Didn't Mr. Obama promise to assemble "the most ethical Administration of
all time"? If that's the case, why must he resort to chicanery and
guile on a daily basis?
Mr. Obama was elected partly because of his often-repeated promise not to raise taxes
on anyone making less than $250,000 per year. Anyone who had investigated Mr. Obama's
background would have known immediately that his promise wouldn't last long after his
inauguration.
President's Math Doesn't Add Up. [Scroll down] And what about the
president's hallmark proposal to tax all millionaires a minimum of 30 percent? As it turns out, most already are paying
that amount, so despite all of the president's bluster, it would only bring in about $4 billion per year — enough
to fund Social Security and Medicare for about a day. Apparently, in the president's world, numbers no longer need to
add up.
Krauthammer:
Obama's Buffett rule push 'an embarrassment,' 'so shameless,' 'deceptive'. "It's literally incredible,"
Krauthammer said. "It's almost an embarrassment. It's so shameless. If you were to collect the Buffett tax
for the next 250 years, that's longer than the life of this republic, you will not have covered the deficit —
Obama's deficit — for 2011.
Obama's Springtime of Discontent.
A centerpiece of Obama's re-election strategy is class warfare personified by the promotion of the Buffett Rule -- legislation
to compel Americans earning $1 million or more annually to pay a minimum 30% in income taxes regardless of the income source.
Last September the president claimed that this tax was needed to "stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade." However, it
turned out that the total amount of revenue raised by this tax over the next ten years was a mere $46 billion, while the projected
deficits in the Obama ten year budget would amount to more than $9,600 billion.
The case of President Obama's missing oil tax.
Candidate Barack Obama pushed it hard in 2008: a tax on Big Oil company profits that would flow back to families in
$1,000 rebate checks. President Barack Obama acts as if the idea never existed.
Clueless About Job Creation.
When the president begins a speech these days with praise for free markets, look out! What comes next are proposals for more
government intervention in the economy and higher taxes. That's the recipe, Obama says, to "encourage our long-term economic
growth and stabilize our budget." He said so in his Republicans-are-Social-Darwinists speech in Washington two weeks ago to newspaper
editors. Near the outset, Obama declared: "I know that the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not
Washington, which is why I've cut taxes for small-business owners 17 times over the last three years." Those cuts have had
minimal effect, and not surprisingly. They were tiny and temporary, and few small-business owners bothered to claim them, if indeed
they were eligible to do so. Meanwhile, the president has persistently sought to raise their income taxes.
Obama:
I'm not trying to 'redistribute wealth'. President Obama, who famously called for tax increases on the wealthy to
"spread the wealth around," denied today [4/10/2012] that his tax increases on the rich are an attempt to "redistribute wealth."
"So these investments — in things like education and research and health care — they haven't been made
as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another," the president said today at Florida Atlantic
University. "This is not some socialist dream," Obama added, as he called for tax increases on millionaires today
to pay for those investments. When he advocated the same plan in 2008, though, Obama described this "spread the
wealth around" policy.
The Buffett Rule shows...
The President's Intellectual Exhaustion.
The Obama presidency has reached the point where a policy that virtually everyone (including the president) concedes is a gimmick is now a
centerpiece of Obama's campaign. There are many ways to measure the intellectual exhaustion of the Obama presidency. This isn't
a bad place to start.
Obama's Fuzzy Math. One passage from the president's
April 3 speech at the Associated Press luncheon in Washington, D.C., which he has repeated several times this week,
contains some dubious assertions but has yet to receive any public scrutiny. Obama contends that the GOP budget,
authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), would provide "an average tax cut of at least $150,000 for every millionaire
in America." It is unclear how the president arrived at that figure.
White House
considered a $170 billion soda tax to pay for Obamacare. In the view of the Obama White House, a $170 billion
excise tax on soda doesn't raise taxes on the middle class. Nor does a new $20 billion labor tax raise taxes on the
middle class. Unless the tax is specifically an income tax, it doesn't really count against Obama's pledge in their view.
This is why Obama doesn't consider various Obamacare taxes, such as new limits on health savings accounts or taxes on medical
device manufacturers, as middle-class tax hikes, although they surely will come out of middle-class pocketbooks.
