Posted on 07/12/2012 10:09:28 AM PDT by 92nina
Over the last couple of months, Americans for Tax Reform has highlighted the 20 new or higher taxes on American families and employers created by Obamacare. The significance of these tax increases is that they are a direct violation of candidate Obamas promise not to raise any form of taxes on these families.
In an attempt to justify this widely unpopular piece of legislation, the Obama campaign released their own sort of Fact Check today. The response, however, missed the mark by ignoring hard numbers and common sense. They chose 5 of the 20 overall new or higher taxes to defend.
Even liberal Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren thinks the medical device tax is a bad idea. She wrote an op-ed in opposition of the tax, saying:
When Congress taxes the sale of a specific product through an excise tax, as the Affordable Care Act does with medical devices, it too often disproportionately impacts the small companies with the narrowest financial margins and the broadest innovative potential. It also pushes companies of all sizes to cut back on research and development for life-saving product.
What Warren understands in this particular circumstance and President Obama does not is that when you make it more expensive to produce a product, you hurt businesses.
On the 2.3% excise tax, the trade association for medical device makers such as Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic says:
Many companies will owe more in taxes than they generate from their operations. The result will be devastating to innovation, patient care and job creation.
Becton, Dickinson & Co. is another company that produces medical devices for hospitals. In an interview with a local paper, Chairman, CEO, and president of the company, Vince Forlenza had this to say of the tax:
Its a huge tax increase for the company, equaling about $50 million per year in the United States. He noted that itd be very difficult in this environment for hospitals to pass that on.
Asking small businesses who produce life-saving devices to pay their fair share is an attack against the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that motivates businesses to develop technologies that do in fact prolong and save lives.
The Obama campaign did not deny that this was a tax increase. Instead they said essentially responded by saying that because everyone will have healthcare, getting sick wont make you bankrupt, thus the threshold was increased. If you thought that following the logic on that was difficult, youre not alone. Thanks to Obamacare, you now have to spend more money in a given year on healthcare to deduct those healthcare costs from your taxes.
The Obama campaign says that the change has no impact on the vast majority of families. The President is correct: Many families do not have special needs children. For those who do, however, punishing them by limiting how much money that are permitted to set aside and spend through flexible spending accounts is neither fair nor just. It burdens them with higher personal costs. The CBO estimates this new cap will cost $13.2 billion over the next ten years.
The Obama campaign does not deny that this is a tax increase. Instead, they double down by saying that wealthy Americans who make a majority of their income from investments shouldnt be exempt from paying their fair share.
According to the Tax Foundation's analysis of IRS data, 70% of households over age 55 receive dividend income. 71% of all dividends paid flow to these households. This tax increase disproportionally falls hard on seniors.
What remains clear about Obamacare is that the laws tax hikes hit everyone with hundreds of billions of dollars in new or higher taxes. From seniors to small businesses, there is no escaping the higher costs imposed on everyone thanks to Obamacare.
Read more: http://atr.org/obama-fair-share-whining-truth-obamacare-a7038#ixzz20QedZ9zI
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