Obama to Use Backdoor Taxes to Hit Middle Class? Oops, Not True.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

After reading through the budget I realized the Right Wing chest thumping about eliminating existing tax cuts for the middle class was BS.

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Obama to use backdoor taxes to hit middle class? Oops, not true.

Reuters withdrew a story Tuesday that suggested Obama would cut the deficit through backdoor taxes on the middle class.

By Laurent Belsie / February 2, 2010

It says something about the state of partisanship in America when the biggest budget story of the day is a non story. Literally.

After Reuters published a story Monday about how backdoor taxes would hit middle-class Americans under President Obama, the White House complained about inaccuracies. Reuters pulled it Tuesday morning, saying a replacement story would be coming. Later in the day, it said the story was wrong and that there would be no substitute.

By then, however, the story was Internet buzz: The Obama administration was going to cut the deficits by letting a raft of tax cuts expire, hurting the middle class. Some conservative bloggers posted it before it could be deleted.


Last week, President Obama toured Chesapeake Machine in Baltimore to talk up his jobs tax credit. Contrary to a Reuters report, which generated lots of Internet buzz Tuesday, the White House plans on extending many of the tax cuts that are due to expire this year and next.
Charles Dharapak/AP/File


While it's true that if Congress did let all the Bush tax cuts and other provisions expire, the middle class would end up paying boatloads more money, it's not reasonable to suggest that that will happen. Some tax cuts are just so popular – for Democrats as well as Republicans – that it's unlikely they'll be allowed to lapse anytime soon, says William Ahern, spokesman for the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax-research group in Washington, D.C..

In fact, the president's budget, released this week, calls for a continuation of the Bush tax cuts for anyone making less than $250,000. It also calls for continuing the so-called "patch" to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) so that millions of middle-class Americans don't get snared by the higher levies it imposes.

By letting the federal estate tax lapse late last year, Congress raised some eyebrows – and perhaps some hopes – that the controversial levy would disappear. But the Obama budget calls for the 45 percent rate in force during 2009 to be continued in 2010.

So much for the White House cutting the deficit through backdoor tax increases on the middle class.

Other Obama tax increases affecting the middle class are in line with expectations, such as the hike in the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 20 percent.

The brouhaha does raise one other issue: If the Obama administration lets several stimulus-related tax provisions expire, like the sales-tax reduction on the purchase of new cars, is that a tax increase?

It means more money out of taxpayer pocketbooks. But these tax breaks were never intended to be permanent the way the Bush tax cuts were intended, says Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. "It becomes a philosophical question," he writes in an e-mail.

Just as philosophical, I suppose, as whether a discredited story that's been killed is still a news story if it lives online.

[Rigs11]

Paging drama queen barryr.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Bronco_Beerslug

Just as philosophical, I suppose, as whether a discredited story that's been killed is still a news story if it lives online.

As long as Fox can keep flogging it, it lives.

[Rigs11]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

As long as Fox can keep flogging it, it lives.

death panels!

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rigs11

Paging drama queen barryr.

Ooops.

You would think barryr would realize by now that this is what happens when you hitch your wagon to the Rehab Rush train.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

As long as Fox can keep flogging it, it lives.

Yep.

Faux has created a whole new paradigm for the Bush Youth: If so-and-so says so (often enough) then it's true.

[JJJ]

$1.56T Deficit. Enough said. If you don't think the middle class will pay for that one way or another, if not this year than later, you are simply fooling yourselves.

Have a good laugh. You will need it when this comes home to roost. The rich guys you always complain about have lots of ways to pass the burden of their their tax increases onto to lower classes.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by JJJ

$1.56T Deficit. Enough said. If you don't think the middle class will pay for that one way or another, if not this year than later, you are simply fooling yourselves.

Gee, where was your "outrage" or "concern" when all this was taking place:

1) When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit - and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.

2) During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

3) The Bush administration added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined.

Funny - I never heard a peep of protest from you during that eight year period.

[TailgateNut]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Gee, where was your "outrage" or "concern" when all this was taking place:

1) When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit - and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.

2) During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

3) The Bush administration added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined.

Funny - I never heard a peep of protest from you during that eight year period.

Of course you heard nothing from the right when the Dumbass was spending like a teenager with daddy's credit card at the mall.

Now that a dem is in office they want to erase to reality that BushCo got us into a mess and the collectors are knocking the door down.

We could just sit back and not pay the bills and let the next victim deal with it like the repubs like to do.

[Rigs11]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Gee, where was your "outrage" or "concern" when all this was taking place:

1) When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit - and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.

2) During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

3) The Bush administration added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined.

Funny - I never heard a peep of protest from you during that eight year period.

He's a reborn conservative like all the other yahoos around here. Oh but he doesn't want to pay taxes either. Just b**** and moan.

[JJJ]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Gee, where was your "outrage" or "concern" when all this was taking place:

1) When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit - and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.

2) During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

3) The Bush administration added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined.

