Posts with the tag 'taxes'
With a major Presidential hopeful openly pining for one-world socialism, and the prospect of encroaching socialism moving ever more mainstream, it would appear that John Lennon’s dream in his protest song, Imagine, is much closer to fruition this day and age.
So, with conservatism becoming the new counter-culture, I offer a protest song for the 21st century.
Imagine, for the 21st Century (without apology to John Lennon)
Imagine there’re no Liberals
It’s easy if you try
No welfare state to enslave us
Or taxing us to the sky…
Imagine all the people
Keeping their own wealth…
Imagine we have a country…
It isn’t hard to do
One that we’ll defend and die for..
And secure our borders, too
Imagine all the people
Living life secure…
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And our nation will be as one.
Imagine no class envy…
I wonder if you can
Opportunity for everyone..
From fetus unto man
Imagine all the people
Living the American Dream.. ah-haaa-ah!
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll be conservative
And our nation will live as one.
Tags: Conservatism, Obama, taxes
August 14th, 2008
Once again showing why all conservatives should rally ’round McCain:
At its core, the economy isn’t the sum of an array of bewildering statistics. It’s about where Americans work, how they live, how they pay their bills today and save for tomorrow. It’s about small businesses opening their doors, hiring employees and growing. It’s about giving workers the education and training to find a good job and prosper in it. It’s about the aspirations of the American people to build a better life for their families; dreams that begin with a job.
So how are we going to create good jobs? Let’s start with small businesses, which create the majority of all jobs. A recent report says small businesses have created 233,000 jobs so far this year while other sectors are losing jobs. Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and create more jobs. My opponent wants to make it harder by imposing a “pay or play” health mandate on small business. This adds $12,000 to the cost of employing anyone with a family. That means new jobs will not be created. It means existing employees will have their wages cut to pay for this mandate. My plan attacks the real problems of healthcare — cost, availability and portability.
Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday. But the American people like it, and so do small business owners. Just ask Andrew Emmett who runs Air-Tite insulation in Michigan. He has had to stop hiring new workers because of the cost of fuel for his trucks.
We need to keep the IRS from taking more of your income and making life harder for small business. If you believe you should pay more taxes, I am the wrong candidate for you. Senator Obama is your man. The choice in this election is stark and simple. Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won’t. I will cut them where I can. Jobs are the most important thing our economy creates. When you raise taxes in a bad economy you eliminate jobs. I’m not going to let that happen.
Senator Obama’s tax increases will hurt the economy even more, and destroy jobs across this country. If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates. If you have an investment for your child’s education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, he is going to raise your taxes. He will raise estate taxes to 45 percent. I propose to cut them to 15 percent. His plan will hurt the American worker and family. It will hurt the economy and cost us jobs. For those of you with children, I will double the child deduction from $3,500 to $7,000 for every dependent, in every family in America. At a time of increasing gas and food prices, American families need tax relief and I, not my opponent, will deliver it.
Obama’s entire economic plan is just warmed-over Carterism…as was said of the Bourbons of old, the liberal Democrats have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. Obama’s blast-from-the-past concepts like a “windfall profits” tax shows that he hasn’t thought about economics, but has swallowed whole the liberal concept that the government knows best. McCain, however, is a longstanding Reaganite on the economy - the man who understands that as far as economic growth is concerned, the best thing the government can do is get the heck out of the way. You can’t manage an economy from the center because you can’t know what people want, nor what people are willing to do. Only the free interplay of the market can make such determinations - still imperfectly, but far more effectively than even the wisest and most knoweldgable government bureaucrat.
But McCain is also no booster of mere business for the sake of business - he seems to instinctively understand that the very large corporations can be just as ineffective as the very large government bureaucracies and this is why McCain’s emphasis is on the smaller corporations and family businesses. It is the man or woman who is building up something of their own who is doing the real work of America - not the man working on becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company, no more than the empire-building bureaucrat is. Large corporations and large bureaucracies will remain, at least for a while; but the less said about them, the better - and lets certainly not go about encouraging them. Unleash the average American, and you’ll get prosperity. McCain is for such unleashing, while Obama is for fastening yet more chains about us…nice chains, to be sure; chains which are intended to help us, it goes without saying…but chains nonetheless, and chains which will ruin us and, for the 1,000th time, dash liberal hopes and dreams.
