Democrats’ Health Care Plan: A Healthy Tax

So has anyone heard the one about Democrats imposing a 35% tax on health care benefits that range from $8,000 for individuals to $21,000 per family?You haven’t. That’s odd. I am sure the MSM would be discussing a plan that would essentially be one of the largest tax increases in our history and would essentially reduce health care benefits to many Americans. Hmmm…what else could they be reporting on?

Oh that’s right. Our President is on a marketing tour in Copenhagen ensuring his cronies in Chicago make a quick buck from the Olympics. Thank God the MSM is on top that story, since it has such an impact on so many Americans. … Ok, now back to Congress shenanigans.

So the Senate Finance committee wants to impose a 35% tax on employer-sponsored health care benefits that cross the above mentioned threshold. This will inevitably lead employer’s to reduce benefits, fire employees, or increase costs to consumers.

Now why would Congress purposely increase the cost of employer-sponsored health care  benefits at the determinant of the employees and consumers. It is possible that Congress is purposely increasing the cost of employer-sponsored health care benefits in order to garner support in the business sector for a public option. Congress could pitch the idea that employers could avoid the 35% tax through a public option. And if the public option is passed, employers will inevitably dump their employees into a public option in order to avoid the 35% tax.  Even though there is no viable explanation why employer-sponsored health care benefits should be taxed, I am sure Congress is acting in our best interests in and not in its interest of increasing its reach into our lives. 

~ Chuck

Language on the 35% tax is found on page 202. Happy reading.

http://www.finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf

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The American Manifesto: by Karl Marx

I had always read excerpts of the Communist Manifesto, believing that was sufficient to understand the folly of this philosophy and the reason it failed. It was not until I fully read it that I became aware the folly was in my belief that it failed.

Here are the objectives Karl Marx believed were necessary to bring about a Communist revolution within a state. It seems that America has slowly headed down the path of Marx one step at a time.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. (Through eminent domain the needs of state always has priority over the rights of the individual. And under Kelo v. New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), the state can decide who has more rights to property among private individuals.)

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (Today the top marginal rate is 35%. But in 1980, the top tax bracket was paying a marginal rate of 70%. And many believe it may have to reach that point again to pay for the increased government spending. http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html )

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. (It appears that this only affects the rich in this country. Who would have thought you can lose rights by making more money. Interesting study on impact of estate tax http://www.ctj.org/pdf/afbfreportssummary.pdf )

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. (This results in gangster government. That could never happen here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thR-lVuztIY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fbabalublog%2Ecom%2Fpage%2F2%2F&feature=player_embedded )

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. (This could never be a consideration in this country. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/business/worldbusiness/16iht-16banking.19415086.html )

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. (ICC, FCC, OPP. Wait, one of these doesn’t belong.)

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (Try building anything without government approval. And wait until the building regulations of the cap and trade bill go into effect.)

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. ( An agricultural army once existed in this country in the form of the CCC. Today we are talking about creating green jobs and ‘mandatory’ volunteer service for all. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92288 )

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. (The equal distribution is being done unintentionally. Cities scare inhabitants away through high taxes.)

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. ( The Communist Manifesto came out in 1848. The U.S. created free public elementary schools in the late 19th century. Coincidence? Today elementary schools are free. But that freedom comes with a price. The government tells you where you can receive this free education.)

“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”
–Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959

~ Chuck

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100 First Dates

Well, the 100 first days of HopeandChange are behind us. Every day that went by felt like a first date, we did not know what to expect and we were not sure if we wanted another one.

I found this great post by kathcetera at http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/4/29/gallup-poll-obama-closes-god-gap-further.html  that will help remind us of those first “enchanting” 100 days.

1. Calling for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act on the White House website.

 

2. Listing on the White House website a call for an expansion of the definition of federal hate crimes to include homosexual behavior.

 

3. Calling on the White House website for policies like the “Fairness Doctrine” that could silence conservative and Christian talk radio.

 

4. Repealing limitations on taxpayer-funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

 

5. Repealing limitations on taxpayer-funding of abortions overseas.

 

6. Pledging $50 million to the United Nation’s Population Fund, which supports China’s draconian one-child policy.

 

7. Proposing new rules to gut conscience clause protections for pro-life doctors and other medical personnel who don’t want to be forced to perform abortions or other procedures that violate their values.

 

8. Proposing increased funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

 

9. Calling on the White House website for “a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year,” (mandatory volunteerism).

