Comments on: Will Coddling the Middle Class Kill Obama’s Plans?

By: Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95% - Politics and Other Controversies - Page 7 - City-Data Forum

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:51:53 +0000

[...] Originally Posted by texdav Persoanlly:I thnik that is what is wrong with our system; too many with no skin in the game that want something for nothing. Its got to give at some point. Bingo! It’s going to give, alright. Look out middle class – a tax by any other name…(be sure to read the comments, too): Will Coddling the Middle Class Kill Obama�s Plans? [...]

By: Eastwood

Eastwood — Sun, 24 May 2009 07:39:59 +0000

Everyone of us need a higher growth rate to reduce the inequality and fund higher levels of social spending. By means of adding new taxes and all those things are not a result for this problem. We have rethink about it.
Disability Insurance

By: Chester White

Chester White — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:15:05 +0000

"And government spending cannot be debt-financed forever. And he can only inflate so much of it away."

Don't be so sure.

$10T in debt with 10% inflation reduces the real debt by $1T a year.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

By: Micha Elyi

Micha Elyi — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:09:17 +0000

Yessiree, JohnnyL53, and no matter how much Obama and his corrupt tax-cheat cronies smoking stogies in Cabinet meetings cream the rubes with soak-the-rich tongue syrup, you're not going to see a real tax on wealth. That would cut into the equity on the palace Rezko gifted to Obama, the Kennedy family compound, the Biden estate, all the Wyoming land Ted Turner owns, and a whole lot of Learjet liberal trust funds.

Naah, taxes will remain targeted on incomes in order to keep any of the rest of us down. Plus it makes sure that only the little people pay taxes.

By: SK

SK — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:42:00 +0000

You say, “He may be making a mistake.” I disagree. For this to be a mistake, Obama would need to be able to experience negative consequences. Our media-entertainment-academic-public elite will not allow that to happen to him. All the AM radio in the world isn't enough to counter that kind of force. Obama has enough political capital to burn on this, because his news media supporters will just keep supplying him with more.

By: JohnnyL53

JohnnyL53 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:08:07 +0000

The federal income tax taxes income…not wealth. You can take all of a rich persons income and still leave them wealthy, however, the next year they will have adjusted so there is not as much income to tax. It is called incentive. How much will I be willing to work if I get to keep an ever smaller percentage? At what point do I decide that the extra income is not worth the hours I put into generating it? Am I supposed to work for the love of paying taxes and that warm fuzzy feeling that 50 to 60 % of every extra dollar I earn is going to somebody else? Sounds kinds close to slavery, although a relatively well compensated servitude, but slavery nonetheless when tax consumers see me as selfish because I will decide to work less and therby generate less in taxes.

By: JackSheet

JackSheet — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:40:10 +0000

Tax avoidance will be the result of Obama's actions. If people think they're being soaked they will hide the dough. Very simple.

Fair Tax is the answer but then Congress can't give out favors so unless the people agitate for it it will never happen.

Fair tax I buy a Ford I pay less than guy who buys Ferrari. Tax something and you get less of it. Should we tax income or consumption? Also capital gains tax should be abolished, that alone would create enough jobs.

By: richcromwell

richcromwell — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:45:18 +0000

Great. Doesn't change anything I've said.

By: alphie

alphie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:01:54 +0000

“Under Obama's budget proposal, a typical family of four making $300,000 a year would see their federal income taxes increase by $1,100, while a similar family making $500,000 would get an $11,300 increase, according to the Deloitte analysis.”

-STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Write

By: richcromwell

richcromwell — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:45:20 +0000

I simply said the purpose of the tax code is not to render the wealthy middle class, I didn't say Obama's plans will do so. Regardless, the numbers don't add up and the increased spending cannot be indefinitely financed through debt. Decades of research have shown that tax receipts stay pretty flat regardless of tax rates. When politicians target “the rich” to buy votes, the rich simply find new ways to hide their assets and thus avoid paying taxes on them. At some point everyone's taxes, including the middle class, are going up to pay for all this stuff.

By: D.K.Sherman

D.K.Sherman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:31:45 +0000

Nothing that Obama has proposed would render rich people middle class. They will still be rich. Obama is not proposing “taking everything from the rich” as Wilkinson says. They will still be rich. Middle class people should not be scared that their taxes will be raised because tax increases on the rich tap out the rich. The tax increases on the rich leave them still-rich.

By: richcromwell

richcromwell — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:24:34 +0000

I'll address one of your sentiments: The top 5% are still rich, but the purpose of the tax code is not to render people middle-class or poor. More important, raising taxes on the top brackets to levels that are too high creates an incentive to either hide income, cheat on taxes, or reduce income to a lower bracket. That's the flaw with a very progressive tax system, too many are too reliant on too few.

By: D.K. Sherman

D.K. Sherman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:45:31 +0000

Oops. Should have included that the opthalmologists bills will be for her losing most of her vision for 3 months due to retinal hemorrhaging, which would not have happened if the doctor had run the blood tests and picked up on the leukemia 4 days earlier. Get blood work if you think you are really not feeling well and the doctor seems to be guessing. I've spoken to many people who had the same experience with family doctor's blithely diagnosing a cold and it turned out to be cancer.

By: D. K. Sherman

D. K. Sherman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:40:11 +0000

Theres a conundrum in the original post. Righties keep saying that the top 5% pay most of the taxes and yet . . . they are still rich. So they could still pay more! Double Warren Buffett or Mort Zuckerman's taxes and he's still very, very rich. And no one is talking about doubling.

I am the mother of a 22 year who was diagnosed with leukemia last year and, as I understand it, as things stand will not be able to buy health insurance once she is over 25 and cannot stay on our employer-insurance-family-policy. I think the best pitch for a public option health insurance is: It could happen to you. Like Social Security, Medicare, disability insurance, etc., the public should support a public option to buy health insurance at an affordable rate because it could happen to you or your loved one. My daughter was never sick as a child and we have no family history of leukemia or other cancers. It could happen to anyone. I'm personally on a mission to tell people that they should insist on blood work when they have feel sick enough to go to a doctor because blood work would have picked up my daughter's illness – that something was very, very wrong, not just a cold – 4 days earlier when she first went to the family doctort. The opthalmologist bills will be many times what the bloodwork might have cost. But the main point is it could happen to anyone.

By: Greg N.

Greg N. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:18:20 +0000

I think it was the mercury in vaccines bit that really made this comment perfect. It would have been great without that, but a sundae needs a cherry; a cake, icing.