Exodus:
California Tax Revenue Plunges by 22%. California politicians seem delusional in their continued
delusion that high taxes have not savaged the State's economy. Each month's disappointment is written off
as due to some one-time event.
Not One Penny More For America's Welfare
State. [Scroll down] When Democrats do talk about taxes, they are often equally disingenuous.
In 2004, John Kerry ran for president promising to raise taxes on families with incomes above $200,000 per year
and to cut taxes for the other 98% of the population. Four years later, Barack Obama ran for president
promising that the government could meet all its existing obligations and take on many new ones, while confining
tax increases to individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000. Do these
vows hold water?
ScoffCare. Where there's a
trillion dollars or more in new spending, there are going to be new taxes paid for by millions of middle-class
Americans — even if the taxes are called something else.
Ruse Conference. The
president on Friday revealed the narrative for the Obama re-election campaign of 2012, and it shamelessly
rewrites history. The story goes like this: Bush hurled the global economy on a path toward
depression by cutting the taxes of millionaires. Obama then came to the rescue with his policies —
but the Republicans dug us into such a hole that it's taking even longer to dig out. The trouble with
this myth is that even Democrats running for re-election are shunning it.
More
commentary about President Obama's news conference on September 10, 2010.
The
President's Loophole Lie. That jet-tax loophole derided by the president is one he himself
proposed as part of the stimulus approved by a Democratic Congress. Does the left teleprompter know
what the right teleprompter is saying?
President Obama's war on facts.
President Obama's "corporate jet" line from his press conference Wednesday [6/29/2011] is crashing along with
a host of other claims that fact-checkers dismissed in the hours after his speech. Obama referred to
private jets six times in his remarks, essentially describing the Republican position on how to decrease
rampant deficits as being "willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner
continues to get a tax break."
One
Obama Presser, 36 Obama Lies and Deceptions. Obama held a press conference last Friday, July 15
which turned out to be a purely partisan effort to increase taxes and increase the American debt. His
speech and the answers he gave to cherry picked questions from the press was fundamentally dishonest:
in all I counted three dozen lies, deceptions and misleading statements.
Obama's
Middle-Class Tax Cut Fabrication. Since this is the first time we've heard about Obama's
"biggest middle-class tax cut in history," which he supposedly signed nearly three years ago, [Glenn]
Kessler decided to follow up with the White House.
How
'honest' is the Obama administration? Obama frequently tells blatant falsehoods about important
matters, and then in a Clintonian fashion explains how some interpretation of his words could be made to correspond
to the truth. [For example:]
• "We have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He hasn't of course. He's
hired at least 50. But the WH's explanation: "we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions."
• "I haven't raised taxes once." But he had already slashed middle-class tax deductions
for health-care, raised the tobacco tax, created a tanning tax, and done other tax hikes.
Obama:
"Since I've Taken Office, I've Cut Your Taxes". President Obama explains why he's "going to give"
Congress "another chance" to pass measures in his jobs bill. Obama also claims that he is the tax-cutter
in the race.
The Editor says...
Any claim of reduced taxes across the board is dubious at best. Regardless of that, if the president spends
money like there's no tomorrow, that will inevitably result in future taxes, rampant inflation, or the collapse of
the currency. That appears to be Obama's plan.
Destroying Jobs in Order to Save Them.
President Barack Obama is very insistent on the need to "save American jobs." ... But instead of saving
American jobs, Obama's new corporate tax is apt to worsen what is already the highest unemployment since 1983
and make America's companies even less competitive in the global marketplace.
Obama At the Plate.
It's been clear for some time that Barack Obama knows every technique in the debater's handbook, and he must have used most
of them during the course of that first White House press conference: There was the dubious revisionist history rolled
out ever so casually, as if it were accepted fact (tax cuts don't work); the assumption that any fault lies not in us but
elsewhere ... The man can say the most unbelievable things in the most matter-of-fact way, for example, his claim that
there's "not a single pet project" in his stimulus bill.