 

10. Inviting homosexual families to the White House Easter Egg Roll.

 

11. Allowing his attorney general to call for the reinstatement of Clinton-era restrictions on the Second Amendment.

 

12. Breaking his promise not to appoint lobbyists to his administration. He hired 17 in his first two weeks.

 

13. Breaking his promise to sign legislation only after a five-day period of public comments.

 

14. Asking that the monogram for Jesus Christ be covered up during a televised speech at a Catholic university in which Obama quotes the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Undermining Our National Security

 

15. Apologizing for America in Europe and Latin America.

 

16. Bowing before the Muslim king of Saudi Arabia.

 

17. Pledging to base America’s foreign policy toward Iran on “mutual respect” in a video to the Iranian people and Iran’s Holocaust-denying dictator.

 

18. Returning the bust of Winston Churchill given to George Bush after 9/11 by our British allies.

 

19. Giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the leader of America’s most loyal ally, a box of DVDs that don’t work in British DVD players.

 

20. Ordering Guantanamo Bay closed without any idea of where to send the terrorist suspects held there.

 

21. Suggesting that some of those terrorists now at GITMO may kill again, but may also be released onto U.S. soil and set up with welfare benefits.

 

22. Caving to communist Cuba by relaxing travel restrictions and remittances for Cuban Americans before any Cuban political prisoners have been released.

 

23. Shaking hands with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

 

24. Sitting silently though a 50-minute anti-American diatribe by Nicaragua’s communist president, Daniel Ortega.

 

25. Releasing Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.

 

26. Releasing classified CIA memos outlining our interrogation techniques.

 

27. Telling our CIA agents not to be discouraged when he acknowledges their “mistakes.”

 

28. Declaring a new openness to “truth commissions” and prosecuting intelligence officials involved in enhanced interrogations of terrorists.

 

29. Proposing to send a $900 million foreign aid package to Palestinians in Gaza.

 

30. Asking Congress to relax the law so that some of that money could go to the terrorist organization Hamas.

 

31. Calling for the U.S. to eliminate its nuclear weapons.

 

32. Telling Russian President Demitri Medvedev that America’s commitment to missile defense is negotiable.

 

33. Dropping the term “enemy combatants” for GITMO detainees.

 

34. Dropping the term “terrorism” for “man-made disaster.”

 

35. Dropping the term “Global War on Terror” for “overseas contingency operations.”

 

36. Giving his first interview as president to the Arab language network Al-Arabiya.

 

37. Telling the Muslim world that his “job” was to communicate “that the Americans are not your enemy,” when it’s Muslim extremists who have declared war on us.

 

38. Proposing that military veterans use private insurance for the cost of a service-related injury before they would be eligible for coverage through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

 

Undermining Free Enterprise

 

39. Signing the trillion-dollar plus so-called “stimulus” bill, which the Congressional Budget Office said would actually hurt long-term economic growth.

 

40. Saying Caterpillar wouldn’t lay off workers if his trillion-dollar stimulus bill passed Congress. Obama signed the bill on Feb. 17th. On March 17th, Caterpillar laid off nearly 2,500 workers.

 

41. Hosting a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” one week after signing the trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill.

 

42. Railing against “outrageous recklessness and greed” of AIG bonuses that were legally protected in the so-called “stimulus” bill he signed four days after it passed, not five as he promised.

 

43. Breaking his promise on earmark reform by signing the $410 billion “omnibus” spending bill with billions in earmarks.

 

44. Proposing a $3.6 trillion budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in ten years.

 

45. Proposing a “carbon cap and trade” scheme that will raise energy taxes by hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars.

 

46. Burning more than 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to fly to Iowa for Earth Day to promote “wind power.”

 

47. Proposing $634 billion in higher taxes for socialized health care.

 

48. Proposing to raise taxes on small business owners.

 

49. Saying the White House is open to the idea of taxing employer-sponsored health care benefits as income.

 

50. Signing a massive expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, calling it “a down payment on my commitment to cover every single American.”

 

51. Establishing the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to give bureaucrats the power to ration health care and tell your doctors what care you can and cannot have.

 

52. Signing the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act, which the Sierra Club praised specifically because it “will safeguard millions of acres … from oil and gas leasing.”

 

53. Suggesting he has found $1.5 trillion in bogus “savings” by not spending money in Iraq that we were not planning to spend years from now.

 

54. Ordering his Cabinet to “cut” $100 million in spending in 90 days, after proposing nearly $5 trillion in spending in his first 90 days.

