Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Obama’s War On Capitalism
Morris - Waging War on Prosperity
Kerpen - Obama’s Scary Hoover-Style Tax Hikes
Blankley - Obama Lied; the Economy Died
Dick Morris from Townhall.com, Waging War on Prosperity
President Lyndon Johnson’s administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama’s will become notable for his War on Prosperity.
We’re speaking, of course, of Obama’s plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He’s not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he’s also disallowing about one-third of top earner’s deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.
Phil Kerpen from Fox News, Obama’s Scary Hoover-Style Tax Hikes
The composition of the tax hikes in the 2010 budget is frighteningly similar to the Revenue Act of 1932, the much-maligned Hoover tax hikes that put the “Great” in Great Depression by putting an enormous tax burden on millions of Americans, largely through excise taxes. These taxes, raised even further by FDR, were justified by the promise that the funds would be returned in the form of relief programs, which is to say that some portion of the tax revenue, after administrative costs in Washington, would go back to the states with strings attached, often to further political rather than economic objectives.
Despite President Obama’s promise that “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime,” his new budget raises 45 percent of its revenue from energy taxes that will be paid by everyone who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys anything that was grown, shipped, or manufactured.
If we continue down a path of repeating the policies of the 1930s we risk a repeat of the same results. Let’s hope Congress has the good sense to say no to these Hoover-style tax hikes.
Tony Blankley from the Washington Times, Obama Lied; the Economy Died
“My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”
But, lamentably, a few days later, The Washington Post reported: “A senior administration official acknowledged yesterday that the budget does not contain $2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. Instead, the figure represents Obama’s total efforts at deficit reduction, including tax hikes [of more than $1 trillion] on families making over $250,000 a year. It also includes hundreds of billions of dollars ‘saved’ by not continuing to spend $170 billion a year in Iraq.”
Only a big government man would think of calling a trillion-dollar tax increase a spending cut or “saving.” Technically, of course, it is true. A trillion-dollar tax increase will reduce spending by a trillion dollars for those private citizens who were taxed. And, from the perspective of the federal government, a trillion dollars taxed is a trillion dollars saved from the greed of the taxpayers who produced the wealth
Blogging • American Politics • Energy • Obama Nation • The Economy • Permalink