Fiscal
Stimulus Is a Ruse Absent Fed Pixie Dust. It's a jobs-creation program. No, it's
investment in our future. It's a tax-relief plan. Wait, it provides assistance to consumers
hardest hit by the economic recession. It's legislation to jump-start the economy. No, it's a
recovery program. It's a life raft for state and local governments. It's a spending bill.
Which is it? Fiscal stimulus is all things to all people. In other words, it represents the
triumph of faith over reason.
The Magic of Barack
Obama. [Scroll down] Obama shamelessly says his trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan from
which taxpayers will be enslaved for generations, will cut the taxes of the 95%. "That's insane," you
might exclaim. Well, yes, if words retain their customary meaning. When Obama said in 2004 that
people don't want their tax money wasted, the meaning of the word "wasted" is the key to understanding
The One. Obama believes that "reinvesting" tax money into the welfare system is a responsible use
of government-forced contributions from the "wealthy." When Obama speaks of tax cuts, often he is
actually speaking of redistributing tax money. In Obama's world, government spending can actually
mean cutting taxes. Words take on new meaning when Obama the Great performs his magic.
It's
Not the Economy, Stupid — It's Limbaugh. As the tax-and-spend policies of the Obama
administration extend and deepen the recession, the new administration's strategy to deal with the fallout
becomes clearer and clearer. Blame Rush Limbaugh.
The Obama Double Tax
Whammy: President Obama's proposal to provide only a 28 percent benefit for charitable
contributions by top-bracket taxpayers is part of a double whammy, since he proposes at the same time to
raise the top bracket from 35 to 39.6 percent. The double-barreled increase/decrease reflects
a two-part strategy that is much more than a simple tax increase. Less civil society and more government
power is the result.
Obama, Charity, and
Fairness. Leave it to Barack Obama to justify a tax proposal that would significantly reduce
the amounts going to charity — on grounds the proposal is necessary for "fairness."
Will Obama Seize the Radio Stations
Next? Obama started his Administration repeating the mantra that he only cares about what works, not about
ideology. That was meant to draw attention away from the fact that Obama is all about extremist ideology, not
pragmatism. That is why he is so intent on sharply raising tax rates on savings and capital and top income
earners. Nothing practical about that in promoting the economy. Just the opposite. Obama's proposed
severe global warming regulation serves extremist environmental ideology, not practical economics. Misdirection
rhetoric is another trick Obama learned from Saul Alinsky.
Obama's Tax Evasion.
[Scroll down] In the liberal imagination, the money is the government's by default, and the president and
Congress determine through the tax code how much to give back to the people. Last week Obama told an audience
in Virginia that an extension would be "giving them $100,000 for people making a million dollars or more."
But this is backwards. Low taxes don't give away the government's money. Low taxes allow individuals
to keep the money they've earned through hard work, sound investment, and good fortune.
Getting
Taxes All Wrong. Speaking to potential donors in liberal, high-tech Mountain View, Calif.,
President Obama said that low taxes are a recipe for backwardness. "Right now, we've got the lowest
tax rates we've had since the 1950s," Obama told the well-heeled crowd. "And some of the Republican
proposals would take it back — as a percentage of GDP — back to where we were back
in the 1920s. You can't have a modern industrial economy like that." These comments, while
few in number, encapsulate so many fallacies about taxes and economic growth that it's hard to know
where to begin.
Coddling
Misinformation About Taxation. Warren Buffett and President Obama claim that the rich do not
pay enough taxes. They both accuse the American tax code of being unfair and coddling the rich.
Both have been pushing the same class warfare narrative for years, using current U.S. capital gains and
dividends taxation rates as evidence for their big-government progressive agenda. Both are spreading
misinformation about all the taxes corporations and individuals actually pay.
Media Myth Debunked:
Millionaires
Don't Pay Less Tax as Percent of Income Than Lower Earners. As President Obama trots out his new
"Buffett Rule" to raise taxes on millionaires, the media are predictably assisting his efforts by spreading
misinformation about the wealthy paying less taxes than lower wage earners as a percent of income. 2009
tax figures recently released by the Internal Revenue Service thoroughly refute this assertion.
Obama figures he can just lie.
A polite word for what President Obama is being with his claims about millionaires and taxes is "disingenuous."
