Free Republic

As the old saying goes, there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes. Tomorrow night during his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Obama will announce that people paying taxes their entire lives just isn't good enough. The President wants the current 40 percent death tax rate increased to 60 percent. Americans for Tax Reform breaks down the details: 2. Stealth increase in the death tax rate from 40% to nearly 60%. Under current law, when you inherit an asset your basis in the asset is the higher of the fair market value at the...

Barack Obama enters the final two years of his presidency with a blemish on his legacy that looks impossible to erase: the decline of the middle class he has promised to rescue. The revival of middle-class jobs has been one of Obama's mantras since he took office in 2009 fighting the worst economic crisis in generations. It was a major theme of his last State of the Union address and is expected to feature in the one scheduled for Tuesday. Administration officials said on Saturday the president would propose higher capital gains taxes, new fees on large financial firms,...

In his State of The Union address this week, President Obama will propose congress lower taxes on the middle class and close loopholes that the rich often use. A press release from the White House says Obama has a strategy that will “simplify our complex tax code, make it fairer by eliminating some of the biggest loopholes, and use the savings to responsibly pay for the investments we need to help middle class families get ahead and grow the economy.”According to a release from the White House Press Secretary, the changes President Obama will propose include: Closing One of the...

President Barack Obama is turning to his biggest television audience of the year to pitch tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and put the new Republican Congress in the position of defending top income earners over the middle class. As Obama continues to signal what he will propose during Tuesday's State of the Union address, senior administration officials said during the weekend that he will call for raising the capital gains rate on top income earners and eliminating a tax break on inheritances. The revenue generated by those changes would fund new tax credits and other cost-saving measures for middle-class...

Ideological splits among Republicans have been part of the fun of the American political fair for more than 50 years now, but what of potential divisions on the Left? When Barack Obama departs the White House in 2016, the question already being asked is whether Democrats will now suffer the same kind of upheaval that the Tea Party inflicted on Republicans after George W. Bush left office in 2008. Last week in Washington DC it was possible to hear the opening shots of what some left-wing Democrats hope will become a similarly fierce fight for the ideological soul of their...

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class. Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy – minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation – protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism. Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition – something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6. Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class – especially white, lower-middle-class voters? There are several obvious reasons. For...

Is the economy rigged against the middle class? The Democratic left's dream candidate -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- thinks so. "I see evidence everywhere of the pounding working people are taking," Warren said on Wednesday at an AFL-CIO summit on raising wages. "These families are working harder than ever, but they can't get ahead. Many feel that the game is rigged against them, and they are right. The game is rigged against them." Her argument, of course, is that the government must intervene to level the playing field. But Warren must not be looking very hard if she can't see...

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class. Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy -- minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers' compensation -- protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism. Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition -- something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6. Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class -- especially white, lower-middle-class voters? There are several obvious reasons.

Six years ago this month, America cast its lot toward a young, first-term U.S. Senator from Illinois to lead the greatest nation in the world. His mesmerizing words and bold promises drew folks in by the millions. However, unless you're a bleeding heart liberal, you realize the social experiment of electing an unqualified, former professional antagonizer has been an economic disaster. The quantitative evidence, and it abundant, is overwhelming and ever-growing. ... In 2007, the average household income in America was $55,627. In 2014, that figure had slipped to $53,880 -- Americans earned less on average than they did seven...

link only: http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2015/01/01/middle-class-workers-struggle-to-pay-for-care-despite-insurance/19841235/

The events of the past few months seem astounding when taken in all at once. The plan to destroy the U.S. dollar and the American middle class is moving at an ever increasing speed. At the recent G20 meeting the nations agreed that bank deposits would no longer be considered money. These bank deposits become the property of the banking institution and as such can be used any way the bank wants. This means that any money you deposit in a bank now is no longer yours but makes you an investor in the bank and subject to lose that...