We’ve hit a rocky patch at the junction of stupid loans (made, it must be noted, mostly by larger corporations with the connivance of Big Government) and high oil prices. The economy is in fundamentally good shape, but in order to weather this storm and emerge stronger on the other side of it we’ll need a free marketing Reaganite like McCain, not a quasi-socialist Carterite like Obama.
Tags: Barack Obama, economic policy, government spending, John McCain, taxes
July 8th, 2008
“As Mark Twain, that greatest of American satirists and proud son of Missouri, once wrote, Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” We may hope that our leaders and our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our history when that’s occurred. But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expression of patriotism.”
-Barack Hussein Obama, in a speech delivered on 30 June, 2008-
So that explains Barack Hussein Obama’s close relationship with one William Ayers, whose patriotic duty (by Obama’s definition) included setting bombs and killing innocent people. Heck, according to Obama’s definition, and by Ayers’ own admission, he just wasn’t patriotic enough.
That also explains Obama’s close relationship with one Rev. “God Damn America!” Wright.
For in Barack Hussein Obama’s world, these men, and others, have demonstrated, according to Obama’s own definition, the “…truest expression of patriotism,” in spades.
An axiom that I have long held is that liberals have no chance of winning a debate in the arena of ideas, unless they are given rein to re-define the terms of that debate.
The heinous practice of killing a baby in what should be the safety of a mother’s womb, heretofore known as abortion, is now known as, “reproductive health.”
The process whereby the government confiscates wealth from productive Americans for redistribution, formerly known as “taxes,” are now known as “contributions” or “investments.”
Today, “the messiah” stated,
“…surely we can agree that no party or political philosophy has a monopoly on patriotism. And surely we can arrive at a definition of patriotism that, however rough and imperfect, captures the best of America’s common spirit.”
If Obama’s sense of ‘patriotism’ embodies his established pattern of associations with “patriotic” individuals, such as Ayers, Wright, Pfleger, and others whom he must consider “…the best of America’s common spirit,” then color me unpatriotic.
Cause I ain’t buying it.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Proving that Democrats are about as dumb as a box of rocks, another Obama surrogate opens mouth and inserts foot:
While Barack Obama was urging supporters not to devalue the military service of rival John McCain, an informal Obama adviser argued Monday that the former POW’s isolation during the Vietnam War has hobbled the Arizona senator’s capacity as a war-time leader.
“Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him,” said informal Obama adviser Rand Beers…
…”So I think,” he continued, “to some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world.”
I wonder if Beers thinks that Obama’s experience is “sadly limited” by the fact that he was just a kid during Vietnam? Or that he didn’t serve at all, in any capacity, this great nation he aspires to govern?
Tags: abortion, John McCain, Obama, Patriotism, taxes, The Fifth Column
June 30th, 2008
And if you fall for this, then you’re an exceptionally dense person:
Democrat Barack Obama told voters Saturday he would push an aggressive economic agenda as president: cutting taxes for the middle class, raising taxes on the wealthy, pouring money into “green energy” and requiring employers to set up retirement saving plans for their workers.
Campaigning in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the fall campaign, Obama said he would take a much more hands-on approach than would Republican John McCain. He again criticized McCain’s proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax. It would “actually do real harm,” Obama said, by reducing revenue for road and bridge construction even as oil companies make record profits.
Speaking to about 200 people in Wayne, a Philadelphia suburb, Obama made no new proposals but emphasized earlier ones in light of rising gas prices, inflation and job losses. They include a $1,000 tax cut for most working families; a new Social Security tax on incomes above $250,000; a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies; a $4,000 annual college tuition credit for those who commit to national or community service programs; and an end to income taxes for elderly people making less than $50,000 a year.
A President can only do so much, of course, and just how much effort do you think ultra-leftwing extremist Obama, working with a very liberal Democratic Congress, will expend on cutting taxes vis a vis raising taxes and spending? I’m sure that if Obama wins the “middle class tax cut” will make it into the rhetoric for a while, but I’ll also bet that, like Clinton, Obama will find out that, painful as it may be (for you and me, that is), there’s just no room in the budget for a tax cut…this is because we can’t afford it…can’t afford, that is, to leave your own money in your own pocket. And “we” means “government bureaucrats” and not, you know, “me and you”.