A more straightforward term would be lying. Neither the Associated Press nor the Wall Street Journal called
him that yesterday, but both reported the facts that the President is grossly and willfully distorting.
'You
lie!' Yes, he does. Last year, Obama pledged not to raise taxes of any kind on anyone earning
less than $200,000 a year. He also opposed mandating that everyone buy health insurance. Wednesday
night [9/9/2009], he demanded that mandate, which will effectively tax all who don't qualify for a subsidy.
Yes, President Obama lies. But it's for a good cause, so it's OK, right?
Who taught you to lie, call people
names, and accuse people of racism? Obama said at a health care town hall in New Hampshire that he never
claimed to be an advocate of single-payer health care. In stark contrast, during the Presidential campaign Obama
touted a single-payer health care system and in a speech to the SEIU in 2003 he supported single-payer health care.
Obama pledged during his campaign not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. However, Obama
signed into law the single largest federal excise tax increase on tobacco products. The tax on a pack of cigarettes
was raised from 39 cents a pack to 101 cents per pack, or a 159% increase. Two simple examples of the
blatant lie.
Obama Says Health Insurance Mandate Is Not A Tax Increase.
President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health insurance and fining them if they don't would not amount to a
backhanded tax increase.
Death, Taxes and
Two Trillion Lies. President Obama promised not to raise taxes on people earning less than
$200,000 per year and vowed not to increase the national debt "by one nickel." He promised that his
nearly-trillion-dollar stimulus plan would keep the unemployment rate below 8%. (Last month, our
unemployment rate was 9.8%, the highest it's been in 26 years.) In January 2008, then-candidate
Obama promised not to negotiate behind closed doors with health care lobbyists. ... After his election,
President Obama said, "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
What Obama and the Media Aren't Telling You about Taxes.
Even if Barack Obama does adhere to his income tax plan, his promise that he won't raise taxes on the common man
is still a lie. A continual theme of the Barack Obama campaign has been his vow that no one making less
than $250,000 a year would get a tax increase. Now he has provided more details, pointing out that to
qualify for a tax cut you must earn less than $200,000. Then, on Tuesday, Joe Biden said during an
interview that tax breaks should go to "people who make $150,000 a year." My, my, when Obama said he
was the candidate of change, he never mentioned that it applied to figures and campaign promises.
Like a Dime Store Cowboy.
[Scroll down] The new federal tax of 62 cents per pack, to $1.01, is the largest jump since
cigarette taxes were implemented in 1951. For a couple smoking a pack a day each, that's a tax hike of
$452.60 a year. If they're overly anxious about their economic situation and puffing two packs a day
each, that's $905.20 in additional taxes per year.
Obama's Biggest Lies. President
Obama loves to make up things that are patently untrue, like every economist agrees his $800 billion
economic stimulus "has done its job," the economy "is moving in the right direction," and the Bush tax cuts
caused the trillion dollar deficits. The facts say otherwise, but he is never challenged by the news
media for his repeatedly dishonest myth-making. Here are some of his worst offenses.
The
Lies And Distortions Just Keep Coming. This most recent statement from the community organizer
in the White House is just typical of the stream of lies and distortions that have been flowing from this
Marxist president: "What I've got is the Republicans holding middle-class tax relief hostage because
they're insisting we've got to give tax relief to millionaires and billionaires..." He also consistently
refers to excessive government spending as "investments" and blames the $1.3 trillion Bush deficit —
created by his own Democrat Congress — for his continued increasing debt and deficit.
Obama's
Big Lie On Taxes. A large and ongoing problem with our public discourse is the dishonesty and
disinformation foisted on an unsuspecting public. That's certainly the case when it comes to taxes.
The
President's Low-Tax Lie. In the left's endless attempt to push tax hikes on our beleaguered
economy, it's now peddling the bogus claim that tax rates are the lowest they've been in 60 years.
Obama's
Deficit Plan is All Tax Hikes, No Cuts. Today [9/19/2011] President Obama's released a
deficit-reduction proposal that was actually written down on paper, the first time he has done so since
introducing his laughable 2012 budget back in February (the Senate voted it down 97 to 0). The
White House claims that the president's plan represents a "balanced approach" that, relative to its current
policy baseline, will increase the federal deficit initially by $300 billion in fiscal year 2012 (to pay
for his "jobs plan"), but will reduce deficits by $3.2 trillion over the next decade. The claim is
outrageously misleading.
