Much was made of Obama’s “compromise” on taxes, including his plan to keep lower rates on the 98% of Americans who earn less than $250,000, and spend $180 billion or more to cut some business taxes and invest in more infrastructure repair.
The president’s supporters say this is a good plan — giving Republicans the tax cuts they want while letting average Americans keep their current tax rates. Only the “rich” get hit.
This plan is actually quite cynical, as even the New York Times tacitly admits, saying Obama “intends to cast the issue as a choice between supporting the middle class or giving breaks to the wealthy.” In short, it’s not really about jobs at all. It’s about politics.
Obama, though himself wealthy, seems to truly hate the private-sector rich — believing the neo-Marxist pap that as a “class” they create nothing, but rather exploit the rest of us.
When he told Joe the Plumber during the 2008 campaign that he wanted to “spread the wealth,” he was at least telling the truth.
In fact, the wealthy are the nation’s creators, innovators and job makers. The small businesses they run account for more than four of every five new jobs. Obama’s tax hikes target them — and you.
As economists Kevin Hassett and Alan Viard recently noted, “Fully 48% of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations reported on tax returns went to households with incomes above $200,000 in 2007.”
A recent National Federation of Independent Business survey found that 50% of the small-business owners who employ 20 to 249 workers fall in the top two income brackets. They’re the “rich.”
So half of all small-business profits — maybe more — will be hit by Obama’s tax hikes. And guess what? They’ll respond predictably by not expanding their businesses or doing more hiring. If Obama’s plan is passed, expect no meaningful job growth for years.
For two years, we’ve heard repeated verbal assaults leveled at successful people to make the rest of us resent their success — like the canard that the rich don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes.
Well, as the National Taxpayers Union recently reported, the richest 1% of Americans earn 23% of all income and pay almost twice that — 40% — toward income taxes. Meantime, the bottom 50% take home 12% of the income and pay only 2.9% of the taxes.
Fair? Since 2002, the year before President Bush’s 2003 across-the-board tax cut went into effect, the share of taxes paid by the wealthy has risen every year. As for Democrats’ claim that the tax cuts “benefited only the wealthy,” 7 million new U.S. jobs were created from 2003 to 2008. How’s that stack up to Obama’s record of 4 million lost and counting?
Instead of emulating past success, Obama continues to push policies that scapegoat the rich while using “stimulus” spending to enlarge government, enrich unions and subsidize favored industries.
To their credit, Republicans have countered with a far better plan — one that freezes tax rates at the Bush levels and rolls back spending to the pre-stimulus levels of 2008. This would have a truly stimulative effect on the economy. It would be even better if the tax changes were made permanent and future spending were cut.
Until something is done to convince businesses that Washington is capable of fiscal sanity, few companies will willingly commit huge amounts of capital to new investments and jobs.
Like the rest of us, they want tax and regulatory relief, entitlement reform and smaller government. Until they get it, they’ll sit on the sidelines waiting for the craziness to end.
As the New York Times last weekend described the new Democratic “firewall” approach, “A national campaign trumpeting Democratic accomplishments on health care, education and Wall Street regulation has given way to a race-by-race defensive strategy.”
Joe Sixpack’s inevitable reaction to such a change in tack is simple: If ObamaCare, more money for teachers unions and preserving too-big-to-fail on Wall Street are so great, why not run on these things?
Instead, the party whose theme song used to be “Happy Days Are Here Again” is battening down the hatches.
“Small businesses drive economic growth, not government,” he added, “but ObamaCare and a slew of upcoming tax hikes are going to make it harder for our district’s small businesses to stay afloat.”
The hyperspending that was supposed to provide jobs has failed — yet those in power plan more of it.
But don’t worry, Obama’s new stimulus-that-isn’t-a-stimulus will solve everything.
After all, Obama was on the TV yesterday touting that “3 Million people had jobs” because of him.
Isn’t he amazing!
The fact that they are union and government union apparatchiks kind of got lost in the ra-ra speech.
That and the millions of people who have lost their jobs SINCE he came to power. They don’t matter.
Obama characterized Republicans as pandering to corporations, millionaires, special interests, and credit card and insurance companies. He asserted they did “not having a plan to govern” and praised the values that “we Democrats believe in.”
The president recalled the principles upon which America was founded — “values of self-reliance and individual responsibility” and “a country that rewards hard work. A country built upon the promise of opportunity and upward mobility” — and contrasted them with his characterization of the Republican attitude in Washington. “They’re asking us to settle for a status quo of stagnant growth, eroding competitiveness, and a shrinking middle class.”
Said Obama, “This country is greater than the sum of its parts — America is not about the ambitions of any one individual, but the aspirations of an entire people and an entire nation.”(Politics Daily)
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We also hoped for a chance to get beyond some of the old political divides -– between Democrats and Republicans, red states and blue states -– that had prevented us from making progress. Because although we are proud to be Democrats, we are prouder to be Americans -– (applause) — and we believed then and we believe now that no single party has a monopoly on wisdom.
We’re just way smarter than you and if we just explain why 2000+ page government takeover bills that we never even read are great then you’ll just love us!
“I ran because I had a different idea about how America was built.”
“Yes, our families believed in the American values of self-reliance and individual responsibility, and they instilled those values in their children. But they also believed in a country that rewards responsibility; a country that rewards hard work; a country built on the promise of opportunity and upward mobility.”
(just don't be too mobile or you'll be an evil "rich" person)
It’s amazing he can say this with a straight face. But then again, he is so much better than you.
It was an America where you didn’t buy things you couldn’t afford (They just expect government handouts to do it for them because they are entitled); where we didn’t just think about today -– we thought about tomorrow. An America that took pride in the goods that we made, not just the things we consumed. An America where a rising tide really did lift all boats, from the company CEO to the guy on the assembly line.
That’s the America I believe in.
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He’s other deeply, deeply cynical and manipulative and/or delusional and just thinks his soaring charms and rhetoric will override the reality of what he and democrats have actually been doing.
What matters is scoring cheap,soaringly cynical, disingenuous, arrogant and deeply divisive political rhetoric that sounds good and makes you feel good.
I just feel sick.
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