Funny - I never heard a peep of protest from you during that eight year period.

If you were driving head-on towards a brick wall would you slow down or speed up?

You can continue to look back and blame Bush but it won't change the fact Obama will be driving the bus when the crash hits.

[TailgateNut]

Originally Posted by JJJ

If you were driving head-on towards a brick wall would you slow down or speed up?

.

Depends on if there's a republican sitting in the passenger seat who is not wearing a seatbelt. I'm all for making the world a better place.

[JJJ]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Gee, where was your "outrage" or "concern" when all this was taking place:

1) When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit - and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade.

2) During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

3) The Bush administration added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined.

Funny - I never heard a peep of protest from you during that eight year period.

And here is where your logic is really flawed. If you think the poor are getting screwed now do you think they are going to get screwed less in an environment with large deficits? Perhaps some short term relief but they will get hit the hardest in the end.

The **** always flows downhilll, always. You cannot fight gravity.

Democrats always seem to think they they have the power to change the law of physics and economics.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by JJJ

And here is where your logic is really flawed. If you think the poor are getting screwed now do you think they are going to get screwed less in an environment with large deficits? Perhaps some short term relief but they will get hit the hardest in the end.

The **** always flows downhilll, always. You cannot fight gravity.

Democrats always seem to think they they have the power to change the law of physics and economics.

Which part of "Bush left Obama with projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade" did you not understand?

And you're still pointing fingers at Democrats?

I repeat: Where were you when Bush was creating more debt than all previous administrations before him combined?

Why didn't we see you here expressing your "concern" about "large deficits" during that particular eight-year period?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The deficit blame game

Millions of voters believe the GOP line about Obama's runaway spending. It's up to him to set the record straight By Gene Lyons

Feb. 04, 2010 |

If President Obama's recent face-to-face meeting with congressional Republicans had been a prizefight, they'd have stopped it: Obama by TKO. It was such a mismatch that Fox News, unofficial network of the GOP, basically conceded defeat by cutting away 20 minutes before it ended. Other networks showed it all.

Republicans appeared to make the elementary mistake of believing their own ... um, propaganda. Believe it or not, Obama's use of Teleprompters has convinced GOP stalwarts that he's kind of thick. I get frequent e-mails to that effect from people who marveled at the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush.

I know, I know. That's what they think, is all I'm saying.

House Republicans shouldn't have allowed the encounter to be televised. But then believing their own disinformation is basically what makes them Republicans.

So anyway, up jumps freshman Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas.

"You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President. Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy? That's the question, Mr. President."

Hensarling appeared to think he'd posed a real zinger. Obama's runaway spending is an article of faith among the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck crowd. Karl Rove, Bush's cynical political guru, pushes it the way Lenin pushed "the withering away of the state."

Obama jumped on it. "With all due respect," he said, "I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign ...

"The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. $1.3 trillion. So when you say that suddenly I've got ... a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true.

"And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is, we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade.

"(That) had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000, when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for, you had a prescription drug plan -- the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades -- that was passed, without it being paid for, you had two wars that were done through supplementals [i.e., off-budget appropriations] and then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession."

Read it and weep, because those are the facts. Two weeks before Obama was inaugurated, the Congressional Budget Office projected the 2009 deficit at $1.2 trillion, adding that due to the economic crisis the new administration also inherited, "collections from corporate income taxes are anticipated to decline by 27 percent and individual income taxes by 8 percent; in normal economic conditions, they would both grow." Mandated spending on unemployment insurance, food stamps, etc., increased.

A year later, little had changed. A December 2009 analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that the Bush administration's fiscal legacy "explain(s) virtually the entire deficit over the next 10 years."

Economic stimulus and all, new spending by the Obama administration amounts to roughly 10 percent of this year's deficit.

The GOP response to these incontrovertible facts amounts to boo-hoo-hoo. Republicans who stayed focused on Bill Clinton's zipper from 1998 until Bush's failures made necessary the promulgation of a new rule of Washington etiquette, now whine that decent people simply don't resort to arithmetic. The world began anew last January.

Obama promised miracles, they say, and he hasn't delivered. My view is that in pursuit of illusory bipartisanship, he's let congressional Republicans pout like children too long. Fiscally speaking, the GOP keeps promising voters an excursion to Big Rock Candy Mountain: lower taxes, higher revenue, prosperity all around.

Except it never happens. Multimillionaires get tax cuts, we get the bill. Virtually the entire national debt was run up by President Reagan and the two Bushes. Meanwhile, job creation under George W. Bush was the lowest since World War II. Then when Democrats take office, they style themselves "deficit hawks," and caterwaul about runaway spending.

It's like a carnival sideshow act. Except that it plays. Many readers know these things. Obama's political challenge, however, is that millions of ordinary voters don't have a clue. So he's got to find ways to tell them over and over again until they do. Republicans seem unlikely to furnish him another platform.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/fe...gop/print.html

© 2010, Gene Lyons. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.