 

55. Proposing to limit tax deductions for home mortgage interest.

 

56. Proposing to limit tax deductions for charitable donations.

 

57. Refusing to allow banks to repay TARP money.

 

58. Bailing out AMTRAK with a 10% increase in its taxpayer subsidies.

 

59. Bailing out the United Auto Workers Union with billions of taxpayer dollars to GM and Chrysler.

 

60. Bailing out the United Auto Workers by giving it a majority ownership stake in Chrysler. Yes, the union will own the company.

 

61. Bailing out Big Labor by issuing an executive order mandating that infrastructure projects paid for with “stimulus” funds must use union labor, guaranteeing higher costs for the taxpayer.

 

62. Bailing out Big Labor again by repealing regulations requiring the disclosure of how union dues are spent. So much for “transparency.”

 

63. Saying, “The United States government has no interest in running GM,” then vowing that the government will back auto warranties.

 

64. Saying, “The United States government has no interest in running GM,” then firing the CEO of General Motors.

 

65. Allowing states to set their own fuel efficiency and emissions standards, making it harder for struggling auto makers to compete.

 

Personnel Is Policy

 

66. Nominating Timothy “The Turbo Tax Evader” Geithner as Treasury Secretary to oversee the IRS.

 

67. Nominating as attorney general Eric Holder, who urged Bill Clinton to pardon tax evader Marc Rich and 8 FALN terrorists.

 

68. Nominating David Ogden, a prominent attorney for the pornography industry, to be Deputy Attorney General.

 

69. Nominating Tom Daschle, who owed more than $140,000 in back taxes, as Health and Human Services Secretary.

 

70. Nominating Kathleen Sebelius, who is ardently pro-abortion and owed $8,000 in back taxes, to be HHS Secretary.

 

71. Nominating Janet Napolitano, who said, “crossing the border is not a crime per se,” as Homeland Security Secretary.

 

72. Nominating Steven Chu as Energy Secretary. Last September, Chu said, “Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” which at that time were roughly $8.00 a gallon.

 

73. Nominating Ron Kirk, who owed more than $6,000 in back taxes, as Trade Representative.

 

74. Nominating Bill Richardson, who was embroiled in an ethics scandal, as Secretary of Commerce.

 

75. Nominating Nancy Killefer, who also owed back taxes, to be the government’s “Efficiency Czar.”

 

76. Nominating Rosa Brooks, a leftwing acolyte of George Soros, as an advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

 

77. Nominating Harold Koh, an ardent supporter of using international law in the interpretation of our Constitution, to be the top legal advisor to the State Department.

 

78. Nominating Carol Browner, who was a member of the Socialist International, to be “Climate and Energy Czar.”

 

79. Nominating John Holdren, an environmental extremist and advocate of population control, as the White House Science Advisor.

 

80. Nominating Dawn Johnsen, who is so pro-abortion she once compared pregnancy to slavery, to direct the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.

 

81. Nominating Charles Freeman, an anti-Israel, pro-Arab apologist, to be head of the National Intelligence Council.

 

82. Nominating Tony West, who represented American Taliban John Walker Lindh and exposed the Bush Administration’s terrorist surveillance program, to the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

 

83. Nominating Annette Nazareth to be Deputy Treasury Secretary, who withdrew after a month-long probe into her taxes.

 

84. Trying to nominate pro-abortion Catholics to be ambassador to the Vatican, a move even John Kerry opposed.

 

85. Appointing Ellen Moran of the pro-abortion group Emily’s List as his White House communications director.

 

86. Appointing Melody Barnes, a board member of Emily’s List and Planned Parenthood, as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.

 

87. Appointing Harry Knox of the Human Rights Campaign (the largest homosexual rights lobbying group) to the White House’s Faith Based Advisory Council.

 

88. Appointing Adolfo Carrion as Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs, even though he is under investigation for kickbacks in a scandal nearly identical to one that cost GOP Senator Ted Stevens his election.

 

89. Nominating David Hamilton as his first appointment to a federal appeals court. Judge Hamilton has issued a number of controversial rulings, including prohibiting the Indiana House of Representatives from opening sessions with prayers in the name of Jesus.

 

Other Obama Outrages

 

90. Telling congressional Republicans to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh.

 

91. Coordinating attacks on Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer out of the White House.

 

92. Hosting weekly parties at the White House, serving up $100-a-pound Waygu beef during what Obama called, “the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

 

93. Laughing it up on 60 Minutes as the country is mired in a recession.

 

94. Allowing Air Force One to buzz the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan, creating panic in New York City.

 

95. Disparaging Special Olympians on the Tonight Show.

 

96. Allowing his Department of Homeland Security to issue a report accusing pro-life, smaller government conservatives and returning Iraq/Afghanistan veterans of being “rightwing extremists.”