Obama figures he can just lie.
A polite word for what President Obama is being with his claims about millionaires and taxes is "disingenuous."
A more straightforward term would be lying. Neither the Associated Press nor the Wall Street Journal called
him that yesterday, but both reported the facts that the President is grossly and willfully distorting.
Presidential prevarication. Not that there was ever any
doubt, but the Associated Press ran the numbers on President Obama's soak-the-rich tax scheme, and guess what?
The president's a fibber. The news agency culled figures from a number of key authorities — like
the IRS and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center -- and demonstrated conclusively that top US earners pay far
higher rates than other folks. And foot a wildly outsized portion of the federal tax tab.
Math
says Obama's speech was class warfare. "Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than
millionaires and billionaires. That's pretty straightforward." That's what President Obama said
in his White House speech Monday on deficit reduction. It was even more straightforward than he seemed to
think. Not only should middle-class families pay less than millionaires and billionaires, but in fact
they already do pay less than millionaires and billionaires. Much less.
Obama's Biggest Lies.
So if "the rich" are not paying their fair share, Mr. President, what would that fair share be? Based on
these official facts, for you to run around the country telling America that we could have jobs and balance
the budget and solve the debt crisis you are creating if the rich would just pay their fair share of taxes
only demonstrates that you are not qualified to be President.
Obama's 2% Illusion.
President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to
do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax
breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't
see their taxes increased by "one single dime." This is going to be some trick. Even the most
basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and
capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new
spending ambitions.
How Democrats Make Millionaires.
Even in these hard economic times, Democrats across the nation are working on plans that will turn some of you into
instant millionaires. There's only one catch. You're not actually going to be bringing in a million-dollar
income. ... To pay this ["millionaires'"] tax, you won't have to make anywhere near a million dollars. If
you make even $300,000 a year, the cash-strapped Empire State will consider you a millionaire.
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any
form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not
any of your taxes... you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
The $3,700 Dime.
Candidate Obama repeatedly vowed that those earning under $250,000 "will not see any of your taxes increase
one single dime." Will he veto the $3,700 tax hike Congress is considering for 30 million
Americans?
Not One Dime? Candidate
Barack Obama said that President Obama wouldn't raise taxes by a "single dime" on families earning less than
$250,000 a year. Unless he meant $250 a year, he was being less than candid.
12 Taxes in Health Care Law Violate Obama's Pledge.
As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama's campaign pledge not to raise
taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000. At least seven of
these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual mandate to buy insurance,
the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings accounts.
Crazy
Times — Crazier Times to Follow. Bill Clinton balanced his last budgets but
raised taxes. George Bush increased deficits but cut taxes. But now taxes, spending, and
deficits soar all at once. We are lectured that prior reckless federal spending and borrowing
got us into this mess — but now are told that even more federal spending and borrowing will
get us out of it. ... In our Orwellian world, borrowing to spend what we don't have has been renamed
"stimulus." Those who pay no federal income taxes — almost half of Americans —
can somehow be promised an income tax "cut."
Energy
Bill, Energy Tax, or Government Hand-Out?. The 648-page energy bill just penned by Democratic Reps.
Henry Waxman and Edward Markey is ostensibly designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save money. But
conservatives contend that the bill is nothing more than a tax, adding costs to energy producers and distributors
for unproven methods of greenhouse gas emissions. These costs would be passed on to consumers to the tune
of $3,900 per year, per household.
The Stimulus Saved or
Created 150,000 Jobs? Where? "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already
saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95% of all working families," the president
said Wednesday night [4/29/2009]. We wondered where the president got that from, given that the
Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that more than 1.3 million jobs were lost in February and
March, with dismal April numbers to come.