Two top aides to President Obama hailed his “year of action” as a success Monday, saying the president took more than 80 executive actions without Congress to help the middle class. National Economic Council Director Jeffrey Zients and Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz said in a blog post that Mr. Obama will try to work the the new Republican Congress next year, but will also “continue to use every authority available to make progress through executive actions” in 2015.

By AIMEE PICCHI December 12, 2014 Why Middle-Class Wealth Is Withering If the middle class is truly the backbone of America, the country's spine may be close to breaking. Middle America came out of the Great Recession in a precarious position, sinking into "dissavings" -- when spending is greater than income -- thanks to a nasty combination of stagnant wages and a hit to real estate and investment values, according to a new working paper from New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff. That's led to a grim outcome, with virtually no change in the country's median wealth between...

In a satisfying moment of intramural recrimination this week, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York pointedly second-guessed President Obama’s decision to push sweeping health care legislation in 2010, when Americans were more concerned with the state of the economy and their economic futures. (SNIP) Even if you don’t think (as I do) that the “gang” bill would actually hurt the economic fortunes of many middle class Americans by importing competing, cheaper workers to bid down their salaries, it was hardly the sort of economic fix Schumer says the middle class was demanding. Even more than Obamacare, it failed to give...

Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that people in Washington don’t think it’s a good thing to be labeled as middle class. Speaking at the American Association of Port Authorities convention in Houston, Biden reminded attendees of his nickname, “Middle-Class Joe.” “In Washington, that’s not meant as a compliment–it means you’re not sophisticated,” Biden said.

The standard portrayals of economic life for ordinary Americans and their families paint a bleak picture of stagnancy, rising economic inequality, joblessness, and low levels of economic mobility. From President Barack Obama’s speech last year at the Center for American Progress to Fed chairman Janet Yellen’s address this month in Boston, we’re getting the picture that the American Dream looks to be in bad shape. These portrayals contain an important germ of truth — today’s economy isn’t doing ordinary Americans many favors — but what is largely missing from the public conversation about economics in America is an honest...

Good ol’ Joe once again blurts out the awkward truth, while trying to be helpful to Democrat Senate candidate in Iowa, Bruce Braley (known to Michelle Obama as Bruce Bailey). .... you know the truth: The middle class is still in trouble,” Biden said. “You don’t have to know the numbers, you can feel it. You can feel it in your bones.” Biden’s lamentation failed to inspire any hope or energy among the crowd at Braley’s rally. Instead, the vice president’s words hun[g] in the air as he pointed out that all the positive economic numbers the Obama administration touts...

By Michael Snyder September 22nd, 2014 U.S. economy has had six full years to bounce back since the financial collapse of 2008, and it simply has not happened. Median household income has declined substantially since then, total household wealth for middle class families is way down, the percentage of the population that is employed is still about where it was at the end of the last recession, and the number of Americans that are dependent on the government has absolutely exploded. Even those that claim that the economy is "recovering" admit that we are not even close to where we...

In 1988, the typical American adult was 40 years old, white and married, with a high school diploma. If he was a man, he probably worked full time. If she was a woman, she probably didn’t.Twenty-five years later, Americans are older, more diverse and more educated. We are less likely to be married and more likely to live alone. Work is divided more evenly between the sexes. One thing that hasn’t changed? The income of the median U.S. household is still just under $52,000.The government’s release last week of income and poverty data for 2013 brought renewed attention to the...

The misguided attempt to increase the minimum wage can almost be passed off as institutionalized economic illiteracy. Many people, however, have argued that it’s more than simple ignorance that drives the Left to ignore fiscal sanity and push for a $15 per hour burger-flipping wage. Well, if the latest attempt to institute mandated-minimum-pay illustrates anything, it shows that the Left isn’t that fond of the effort/reward relationship of hard work. Labor groups are now aiming to snuff out the system of tipping servers because… well… because it’s “unfair”.There is a movement to bump the minimum wage for tipped servers (often...