Posted on 03/03/2009 8:03:20 PM PST by bruinbirdman
What's sauce for the banks is sauce for Treasury Secretary Geithner.
If you really want to understand the nature of the budget proposals and President Obama's new economic policies, try the 140-page summary budget document released last Thursday. Labeled "A New Era of Responsibility," the administration underscored military savings, economic growth and tax revenues but forgot economic responsibility.
To meet the challenge of increasing spending while lowering the deficit, the president's budget finds new government revenue from savings on defense spending and tax hikes on all Americans.
The greatest amount in early years comes from budget savings from reducing the "cost of overseas contingency operations," a bureaucratic euphemism for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These activities were previously not on the federal budget, so no real comparison can be made with prior budgets.
Obama's budget team inflates the size of future military operations, then immediately reduces the cost by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. That sleight of hand turns out to be the largest "savings" in the President's budget. If the budget should be short by a larger amount, say $5 trillion, the same gimmick might work again.
Another source of revenue comes from auctioning rights to carbon emissions, raising $646 billion over 10 years. This is a regressive tax, meaning that it falls hardest on those at the lower end of the income scale. Despite Obama's promise that those earning under $250,000 won't pay another dime in taxes, carbon-intensive companies are going to pass along the extra tax to consumers.
The magical source of much new government revenue in the president's budget is rapid economic growth during the first four years of the administration, which brings in tax collections to the Treasury. The budget forecasts an economic contraction of 1.9% in 2009, real economic
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
How about a Stress Test for the taxpayers.
or a Stress test for the one that Strangles the SOB?
Geitner doesn't pay taxes. So, Hussein's tax man-in-chief is the perfect out to lunch Beltway Butt-man.
yitbos
How about a Sarbannes-Oxley enforcement for all the Congressmen who voted for the Stimulus?
we must not criticize our leader the great ZERO.
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