashed taxes to restore growth and jobs in Great Britain. In Germany a few years ago, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder defied his party's dogma and loosened labor's grip on the economy to end stagnation. And more recently in France, Nicolas Sarkozy was swept to power on a platform of restoring flexibility to the economy.

The sequence is always the same. High-tax, big-spending policies force the economy to lose momentum. Then growth in government spending outstrips revenues. Fiscal and trade deficits soar. Public debt, excessive taxation and unemployment follow. The central bank tries to solve the problem by printing money. International competitiveness is lost and the currency depreciates. The system stagnates. And then a frightened electorate returns conservatives to power.

The economic tides will not stand still while Washington experiments with European-type social democracy, even though the dollar's role as the global reserve currency will buy some time. Our trademark competitive advantage will be lost, and once lost, it will be hard to regain. There are too many emerging economies focused on prosperity and not redistribution for the U.S. to easily recapture its role of global economic leader.

Tomorrow's children may come to question why their parents sold their birthright for a mess of "fairness" -- whatever that will signify when jobs are scarce and American opportunity is no longer the envy of the world.

Mr. Lerrick is a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122463231048556587.html

Don't think tax rates matter to business decisions? Ask H. Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, who declared earlier this week that he intends to sell up to half his ownership in the NFL franchise before next year. Why? Because as he told a Florida newspaper, Barack Obama "wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it. I'd rather give it to charity than to him."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122533091992582863.html

Yeah right, he'd rather NOT give it to the the county that supports his effin team. What a loser.

Exactly Pico - Now you got it. He would rather decide who to donate his money to - Not the Gov't.

Sounds like a flaming asshole to me, yep.

Apropos.

Oh, look...there's Pokey, following Gumby around to the end. :lol:

Well I guess if you pay x-millions of dollars for your own team, you might feel a bit put off if one day you woke up and the gobberment say gimmie half your profits. Yea, I'd sell. I'd look for an overseas buyer.

Why do you have to say that? You like flame wars?

I'd sell just because it's a loser team living on the coattails of a bunch of guys in 1972.

oh, and increased capital gains taxes are BS.

Lets see perhaps because she knows I have her on ignore, wouldn't have seen it and therefore couldn't respond. BTW thanks for quoting it.

Here is my response:

I've put myself and my "unpopular opinions" out here infinitely more than you, all the while knowing they differ from most other posters. I'm looking for that interaction. That exchange of ideology, opinions thoughts and insights. I'm not like you looking for validation from people on the internet that you so desperately crave yet apparently do not have. I'm obviously not trying to win any popularity contest. If I were I just be another attention whore like you.

Thank God the only real capital gains we will ever get as a lump sum came this year and not next.

Pssst, you can't READ me if you really have me on ignore, Pokey. :D

Oh, and about you not craving validation? You've been crying since the whole thing started. "What should I do? Please tell me what you think." Which isn't really the same thing as being an attention whore. I get all the attention I want, and discard what I don't, which you should know from the time you pretended to be all alone and sad to get attention, until it came out you're a big liar. That's when I started being suspicious of you and your motives, and have become more keenly aware of how you play around like a child (when it comes to social issues) or a pubescent teenager (when it comes to relationships.)

You don't want to push me on this. Whatever you think you can do to make me miserable on the Cellar, I got right here in the palm of my hand as well.

I wish this site was updated because it has all the elements I am interested in seeing. I bet the graphs would not change nor the percents, only the raw numbers.

http://www.allegromedia.com/sugi/taxes/

Psst, he is reading my quotes of your comments I believe. I have people on ignore and that is the only way I see their comments.

But who paid for his stadium? I'm sure he was happy to accept public funds for that.

So he should get his handy dandy blinders out. They usually work for him. :p

Good question. But he is not pulling the team, just his half of the ownership. I am sure there was a bond floated for the property and they get some kind of tax break. But then again who benefits from 60,000 (74,916 seating capacity) people coming to town to see the game besides the obvious people.

And I guess these guys get something out of it:

"The Dolphin Stadium Foundation is a non-profit foundation established in 1995 and is dedicated to the support of non-profit, charitable organizations, which place emphasis upon youth-related programs, academics, and drug-intervention and prevention programs."


According to their website it cost $115 million to build and was financed by private funds, through lease of executive suites and club seats. And I am sure other sponsorships and advertising.

Here is a comparison from the WSJ between the canidates.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122497140074869661.html

Obama's New Attack on Those Who Don't Want Higher Taxes: ‘Selfishness’
October 31, 2008 10:58 AM

On the stump this week, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pushed back against Sen. John McCain's description of his tax policies.