 

97. Promising to push for comprehensive immigration reform, i.e., amnesty.

 

98. Killing the school voucher program in the District of Columbia, while sending his two daughters to an elite private school, rather than D.C.’s public schools.

 

99. Moving the Census out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House.

 

100. Relying too much on his teleprompter.

I know you can not judge the direction of a Presidency by the first 100 days of its administration. But by the actions taken in the first 100 days, you can tell what principals it will apply through out the remainder of its adminstration.  And right now, I don’t like what I see.

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Obama’s 95% Illusion

From The Wall Street Journal Online – October 13, 2008 … (source link)

It depends on what the meaning of ‘tax cut’ is.

“One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to “make work pay” that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A “savings” tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A “clean car” tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable “tax credits” would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as “tax credits,” the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends “refundability” on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.

It is also true that John McCain proposes a refundable tax credit — his $5,000 to help individuals buy health insurance. We’ve written before that we prefer a tax deduction for individual health care, rather than a credit. But the big difference with Mr. Obama is that Mr. McCain’s proposal replaces the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance that individuals don’t now receive if they buy on their own. It merely changes the nature of the tax subsidy; it doesn’t create a new one.

There’s another catch: Because Mr. Obama’s tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge “marginal” tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of “making work pay,” but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery — among many — of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama’s 95% illusion to go unanswered.”

- Link posted by Julian

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“10 Things You Need to Know About Senator Obama’s Tax Proposals”

- Julian

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Obama’s Tax Plan: Raise Taxes on the Middle Class (Brilliant)

Remind me again who is suppose to benefit from Obama’s Tax Plan. It appears from the chart below that he plans to raise a marginal rate on the middle class income earners.

Remember, the Median income rate in 2006 was $32,000.00, which would place anyone earning this amount in the middle class. The same middle class that will be hit the hardest under Obama’s Tax Plan. This will be a horrible move for a country that is trying to reinvigorate its economy. But then again, I don’t believe Obama plans to serve the best interests of this country.

 

American Enterprise Institute: http://www.american.com/archive/2008/august-08-08/the-folly-of-obama2019s-tax-plan

~ Chuck

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Obama’s Tax Cut: More than Meets the Eye.

We all continue to hear about how Canadidate Barack Hussein Obama is going to cut taxes on the middle class. Thanks to the Brookings Institute and Urban Institute, we now have a clearer picture of how his tax plans will impact a two earner couple with one child in college and another age 12 or younger:

• Their marginal tax rates are between 34 percent and 39 percent in the $31,000 to $45,000 income range — a 13 percentage point or more increase from current rates.
• The increase happens because Obama phases out the child and dependent-care credit for one-child families in the $30,000-to-$58,000 income range.
• The effective tax rate increases by 3 percentage points, while making certain credits refundable triggers a tax penalty of up to 15 percent.

Here’s a little chart to paint a clearer picture.

Investor’s Business Daily: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304297643560219 

NCPA: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_Category=20

~ Chuck

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Obama sends a chill down my spine.

After reading this Wall Street Journal Article, I am more than ever convinced that Candidate Barack Hussein Obama will bring in an era of big government and class warfare not seen in this country for several decades. Here are some of the highlights that will keep you up at night.

• The last two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, were hamstrung by rising deficits, feuds with Democrats in Congress and antigovernment sentiment in Washington. Sen. Obama’s advisers argue that he would be largely free from those constraints, easing the way for him to put in place big government programs, tax increases on the wealthy and trade restraints.
• He’d also push the first increases in income-tax rates since 1993 and in capital-gains taxes since 1986.
• In total, his top priorities would cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and some of them might require a stiff increase in regulation.

If a battle is defined by one’s opponent, then this country is confronting one hell of a battle to keep it out of the clutches of a collectivist socialist.

Wall Street Journal Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121970803923071113.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

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When you tax the rich, the economy pays.

Looking at the proposed tax plans of Candidate Barack Hussein Obama one should be alarmed at the possible impact it will have on our economy. Looking at some numbers, it is apparent that the rich will not be the only ones bearing the burden under his proposed tax plan, but rather our whole economy.

Raising the higest federal tax on income over 50 percent would slam the economy hard by punishing  success.

High tax rates have been the principal barrier to growth in western Europe.

High-tax countries such as Germany and France consider themselves in a boom when their growth rates reach an anemic 2 percent.

If the economy is the issue this election cycle, shouldn’t the candidates discuss ways to improve he economy, like keeping the government out of it, instead of engaging in populist rehtoric.

Forbes Article: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0901/021.html

~Chuck

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