The Tax Formerly Known as the
Medicare Tax. As we continue to find out what is contained in ObamaCare (now that it's been
enacted), it is worth noting a last-minute change in nomenclature, made just before the House vote —
a disingenuous revision that exemplifies the bill's legislative process. The name of the new 3.8 percent
"Medicare Tax" on investment income (imposed on people in the upper two tax brackets) was changed the day before
the House vote. Its official name in the law signed by President Obama last week is not the "Medicare
Tax" (the name in the text released 72 hours before the vote) but rather the "Medicare Contribution."
When
one man's 'loophole' is another man's stimulus. President Obama says he wants to cut the corporate
income tax rate while closing "loopholes." But — as is often the case on taxes — it's
best to heed what he does, not what he says. Obama has supported — often stridently —
most of the biggest "loopholes" in the current corporate income tax code. Unless he is willing to end
manufacturing tax breaks, low-income housing credits, and ethanol subsidies, his loophole-closing talk from
the State of the Union and his speech to the Chamber of Commerce is just more Obama jabberwocky on taxes.
Obama's Foxy Evasions.
Bill O'Reilly's interview of President Obama on Fox News just prior to the Super Bowl confirmed that he
remains a self-absorbed leftist.
The Editor says...
Yeah, and Obama's not that great, either.
Obama's Claim
That He Did Not Raise Taxes Is Rejected As 'Blatantly False'. President Obama's assertion
on Sunday that he "didn't raise taxes once" is "blatantly false," a taxpayer watchdog group says. Obama
made the claim in his pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
Obamacare Violates Obama's Pledge Not to Increase Taxes.
As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama's campaign pledge not to
raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000. At
least seven of these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual
mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings
accounts.
Why Revenge Is Necessary:
Let us start with all the lies that Barack Obama told or the promises that he broke, each one of which will
damage our way of life as the falsehood is made manifest in law. This president, this sinister creature
of Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky, of Indonesian sojourns and Columbia University radical salons,
campaigned vociferously against Hillary Clinton's call for an individual mandate for health insurance. Now
the individual mandate is the centerpiece of Obamacare. Obama promised that he would never, ever raise taxes
on individuals making under $200,000 or couples under $250,000. This legislation breaks that promise.
White
House trying to scale back Obama's pledge on taxes. During his election campaign, President Obama
made a very clear and unambiguous promise: If your family makes less than $250,000 per year, then none of
your taxes will be increased — period. But in order to gloss over the tax increases contained in
Obamacare — on the sick, the uninsured, and durable medical equipment — President Obama
is trying to alter that pledge in the middle of his term.
Obama bin lottery. Obama's
South Carolina victory speech was the economic equivalent of a carnival snake-oil pitch. He promised to
"stop giving tax breaks to rich companies and instead put the money in the pockets of struggling homeowners who
can't pay their mortgages", and at the same time stop the export of American jobs overseas, while raising
everyone's wages. The crowd chanted, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" Excuse me: No, you can't.
You can't keep inefficient American factories open without massive tax breaks to corporations, in the form of
tariffs or otherwise.
Obama's
anti-loophole call gets clean-energy exception. One week after he called on lawmakers to close
tax-code loopholes that benefit specific industries, President Obama proposed one of his own — a
tax break aimed at spurring the development of energy-efficient commercial buildings. In doing so,
Mr. Obama underscored the herculean challenge of simplifying the tax system in Washington, where loopholes
are in the eye of the beholder.
The VAT's in the Fire.
When President Obama was a candidate, he pledged over and over to voters: If you make less than $250,000
a year, your taxes will not go up. Voters read his lips. They hoped for change. Yesterday [4/22/2010],
the President said that the Value Added Tax is "on the table." That means it will be the main course
served up after the November [2010] elections.
Obama Breaks Tax Pledge, Signs SCHIP. Barely two weeks
after assuming the presidency, Barack Obama signed into law a bill expanding a health insurance subsidy and
breaking one of the central promises of his candidacy. Obama's February 4 signing of the State
Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion bill more than doubled the federal cigarette tax, even
though he had pledged he would not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year. Taxes
on various classes of cigars also increased.
Obama's First Tax Hike.
President Obama approved his first tax hike today [2/4/2009]. The bill he signed to expand the State
Children's Health Insurance Program contains a provision to increase taxes on tobacco by a whopping
155 percent. That means the federal taxes on cigarettes have gone up an additional 61 cents
a pack. This brings federal taxes on a pack of cigarettes to $1 per pack total.