"The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday. "I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That’s the America dream, that’s the American way, that’s terrific.

(continues)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-new-atta.html

October 31, 2008
Obama Forgot to Spread His Own Wealth
Patrick Poole
Even when making more than $250,000, he gave away less than 1 percent to charity until he became a millionaire.


Thinking about Barack Obama's impromptu lecture to Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher about his plans to "spread the wealth", I wondered whether Obama was a practitioner of his own "spread the wealth" principles when he had the opportunity to do so, or whether he was the cheap political opportunist and redistributor of the wealth of others that he appeared to be.


Looking at Obama's charitable giving in since 2000 based on his tax returns, we find that Obama consistently refused to follow his own advice to "spread the wealth" when he had the opportunity to do so. This is especially true in years when he made nearly $250,000 or more. Their contributions didn't increase until Barack Obama's extraordinary book deal helped make him a millionaire and Michelle Obama received a nearly $200,000 raise in May 2005 when she assumed a new position with her employer as vice president of "community and external affairs".


As the chart below shows (HT: TaxProf Blog), from 2000-2004, Obama's charitable giving was less than 1 percent:






In fact, Obama gave substantially less than the average family making more than $150,000, which averages giving of 2.2 percent of total income according to University of George Professor Russell James.


By comparison, John McCain gave more than one-quarter of his income in 2006 and 2007 (28.6 and 27.3 percent respectively). And according to the New York Observer, since 1998, he has donated royalties on his books totaling more than $1.8 million.


When Barack and Michelle Obama could voluntarily give more of their own income and had the means well beyond most Americans to do so, they refused. In the event that Barack Obama is elected President, however, he and his Democrat allies in Congress intend to force others to do what he couldn't do on his own.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...d_his_own.html

And GWB raised taxes on everyone by defunding programs that the states and cities had to support, causing them to raise taxes. Most of the money went directly to the war or to service the debt for the war and 'tax cuts'.

BTW, many economists believe that McCain will have to raise taxes also. The only way not to is to stop the wars, or take from Social Security, Defense, or Medicare. The 'chainsaw' method of simply slashing all spending across the board would be a disaster.

As for charitable giving, what does that have to do with taxes? If your wife is worth at least $100 million and you don't have any dependents, you can be a lot freer with contributions. Obama is probably already putting money into both of his daughters college funds.

Clone thread:
The Tax Shit

I don't really care about the charitable contributions issue, but that is seriously the weakest comeback ever.

Obama, who has positioned himself as the one for the little guy, doesn't give to the poor... because he has to put money in his kids' college plan? He's rich. He has been for a little while. He has an insane retirement plan regardless of this election. He has ZERO money worries, not even college tuition.

http://cellar.org/2008/fedchart.gif

If we can lower the bar called "interest on debt" it will be good for *everybody* including the ppl making $200,000.

Yeeeeah... Didja know John McCain has seven children? I don't know which ones are in college, but at least four of them are college-age or younger.

Give me the 100 million and I'll take the kids too.

Some people won't part with a buck, unless it's a registered charity they can deduct from their taxes... some will.

Really? doesn't sound much different than Obamy's plan.

How about Pelosi? she must be one shitty mother to leave all those kids alone while she went after the power of a member of the US House. :eyebrow:

I'm not commenting on how well any of them raises their kids, just pointing out what a stupid defense it is to say that someone can't donate to charity because they have two kids.

I will pay more tax on my family's 100K income, if we can use our military effectively (and manage their vast support contracts competitively and strictly), invest in long term public good works like roads, grid, energy independence, security, (jobs to market to pay down deficit) invest in early childhood ed, vet benefits and control the burden of health care. With strong governance I believe investment will payoff and get us out of Republican deficit hock. I want Obama and his smarter crew driving the bus.

And all I'm saying is that he did donate to charity. I just think comparing McCains single income and stating that he donated %25 of his income when his wife had a net worth of over $100 million dollars versus combined income for a family of four is a vastly different circumstance.

And Obama's tax proposal will affect him, so he does join Warren Buffet and others who believe that the wealthy are under-taxed due to loopholes in a US tax code that is 7500 pages.

You don't see any hypocrisy in simultaneously stating that the wealthy (which by your own definition includes yourself) have an obligation to redistribute a portion of their wealth to the poor, and then utterly failing to do so yourself?

10% of his income, a modest $25,000 a year, would have been enough to make significant change in the lives of a many people. He could have, personally, by himself, bought health insurance for 5 families - not the cheap stuff either, the really good coverage. He could afford it - why didn't he do it?

