Obama’s Plan for Budget Would Shift Burden to Rich

NY Times ^ | February 25, 2009 | By JACKIE CALMES

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WASHINGTON – President Obama will propose further tax increases on the affluent to help pay for his promise to make health care more accessible and affordable, administration officials said on Wednesday. [snip]

Mr. Obama will also propose in the budget outline he releases on Thursday to use revenues from the centerpiece of his environmental policy — a plan under which companies will have to purchase permits to exceed pollution emission caps — to pay for an extension of a two-year tax credit that benefits low and middle-income people.

The combined effect of the two proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on upper-income households, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth and reimpose a substantially larger share of the tax burden on the most affluent taxpayers.

Administration officials said the president would seek in the budget he releases on Thursday to cap itemized tax deductions for high-income people, such as couples earning more than about $250,000 a year.

The officials said the resulting revenues would account for about half of a $634 billion “reserve fund” that Mr. Obama will set aside in his budget to begin addressing health care. The other half would come from Medicare savings, including an end to billions of dollars in subsidies to insurance companies under the Medicare Advantage program, and other possible tax-law changes.

[snip]

[Kozak]

I will now be found at the beach, instead of in the ER.
Mama did not raise a fool, and my Great Grandfather was the last Serf in our family.

[MrB]

Actually, it’s $208k per couple to get into the upper tax bracket, which he’s targeting, and you can halve that for a single person.

So, if you’re single and making a little over 100K, you’re a target.

Might as well quit and go grease a locomotive.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore...”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tr_jjs2LKQ&feature=related

At least there’s one nearly silver lining to all this. In the future when the rich nations of the earth are mentioned to give more than they already do to some useless cause, they wont be talking about us.

[surely_you_jest]

Start shrugging.

Saw this coming a few years ago. I shrugged, and retired early.

Taxes went down. Stopped paying payroll taxes. Expenses went down. Net after tax income is actually higher than before, even factoring in inflation.

I'm eligible for early Social Security, under the current rules, mid 2012. My bride comes up in 2014. Assuming (a really big assumption) that the rules don't change or, worse yet, become means tested, we'll shrug again.

My sympathies to the under 50 crowd. Commander Zero has handed you the bill. My wife and I are tired of paying for this crap, and we're outta here.