Of leftist moonshine and American defeat is what you want, thne Obama is your man - on the other hand, if hard nosed reality and American victory is what you want, then McCain will be your man in 2008.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, liberal lies, spending, tax cuts, taxes
June 15th, 2008
From Larry Kudlow:
Sen. John McCain moved decisively to the supply-side Tuesday in a strong speech to the National Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C. For investors, small-business owner-operators, and the vast majority of middle-class Americans who go to work every day and are concerned about Sen. McCain’s tax vision, this speech is good news. Big Mac is the taxpayer-friendly candidate.
The Republican candidate for president embraced low-tax-rate incentives to grow the economy, promising a combination of pro-growth tax reform and simplification along with significant spending restraint. He has called himself a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution. This tax speech clinches it.
When contrasted with Obama’s Carteresque program of high taxes, high spending and a new “era of limits”, it becomes clear that McCain is the man who believes in America, and the ability of Americans to forge ahead in an increasingly competitive world. And in seeing this, we conservatives should really start to smoke the peace pipe in earnest with John McCain - sure, we don’t like CFR and we’re still seething over the judicial issue (additionally, many are upset over McCain’s immigration proposal from 2007 - but I’m not one of them, as I backed it), but outside of these issues, McCain is our man - and certainly a solid choice in contrast to the disaster Obama promises us.
We conservatives have to entirely step out of the realm of theory and into the world of practical politics - we won’t ever get all we want, but we must try to get as much as we can…to quibble over side issues while the central issues are in danger is foolish. Do we want a powerful America? Do we want a prosperous America? Do we want a free America? Do we want an America which protects the family? Then we have to do what we can to obtain these things - and if that means we have to sometimes put a part of our project on the back burner, then that is just how it will have to be. As my grandfather used to say, better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing - and McCain is actually offering us 90% of what we want! And, actually, more than that.
You see, for too long we’ve tended to cede the popular debate on economics to the liberals - while we prove, again and again, that supply side economics works, we still get crushed in the debate because the left is able to craft a plausible fairy tale about Evil Corporations fighting against Selfless Liberals who fight for the Consumer and the Children. McCain is willing to go toe to toe with the liberals on this issue, but he understands that it doesn’t do us any good to fight for free markets while even appearing to defend corporate bosses who (a) don’t care about free markets and (b) tend to shovel money at any politician - even an ultra leftist - who will give them an unfair advantage in the market. So, fight for low taxes - but also hold CEO’s feet to the fire for their boneheaded decisions (most notably of late, of course, the sub-prime meltdown); we know that a free market will fix whatever ailes the market, but we should also insist that those running the show are held responsible when through greed or incompetance they cause problems which adversely affect everyone; more CEO accountability and the market won’t have to fix as many problems, right?
The more McCain speaks, the more I like what I see - and the more willing I am to go to bat for him. Time for conservatism to completely grow up and cast aside the nattering classes who aren’t satisfied with anything short of perfection - in a contest between a leftist lawyer and a war hero, who do you really think is the better candidate?
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, taxes
June 12th, 2008
Rep. Bill Foster, D-IL. put out a press release blasting the Democratic leadership and their proposed budget.
“I can’t support a budget, from either party, that raises taxes on the middle class. This bill hurts families all across the 14th District by eliminating the 10-percent bracket for lower-income taxpayers, reinstating the marriage penalty and increasing taxes on small businesses and investments.
Foster’s admission contradicts Nancy Pelosi, who recently said on the House floor that “this year’s budget plan does not include a tax increase.”
At least someone on the Democrat side of the aisle will admit it. Congratulations, Rep. Foster.
Tags: taxes
June 10th, 2008
So says Rasmussen:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 62% of voters would prefer fewer government services with lower taxes. Nearly a third (29%) disagrees and would rather have a bigger government with higher taxes. Ten percent (10%) are not sure…
…Republican voters overwhelmingly prefer fewer government services—83% of the GOP faithful hold that view while just 13% prefer more government involvement. Democratic voters are evenly divided on this question: 46% prefer more government services, while 43% prefer less government services.
Not surprisingly, conservative voters like less government while liberal voters favor a bigger government. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of politically moderate voters prefer smaller government. A separate survey found that most adults (56%) are worried that the next president will raise taxes too much.
Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters think American society is generally fair and decent. Twenty-seven percent (27%) think it is unfair and discriminatory. Those numbers have become slightly more positive over the past month.
A lot of bad news in there for Obama and the basic leftwing worldview…this, though, tends to confirm (with the proviso that polls are always weak reeds) my long held view that America is at bottom a center/right nation; any politician who can bring together the center and the right will have the majority, while any attempt to curry favor with the left will make a politician just about un-electable. This year is the best year for the left to win not because the left is popular, but because the right is less popular than usual, and many consevatives are threatening to sit it out…but if McCain can re-energise the right and carry with him the center he’s already got, then he will win in November.
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatism, John McCain, liberalism, spending, taxes
May 27th, 2008
One of the most liberal RINOs out there is getting a taste of his own medicine:
Silver Introduces “Courtesy” Pricing Bill, Wants a Millionaire Tax
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver introduced a congestion pricing bill yesterday, but was quoted as saying “we have a long way to go” before it clears his chamber.
The Times reports that Silver, introducing the plan “as a courtesy to the new governor,” agreed not to “block” it “in exchange for some version of the new tax on anyone making more than $1 million.” But some Republican lawmakers who might otherwise support congestion pricing are opposed to the “millionaire tax” (as is Mayor Bloomberg).
Heh. Live by liberalism, die by liberalism, I say.
Tags: liberalism, Mayor Bloomberg, taxes
April 11th, 2008
As recent history has shown, when you give tax cuts to the people who create jobs, it stimulates the economy. Tax relief is good thing, but unfortunately, according to an AP story this morning, a deal has been reached over the issue of tax rebates for economic stimulus which includes give rebates to those who weren’t paying taxes… in other words: welfare.
Democratic and Republican congressional leaders reached a tentative deal Thursday on tax rebates of $300 to $1,200 per family and business tax cuts to jolt the slumping economy.
Congressional officials close to the negotiations said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio reached agreement in principle in a telephone call Thursday morning.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two wanted key members of their parties to sign off on the accord before any announcement.
The accord came as the White House said Thursday an agreement was imminent.
Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during a Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining rebates of at least $300 for almost everyone earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes
Tax relief should go to those who pay taxes. While I understand that if we want any kind of tax relief and economic stimulus that we’re going to have to make some compromises with Democrats who care more about giving handouts than fixing the economy, but let’s face it, if a recession is on the horizon (and that’s debatable) we should look at what kind of tax relief has worked in the past… The Bush tax cuts that targeted job creators worked very well…
Tags: John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, recession, tax rebate, taxes
January 24th, 2008
“The American Republic will endure until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” -Alexis De Tocqueville
Politicians, especially since FDR, have long known that they can bribe the people with their own money. But since FDR, a healthy majority of the American people couldn’t be bought. They loved freedom, less government, and a secure nation more than the baubles and breadcumbs that may have flowed from Washington, D.C.
The nation, on the whole, was a conservative nation.
Nothing illustrated this more than the wholesale acceptance of Ronald Wilson Reagan in the 1980s, and of his legacy as borne in the Contract with America that launched the Republican Congressional revolution of 1994.
And nothing spelled out the repudiation of the conservative principles on which this nation was founded than the third place finish of Fred Thompson in South Carolina.
On point after point, from immigration, to national security, to taxes and to life itself, Fred Thompson mirrored the conservative ideals that, when put to practice, have been proven to be so effective in governing our nation since the penning of the Federalist Papers.
If there was anywhere in this nation where it couldn’t have been more clear, it would have been in South Carolina; traditionally a bastion of clear thinking, small government conservatives.
Yet John McCain, in every sense an opportunistic political populist with a liberal voting record as long as the Mississippi, ran the table.
Newt Gingrich caught a lot of flack when he proclaimed that Reaganesque conservatism was in its death throes, and that politicians needed to embrace a more “centrist” approach.
He was right in the sense that South Carolina is current living proof that Reaganesque conservatism is, if anything, on life support.
Maybe Rush Limbaugh was right last week when he said that it took a Jimmy Carter to give us Ronaldus Magnus.
Perhaps 2012 will be the year of Fred… if the liberals haven’t run us into the ground by then.