I think there are only three explanations. I'm open to other possible explanations, if someone would like to suggest one:

1. Obama is interested in poverty as a issue, not actual poverty experienced by actual people.

2. Obama isn't interested in direct, personal solutions to poverty, the kind that involve people being compassionate, he is only interested in solutions that require increasing the power and presence of the federal government.

3. Obama didn't think of himself as "rich", and therefore it shouldn't be his responsibility to shoulder the burden of helping others. Being compassionate and giving, being charitable toward those who are in need, that is the noblesse oblige, but certainly not something the rest of us should feel constrained by.

I deeply distrust any person who claims poverty as an issue, and fails to do anything personally to alleviate its effects.

Maybe I missed it above, but is the issue that he did not use his money to help someone less fortunate, or that he didn't take a charitable tax donation? When people I know are having money troubles I give them money, but it doesn't show up on any official records.

Exactly, it only becomes a tax deduction when there's a registered middleman taking a cut.

Shawnee, I think you should know that classic has defended your position in the past when others here have been giving you shit.

It's up to you how to behave, but I think you're being a bit harsh. Honestly.

Oooh.. *shiver*... I've always loved that phrase.



I am being totally serious, by the way. Put it this way: I was easy in college, but only for guys who could talk like that to me. I also like "antediluvian."

Then they would show up as gifts, and the recipients would pay a gift tax on them. If that's the case, the campaign would be quick to point it out, "Hey, he may have only taken a 1% tax deduction, but he gave away $25,000 in gifts to people who needed it".

This seems very unlikely.

Get real, if I give you money you're going to pay tax on it? Bullshit. :eyebrow:

So we're at least agreed that the only honorable solution to his seeming hypocrisy is to assume that all of his charitable activity was off the record?

Not at all. We don't know what he did with his money. He didn't say, any anything we say is speculation.

Nope. Anything we say is based on publicly released tax records.

One possible, if unlikely, explanation is that he gives time more often than money. A lot of charitable organizations need hands as much as wallets. I'm ready to acknowlege that Obama is a polititcian, but is the Republican cabal ready to designate McCain as such? We will get screwed this election cycle but furthering the GOP agenda of socialism for the rich doesn't seem to be the way to go.

Yeah, I won't disagree with you about the harshness. However, things that have transpired...I'll just say I was reacting to more than the stupid election.

You know me, I feel backed into a corner and evil Shawnee rears her ugly head.

Anyway, I do apologize for being an ass. I have my moments.

No more politics for me, perhaps.

By law, that is what you are suppose to do but I don't think you actually have to claim it on amounts under 10k.

I am amazed that given the number of Americans who pay no income tax at all, there is any concern in America about social security, funding for schools, drug programmes, health programmes etc. At least when the Daily Mail spits about a waste of taxpayers' money in this country, you know that everyone is contributing to it.

I'd still rather live in a highly taxed country (in fact I'd be in favour of higher taxes and more support - I'd work Scadanavia if we had a common language). Although I admit, I'd do better in the US as I am now. Lower property prices, no income tax, cheaper eating out, and I have no dependants, no ties and could write off charitable giving and I might get laid because you're used to larger women and my accent would be a novelty?

Actually I started this just as a true post about how I prefer our way of life. But to be competely honest, I would bite the arm off someone who offered me a year in America, just for the experience. I'd love to see it first hand, really immerse myself in the culture, so I could talk knowledgably (albeit it on a small scale basis). It's about the only reason I'd want to be 18 again.

We have quite a few English and Irish Pubs around the US that would love an authentic gal like you to work for them. I think you should look into it a little more. The biggest problem is that you would likely not have benefits (insurance).

No, the biggest problem is that I simply would not get permission to work in America. I guess because too many people just disappear into the system, a la Obama's Aunt. I could have done it at 18 - I wanted to be a camp worker, but only bewteen boyfriends. Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, I've had more blowjobs... (sorry, it was what a male friend of mine used to sing, always made me laugh.)

Still - I'm at a point where I'm starting life again anyway. I like my job, I have a cat and I might, just might, get a post as a child mentor. That ties me to this country and after all that's what life is about - commitments and perseverance.

We all have our moments. I'm sure Classic understands that as well as anyone. :)

Funny picture.

http://news.aol.com/political-machin...150-000-words/

Hopefully we'll all be one big happy family after tomorrow.

lol...well that's something to be hopeful for.

MU-U-UM!! He's pinching me! Make him stop!





Are we there yet?

:grouphug:

Youse guys rock!