Posted on 10/25/2007 1:26:48 PM PDT by seanmerc
It’s easy to see the disguises that the Democratic Party is planning to don for Halloween.
While we can only speculate on the taxes they are planning to increase — everything would be a safe bet — it is becoming clear how they will dress the tax increases up to make the radical change they will, in fact, represent seem moderate and reasonable, even necessary to protect the “middle class.”
Of course, this will take place not this year but in 2009, after they have elected Hillary as president and as many as 58 Democratic senators (possible takeaways in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, Virginia, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico).
Put the pieces together: Why are the Democrats adopting a one-year patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax rather than a long-term fix?
And why are liberal leaders like Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., opposing closing the loophole that protects private equity hedge funds? And why is Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., pushing for a broad-based fix closing capital gains treatment for all partnerships, not just for hedge funds, even though he must realize that such broad-based reform can’t pass?
And why did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other Democratic leaders hail the action of the Budget Committee as representing a tax cut when all it did was to include in its long-range plans the renewal of some, but scarcely all, of the Bush tax cuts that will sunset in the next four years?
The answer is that the party is concocting an elaborate costume with which to disguise its coming mammoth tax increases.
Once the Democrats firmly control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, they will probably commit themselves to the following:
Raise the top bracket on the income tax back up to 40 percent from its current 35 percent.
Increase the Capital Gains Tax from its current 15 percent to 30 percent or, perhaps, eliminate it entirely and tax these gains as ordinary income (at 40 percent).
Double, triple, or eliminate the ceiling on FICA taxes so that instead of taxing only the first $99,000 of income, the levy covers a much higher portion of earned income.
Repeal much of the rollback in estate taxes passed by Bush.
The combined effect of these increases will be horrific and will probably trigger a recession. As Election Day 2008 nears, it is easy to anticipate massive sell-offs of stocks and real estate in anticipation of a Democratic increase in capital gains rates.
So, to induce America to swallow their tax poison, the Democrats understand the need to camouflage their intentions and hide them in the rhetoric of middle-class tax cuts.
So here’s what they’ll do. They will bill their tax increases as a middle-class tax cut by including in the calculation the Bush middle-class tax cuts, which they will not permit to sunset, and also by taking credit for a long-term fix of the AMT. Together, the sums “saved” by these “tax cuts” will be gigantic, at least on paper, and will permit them to call their revenue-raising leviathan a tax reduction.
Of course, no actual middle-class human beings will see their taxes cut. The Bush tax cuts will just continue and the theoretical harm of the AMT will be averted.
Then they will repeal the carried interest exemption on all partnerships (real estate and energy as well as private equity) and will hold up the massive and obscene earnings of hedge fund managers and their unjustifiable tax preferences as the poster child for their tax increases. They will feature Blackstone and its billion-dollar executives as the targets of their tax increases.
All of this camouflage will fool enough people to get the votes in a Democratic Congress to pass their tax program. But once the increases start being felt on tax day, it will be a different story. But, by then, it will be too late.
Halloween will be every day.
It always amazes me that liberal bleeding-heart types never acknowledge the failures that their ideology creates. Zimbabwe is the current example. There have been so many others.
Someone explain to me, a simple-minded old drunk, why the Utopians can't see where their communal ideology fails.
Got Soundbite???
Democrats planning to raise taxes? That’s news?
Look at Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. A prime example.
Rangle and the Clintons are a thick as thieves. This proposal wouldn’t have come out with the approval of Her Highness. Now for what purpose:
1. Hillary will pooh-pooh this tax increase proposal, thereby making her appear “moderate” and “centrist”.
2. People will actually take the possibility that this proposal might be enacted and hunker down financially so that going into the 2008 election, the country will be in a recession economically which will be blamed on Bush and the GOP.
Gee willikers, “taxes” is such a harsh word, tut tut. Why don’t we just call them, gosh, I don’t know—how about: “enhanced payroll premiums.”
The DNC
When are the sheeple going to wake up and require these as_clowns to cut spending and some programs, like foreign aide.
Democrats have yet to see a tax increase they didn’t like.
Democrats = massive tax hikes. Helloooo!!! Is that now news?
No. In their world the ends justifies the means and Socialism is the ends!
The DNC
Ala The Simpsons call the "painful emergency tax" a "colossal salary grab" or "temporary refund adjustment"...hehe.
They are so rich that they don’t pay taxes now. All their money is in tax free foundations, tax free investments, and family held trusts.
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