Barack Obama's Tax Increases—What's the Point?
My Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Jack Farrell has done his best to vindicate the impact of Barack Obama's proposed tax hikes on personal income. Leaving aside Jack's reliance on the assumptions of the Tax Policy Center (which he fails to note is a decidedly left-leaning organization), his conclusion seems to be: Only a few "millionaires" would get whacked, so what's the big deal?
Fine, Jack believes income taxes should be raised. But to what end? As best I can tell, he simply holds that some people make "too much."
Tags: presidential election 2008 | taxes | Barack Obama
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Joe Plumber, Taxes and engineers
My husband is an engineer. I frankly don't give a tinker's darn about plumbers at the moment. I care that we are importing students to our universities to fill engeering classes, importing engineers to fill jobs here and exporting mfg and eng jobs.
NOW, as if there was nothing else that we could do to hurt engineers and their families, we are going to be taxed to hell. Yep, my hard working husband is one of those very few that King Obama is going to tax some more. I don't feel very benevolent. We work hard, sacrifice so our kids can attend private university and have a few great vacations in their lives before they leave home.
What is so wrong with that? I love staying home and taking care of them all and I want to leave something for the grandkids when they come along.
Guess what? I don't care about the poor schlub who didn't study hard or sacrifice what we did or who can actually afford health care from an employer instead of paying for it (nearly $2K/mo is what we pay; now if we hire somebody we have to pay for them too??).
I am a full-fledge independent who has voted Dem for the last 26 years (I even voted for Carter the 2nd term). I am voting for McCain.
I give to Goodwill, I teach my kids to judge by actions, not skin color, I give and I give but I don't want the freaking gov. to take any more from me and mine. Those cheering crowds who are happy to see us get taxed more can jump in a lake. I grew up poor, I mean POOR. Not Obama, my mama was a grad student poor, I mean, my family had a farm and we grew our own food and wore ugly clothes poor. I don't need to be chastised about being selfish, and I don't need to give more of my money to taxes. I resent the implication that because we are lucky to be alive and healthy and hardworking that we need to give our money to somebody else.
That cheering crowd who wants our money only makes me, for the first time in my life, uncharitable and angry.
rich people paying taxes
ABOUT TIME THEY PAID THEIR FAIR SHARE?? WOW YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING....THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THE TOP 5 PERCENT OF INCOME EARNERS PAY OVER 50 PERCENT OF THIS COUNTRY'S TAXES....TALK ABOUT NOT FAIR.
To Bridget in CA
The mess that happening on Wall Street right now was not caused by the Bush Administration. It was started back during the Jimmy Carter era and then made worse by the Clinton era. When you (banks) are forced to provide loans to people who cannot pay for them, what do you expect. Would you LOAN your hard earned money to someone you really didn't know, and didn't have a reasonably good credit history and then expect to be paid back? Would you do that and not even ask if they had the wherewithal to pay you back? I wouldn't and I don't think you would either. That's exactly what the banks did, under pressure from a liberal congress and Senate.
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