Promises, Promises: Obama
tax pledge up in smoke. One of President Barack Obama's campaign pledges on taxes went up in
puffs of smoke Wednesday [4/1/2009]. The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's
promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.
This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.
Driving Taxes Upward:
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama endeared himself to many voters with a promise that 95 percent
of Americans would get a tax cut. Those making under $250,000 "would not see a single dime of tax
increase — not on anything." Yet since Obama's victory, spending has skyrocketed. It
was only a matter of time before his pledge fell by the wayside.
Raising
taxes by the mile. During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama endeared himself to many voters
with a promise that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut and those making under $250,000 "would not see a
single dime of tax increase Ñ not on anything." Since Obama won and he's already spent so much, it
was only a matter of time before his pledge went by the wayside.
Smoke gets in your ice.
Many Americans find the debate in Washington over adopting a "cap-and-trade" program to reduce carbon dioxide
a bit confusing. That's understandable. Put simply, it's a tax on energy consumption. In fact,
it would be a huge tax. If enacted, cap-and-trade would be one of the government's largest revenue sources
within the next decade. It also would break one of President Obama's promises. In his speech before
Congress in February, he said, "If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes
increased a single dime." Unless you use energy, apparently.
Brace
yourself for higher taxes. President Obama had said in September, 2008: "I can make a firm
pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.
Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." This
pledge has already been broken, at least with respect to federal tobacco taxes. But the White House has,
until very recently, maintained the fiction that the promise is still in effect with respect to the taxes
everyone pays. Then, in a television appearance on Sunday [6/28/2009], White House advisor
David Axelrod refused to re-commit to Obama's pledge.
Promises, Promises: Obama tax pledge
unrealistic. President Barack Obama promised to fix health care and trim the federal budget deficit, all
without raising taxes on anyone but the wealthiest Americans. It's a promise he's already broken and will likely
have to break again.
Five
Criticisms of George Bush That Could Be Better Applied to Barack Obama. Barack Obama has
already broken more campaign promises in less than six months than Bush did in two terms. Obama promised
no tax increases for people under $250,000 and he's working on multiple bills, including health care and cap
and trade, that would raise taxes even on the poor.
Obama's
Insidious War on the Middle Class: Like a PacMan gobbling up everything in sight, going after folks
making more than $250,000 a year is not enough to satisfy Obama's insatiable appetite for money and power. He
wants more. Although it means breaking a campaign promise to only tax the "rich," Obama's mad rush for
revenue to fund his social engineering has transformed his agenda into a war against the middle class.
Unread Lips. Could Obama have
been elected president without promising not to raise taxes on the middle class?
Soaking
the middle class. Having doubled the federal budget deficit in just six months in office, the
Obama administration now says that the expanding deficit threatens the nation's fragile economic recovery and
will require sacrifice to contain. Sacrifice in the form of middle-class tax hikes, according to Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner and Chief Economic Adviser Larry Summers. Voters who swallowed candidate
Barack Obama's oft-repeated pledge not to increase taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year may
be surprised to hear this warning. But they shouldn't be.
When the Chips Are Down, All
Democrats Are Liberals. [Scroll down] Second, the Obama tax pledge Ñ no
tax hikes on families making less than $250,000 Ñ has been eviscerated by the bill. There
are no less than seven categories of taxes on the supposedly non-rich and they are not insignificant.
Robbing
Peter to pay Paul's health care. Obamacare is a socialist law designed to take money from some
Americans and use it to benefit others. The health care bill signed into law by President Obama is full
of hidden time bombs. ... This is yet another example of Mr. Obama breaking his promise not to raise taxes on
those making less than $250,000 per year.
Obama: Holding me to my promises is just an 'old Washington
game'. For those who thought they could take President Obama at his word on taxes, you
might have made a mistake. He does not seem too wedded to the idea of keeping campaign promises
not to raise "any form of tax" for those making less than $250,000 a year. When reporters ask him
about the promise, he says they're just playing some "old Washington game."
More about President Obama
More about President Obama's Culture of Corruption
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