Tags: , 2008 Election, Conservatism, Fred Thompson, John McCain, South Carolina, taxes
January 20th, 2008
I didn’t see all of the interview, but I did catch the part where Ron Paul advocated abolishing the IRS. And wasn’t impressed with Ron Paul’s response.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ohglJS3ltM 350 350]
Hey, the idea sounds great to me. But, as I was watching, I was struck by the fact that when Beck asked Ron Paul what would replace the IRS — a flat tax, a national sales tax, or something else — Ron Paul really had no answer. He basically said he didn’t want it replaced with something else or with more spending. Here’s the video:
His response to “What is your proposal?” was weak. Paul basically said he had no proposal. “Anything would be better.” Well, that’s great, but that doesn’t solve the problem, or answer the question about how the federal government would get tax revenues to pay for the things it’s suppose to.
Michael Illions over at Polipundit noted that Ron Paul looked uncomfortable at this point, and I have to agree, but I’m not sure whether it was because Glenn Beck was fawning over his desire to abolish the IRS, or if it was because he had no plan to explain what he believes the federal government should do to generate revenue to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.
Tags: Flat Tax, Glenn Beck, IRS, national sales tax, Ron Paul, taxes, YouTube
December 19th, 2007
This race isn’t just about keeping the OH-05 seat in GOP hands… it’s about keeping taxes low, our borders secure, and preventing socialize health care that would also cover illegal immigrants. Bob Latta’s opponent will be another vote for raising taxes, open borders, and HillaryCare.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taMDZsSemxs]
Let’s help Bob Latta win in Ohio’s 5th Congressional District!
Visit Bob Latta’s campaign website.
Donate to Bob Latta’s campaign via Slatecard.
Tags: Bob Latta, health care, illegal immigration, taxes
December 6th, 2007
On Fox News Sunday, and Rove’s reaction was the same as mine:
WALLACE: Let’s — because there’s a lot of stuff out there, so let’s hone in on a couple of things, and let’s talk, first of all, about the economy, spending, taxes.
Congressman, all the Democratic presidential candidates, as Mr. Rove points out, talk about letting the Bush tax cuts expire. The Democratic chairman of House Ways and Means, Charlie Rangel, is proposing an income surtax on couples making more than $200,000 a year.
Won’t people like Karl Rove be able to say, as they’ve said over and over again, your party will raise taxes, his won’t?
VAN HOLLEN: We will not raise taxes, and if you look…
(LAUGHTER)
No, no, no. If you look at…
ROVE: Oh, no, no, no, no. Wait a minute.
VAN HOLLEN: Wait. You tell me — wait, wait, wait, wait. Karl, wait. No, no, listen.
Yeah, right…sure, Van Hollen…we believe you! We know that you Democrats are determined to allow Americans to keep more of what they earn…unless, of course, they are “rich”…but not rich like Ted Kennedy or Jay Rockefeller….we’re talking about the other rich, the one’s who work for a living…
Tags: Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove, taxes
December 3rd, 2007
We hear much of it, and we’re going to hear even more of it as 2008 moves on - that we need to “tax the rich” for this or that good cause. From closing the budget deficit (which is already being closed, but don’t bother telling Democrats that) to paying for health care, Democrats are on the warpath to repeal President Bush’s alleged “tax cuts for the rich” from 2001 (if there’s one other thing besides winning Florida in 2000 which gets a Democrat’s goat, it is President Bush’s tax cuts of 2001…these were done even though Democrats carefully instructed President Bush on the necessity of implementing Democratic policies after the disputes of Election 2000). But what does “taxing the rich” really entail?
This news story has permanent pain-in-the-neck rich guy Warren Buffet arguing in Congress against a permanent end to the “death tax” - that tax which only hits an estate when someone is unlucky enough to die rich and not locked away in a Kennedy-esque trust fund. Buffet, a man who feels that he’s got his and so no need to keep the system going which allowed him to get rich, is trotted out (or, more accurately, trots himself out into the media spotlight) whenever Democrats need a rich guy to go on record in favor of tax-and-spend Democrat policies. He’s a sort of “kept Robber Baron” for the left who isn’t a kook like Soros. Buffett is just being Buffett - but he does, unintentionally, neatly illustrate what is meant by Democrats when they say “tax the rich”; what they mean is “tax people who are either making a high annual income or have large, unprotected assets when they croak”.
