OBAMACARE: $1.5 TRILLION Dollar Tax Hike For a Stadium Full of Troubles

Real Clear Politics/The Lid ^ | 7/10/09 | The Lid

[Shellybenoit]

The past two weeks has seen the administration and Congress float ideas on how to pay for the $1.5 trillion bill for Obamacare. Some of it surrounds empty promises of savings, much of it involves tax hikes . Some of these tax hikes even conform to Obama’s promise of not taxing people making under $250,000. They are designed to take money out of the hands of people who drive the economy. Proposed tax hikes in this category include: 1) capping the value of itemized deductions including gifts to charities; 2) a 3% surtax on households earning more than $250,000; and 3) a millionaires tax.

Not all of the tax suggestion revolves around President Obama's strategy of income redistribution, but they would force the President to break his $250,000 promise. Some of these taxes include: 1) a tax on soda; 2) a tax on beer; 3) an increase in employer and employee payroll taxes; 4) a flat tax on health insurance companies; 5) broaden the Medicare tax on investment income; 6) an employer mandate; and 7) a value added tax on everything but food, housing, and Medicare.

President Obama recently told the press: “And I’ve said very clearly, if any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs. It’s going to have to be paid for.” But as CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate this week, nothing in their current health care proposals will actually reduce health care costs. Instead, Elmendorf explained, the left’s health care plan only “puts an additional long-term burden on top of an already unsustainable path.”

With the economy already buckling from runaway spending and an oppressive tax burden, if enacted, will Obamacare help fix the heath care system?

[Pearls Before Swine]

The lefties don’t like trickle down economics. They are going to try “tricke up” poverty.

[xkaydet65]

While I abhor what I am about to suggest, but if Obama is serious about one payer health care wouldn't it be simpler and less onerous economically to abolish Medicare and Medicaid and use those expenditures, along with that crazy 600 billion downpayment no one mentions, that was placed in the current budget, to create a one payer system?

If this is what the Dums want, the framework and much of the money already exists. As a matter of fact a federal takeover of Medicaid under, say Ohio payment standards, would save billions that are now spent in places like Calif and NY. Before I get flamed, I am NOT ADVOCATING this, just wondering why the haloed one doesn't do things in a simple more straightforward manner.