In this statement, Clarence Thomas has summed up a lot of the “progressive” American mentality. Nothing illustrates this more than Obamanomics or the future redistribution of wealth that we are likely to see under an Obama administration.
We’re all familiar with the “Joe-the-plumber” redistribution of wealth quote. At least Obama was honest in this situation of his intent for his future tax policy. Interestingly, this is the only occasion where he’s come clean on his intensions. Why? Why not tell it like it is to everybody? I guess that’s not very politically popular amongst potential supporters.
Let’s look at how Obama has been wrong on government spending.
1. Obama claims that there is a federal “investment deficit” in many needed federal programs. I’d like to know what he means given the following information.
“Over the past eight years the federal budget has exploded by more than $1.1 trillion, much of it for the very programs that Democrats want to spend more on. Let’s start with infrastructure. Three years ago Congress passed a transportation bill of more than $286 billion. The transportation budget is up 22% after inflation in the past eight years…How about aid to local communities? That spending has soared by 91% after inflation in eight years. The education budget is up 57%. Welfare programs are up 30%. Only two years ago Democrats were calling the Tom DeLay Republicans spendthrift. Now they say there’s an “investment deficit.”"
So with all this increased spending over the last eight years (an issue I have with the administration), where is this “investment deficit”? How much more does Obama want to increase these budgets given his 1 trillion in proposed new spending?
2. Obama’s plan proposes to raise taxes on the top 5% while lowering or keeping the same taxes on the rest of us 95%. If this is not redistribution of wealth, I don’t know what is. While I directly benefit from this, I do not think that this system is “fair” as Obama claims it to be. As Adam Lerrick from Carnegie Mellon points out…
“In 2006, the latest year for which we have Census data, 220 million Americans were eligible to vote and 89 million — 40% — paid no income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute), this will jump to 49% when Mr. Obama’s cash credits remove 18 million more voters from the tax rolls. What’s more, there are an additional 24 million taxpayers (11% of the electorate) who will pay a minimal amount of income taxes — less than 5% of their income and less than $1,000 annually.
In all, three out of every five voters will pay little or nothing in income taxes under Mr. Obama’s plans and gain when taxes rise on the 40% that already pays 95% of income tax revenues.”
As this article says,
“Our tax system is designed so that only the people in the top three tiers (or tax brackets) actually pay income tax. When you hear a politician talk about lowering you taxes what they really mean is adjusting the bracket percentages down. They also like to call tax credits “lowering your taxes”. But what they really mean is they are going to take more money from someone else (those that don’t get the credit) and give it to you.”
But tax credits carry with it severe risk as pointed out here by J. Kenneth Blackwell.
“Of course, Obama knows that the term “socialist” would kill his plan, so he calls it a “refund” instead. But there’s no way it’s not socialist; he’s either:
* Giving a “refund” on taxes people never paid to start with,
* Moving us drastically closer to the day Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt, requiring a massive bailout by other sources of taxation,
* Or outright turning the core federal retirement funds into welfare programs.
The deficit now runs hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Yet Obama proposes almost $1 trillion of new spending - and promises to also give “rebates” to the 38 percent of us who pay no income tax. Where is that money coming from?”
3. Obama and company seem to believe that the rich no longer pay their fair share because of the Bush tax cuts. But as Dick Morris, the former advisor to Bill Clinton, points out, those very Bush tax cuts lead to higher percentages in federal income tax paid by the rich.
“It is true that the richest Americans are getting richer a lot faster than the rest of the country. The top 10 percent experienced a real (after inflation) income growth of almost 50 percent in this decade. The rest of America saw its income rise, but by less than 5 percent after inflation.
But it wasn’t Bush tax cuts that fueled the growing inequality. The top 1 percent of American taxpayers now pay 40 percent of the taxes (compared with 33 percent in 2003 and 24 percent in 1986).”
So, Obama wants to increase the tax burden on the most successful individuals, give tax “rebates” to the bottom 90% equating to a hand-out, and spend a lot more money on programs that have already drastically increased in the past several years. And I haven’t even touched on health care.
Why again is this what’s best for the country? Where’s the fairness? Perhaps I’m missing his message of hope and change that everything will be better as long as he becomes president. I hope for his sake and ours that he doesn’t take his tax proposal seriously.
Cheers,
Joel