You see, when we get someone like Buffett or, say, Bill Clinton going on about how they don’t need that GOP “tax cut for the rich”, they are being a bit…well, errrr…how does one put this?…fraudulent? Yeah, that’s the word I was looking for.
The thing is, someone like Bill Clinton doesn’t really have “income”, per se: when a publisher showers him with $20 million (or whatever the heck it was) for his memoirs, ol’ Bill takes his tax hit and then keeps the remaining pile…and then puts it into financial instruments which allow him to access his wealth with little or no risk of future tax liabilities. And even if the estate tax does eventually take a bite out of his assets, its not like Chelsea will be all that adversely affected…she’s not inheriting a farm or small business…just a name, and whatever assets remain to it, none of which will be necessary for the continuation of the Clinton name. Think of it like this - if you were to win the lottery for $25 million and Uncle Sam, et al, nailed you for $10 million, you’d still be pleased as punch about the $15 million you’ve got which cannot be further taxed as income. Go ahead and join the Democratic party and advocate a top marginal rate of 75% - it doesn’t matter to you, because you’ve already got yours and won’t feel the pinch. On the other hand, if you are a rancher, farmer, doctor, lawyer, small business owner, then that doofus lottery winner advocating a “tax the rich” policy is a real jerk because he’s not advocating a tax on the $15 million he’s got in the bank, but instead a tax on the $250,000 you make each year, out of which you have to pay for college for the kids, the mortgage, insurance, prepare for retirement, etc, etc, etc…
The common denominator among liberal/lefty calls for “tax the rich” schemes is the fact that none of them tax the rich - not the real rich; the people who sit atop hundreds of billions in assets which are either untaxed or taxed mildly at the State and local level. Someone got it into their heads back in the late 19th century that the best way to get at people like the Rockefellers was to tax their income - the Rockefellers’ opposed it, but laughed up their sleeve when it was imposed in 1913…because, as you can see, people like uber-liberal Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller are very much awash in wealth nearly a century later because an income tax isn’t a tax on the rich, but a tax on the productive. Waaay the heck back when, there was a Rockefeller who had a massive annual income - but he was also working his butt off to earn it; after earning it, he turned it into assets which have now been expertly protected by legal devices against the threat of any real taxation. And if that isn’t sure enough, then there is the fact that any tax which would actually have a significant impact on the inherited wealth would have to get past a Senate clogged with tax-shelter beneficiaries such as Rockefeller, Kennedy, Clinton, etc.
You bring me a Democrat who is advocating a tax on the value of Clinton’s $1.7 million dollar New York estate, and then I’ll sit up an take notice. Start taxing them at, say, $17,000.00 per year into the Federal treasury just for owning that nifty house, and then you’ll have a “tax the rich” scheme which actually taxes rich people - a tax which causes money to be paid out of wealth, rather than out of income.
Now, does anyone want to bet me on the chances we’ll ever see that sort of proposal?
Tags: class war, taxes
November 15th, 2007
…to pay for Social Security.
Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday he will push for higher Social Security taxes if elected, viewing it as the best option for improving the retirement program’s finances.
Obama and several other Democratic presidential candidates previously have signaled support for lifting the cap on the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security checks.
But during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said taxing more of a person’s income was the option he would push for if elected president. He objected to benefit cuts or a higher retirement age.
“I think the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more and people who are in need are protected,” the Illinois senator said.
“That is the option that I will be pushing forward.” Currently, only the first $97,500 of a person’s annual income is taxed. That cap is scheduled to rise to $102,000 next year.
A bold move for Obama, considering that when Bush was pushing for Social Security reform back in 2005, Democrats largely opposed doing anything to ensure Social Security’s solvency. When Rep. Wexler (D-FL) made his own proposal, which included tax increases, Democrats distanced themselves from him, and Nancy Pelosi reportedly “chewed him out over the phone,” for making his proposal.
We know Democrats, if given the chance, will raise taxes. Two years ago, they were reluctant to be honest about their tax-raising tendencies, yet today, Obama who is pursuing the presidency, seems comfortable pledging to raise our taxes.
Tags: Barack Obama, Social Security, taxes
November 11th, 2007
