Wednesday View
After digesting the Secretary's message, the Dow closed down, not up. I guess he wasn't forceful enough. Meanwhile the prospects of a Democratic Congress with a Democrat President may be sinking in. The only way Obama is going to do all the things he promised will be to extract money from someone. His "tax cuts" involve sending checks to the 40% of the taxpayers who don't pay any income taxes -- or, if not, someone needs to say that, openly and strongly. His health care system is going to be costly, and while he says that his plan will save money, most politicians say that.
I would be very pleased to have two political parties either of which we could trust to do what is best. We may be running an experiment to see if we have that.
I suspect the best we can get is divided government. We'd still have Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd chairing the relevant committees.
Obama's Tax Increase -
Hi Jerry,
There's a dirty little secret to Obama's tax plan (one that McCain tries to make, but not very well). While it's true that income tax won't go up if you make less than $250K, he doesn't consider Social Security or Medicare to be 'taxes'. He plans to eliminate the cap on Social Security Tax. That means that everyone who makes more than $102,000 (in 2008) will see a 7.65% tax increase on every dollar above that limit. Plus businesses will also see their 'share' of the tax rise as well. That impacts far more people than the $250K benchmark he talks about.
If you make $125,000 a year, your income taxes will increase $1759.50. Your employer will also have to pay the same additional amount in taxes (which will be passed on as an increase in the price of their goods). I don't know about you, but that's real money to me - and the lower threshold blows a hole in Obama's argument that most small businesses don't make $250K. They sure as heck make $100K.
Your benefits won't increase, just your tax. Soak the rich, redistribute wealth, etc, etc.
And that doesn't even address the Medicare tax, which must increase to pay for his healthcare plans. But again, that's not a tax. He's very good at dancing on the edge of an outright lie.
Regards,
Doug
The only way I know of to give a tax cut to those who at the moment pay no income taxes would be to send them a check; and nothing I have seen from Obama denies that this is his intention, while some of his followers have told meetings that is is exactly what will happen. I don't have time to follow this up.
The Obama scheme is to soak the rich. California has pretty well showed that this is a great way to drive the rich out of the state.
[1] And not quiet. Or at least, I asked a guy once who heard Jerry speak 'what's he like'? 'Loud', he replied.
