Raising Taxes Is No Way To Spur Economy

It's September, and election season is under way. Marching to the tune of President Obama's class-based political rhetoric, some candidates for Congress are campaigning on promises to raise taxes significantly on electorally safe targets.

This year's list of victims includes "the rich," Wall Street and America's oil companies.

Those three groups are in Washington's cross hairs because politicians need ways to generate more revenue — without spoiling their chances at the polls — to pay for the spending spree they have been on since at least the administration of George W. Bush.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, baseline federal outlays have risen by $4.4 trillion (yes, trillion!) in just the past 31 months.

The rich and Wall Street are both easy targets. Wealth sparks images of Hollywood and corporate excess. Paris Hilton and Bernie Madoff, like Marie Antoinette, would probably advise us to eat cake. In contrast, most Americans cheer genuine economic achievement.

Individual tales of riches based on hard work and innovation rarely make headlines, however.

So when we hear that Washington is considering allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at year-end, raising the burden on households earning more than $250,000, many think: "Why not?"

But the evidence shows that the top 5% of earners now contribute over 50% of the total income taxes collected by the IRS.

Isn’t it wonderful, how by mere telephathy, Democrats can delve into the souls of rich folk and read them to be greedy, mean, evil and uncaring?

Isn’t it also wonderful how Democrats can villify and penalize a whole class of people in the blink of an eye, in total disegard of the Constitution of the United States?

It is also absolutely amazing how these Democrats, in all their brilliance, intelligence and limitless intellectual capacity, can think of all these things and then figure out what the media should communicate to the electorate?

Absolutely amazing.

/sarcasm/

IMHO

I was going to buy a new car in 2011 doing my part to stimulate the economy, until receiving this letter from our CEO about the higher cost we will be paying for our Health Care plan begining in 2011 because of Obamacare. Until I know how much more I will be paying, all big purchaces are off.

(Name of company removed)

The soaring cost of health care, which for decades has exceeded the rate of inflation, has had a profound impact on our company and our ability to offer superior products at competitive prices. The Health Care Reform Law passed earlier this year, while broadening access to health care, could further add to the company’s costs over the next several years – and in 2018, could subject XXXXX to a substantial tax on health care plans exceeding a certain threshold.

Today, XXXXX pays about 89 percent of total health care costs for employees, far above peer companies such as Lockheed Martin, General Electric and 3M, which pay about 70 percent. The company expects to spend more than $2.4 billion on health care this year, which adds about $2 million to the cost of every airplane we build. Costs could reach $3.1 billion by 2015.

We’ve got to work together to manage these costs. The company will continue to offer excellent health-care benefits and to bear most of the financial burden. But beginning in 2011, nonunion employees will be asked to pay a greater share of their health care costs. Health-care coverage for employees represented by unions is governed by collective bargaining agreements and will be discussed as those contracts are renegotiated. Detailed information about coming changes will be available in October when letters go to the homes of XXXXX employees in advance of the 2011 enrollment period.

Change is difficult, but necessary to compete in the ever-changing environment we face.

Republicans might be better served if they reminded people about how we made it through the Savings and Loan crisis—where thousands of banks failed-—without any “stimulus” and with two tax increases-—ie Bush in 1990 and Clinton in 1993.

There’s a difference between leadership and real problem solving and just throwing Keynesian money at the economy based on some voodooeconomic formula about how $1 of spending creates at least a $1.50 in new GDP....

I loved those low gas prices at the end of the 90s....think about how much it effects the economy when gas goes from $1 a gallon to $3 a gallon-—and a husband and wife using 50 gallons of gas per week have to pay $600 a month for gas instead of $200 a month.....

That extra $400 is what made the late 1990s so great for people.....

and is what people were hoping for in 2006, when they booted Republicans for Democrats who promised to be “fiscally conservative”.

Nobel Prize winning economist Edmund Phelps did some research proving that the so-called Phillips Curve was wrong-—that there IS no “trade-off” between inflation and unemployment......

And the Obama-Bernanke strategy of zero percent interest rates and borrowing and spending “stimulus” only has “transatory effect” according to Phelps...a Democrat

Who also believes that low taxes on the middle class make them lazy and less likely to work many hours and get educated.....

nice guy....

All of the bailouts have produced what, again? It should be obvious by now that govt. spending is wasteful, and that allowing people to spend more of what they earn privately will offer the greatest returns in both productivity and employment gains.

Obama and Co. are trying to turn this country into a top-down economy where Ministries and Central Planners call the shots. That's not just re-distributing wealth, that's communism.

As a country, we must reject this for a long time. Others have tried it and failed, I suggest we skip that step.

Obama and Co. are trying to turn this country into a top-down economy where Ministries and Central Planners call the shots. That's not just re-distributing wealth, that's communism.

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The anomaly of the current recession is the anomaly of Barak Obama's political philosophy and worldview.

This is all by design. The design of an administration that is firmly ensconced in the socialist doctrine of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Alinsky. Any hand wringing by the regime is just window dressing. The goal is state ownership of everything and everybody.

Big government types like big government. They hate the private sector and the free market. But most of all they despise this country. Remember former auto czar, Bloom: 'The free market is a joke.'

And so, we're in deep, deep economic trouble. And these liberals are going to friggin' sing and dance along, all the way, as they dance off a cliff.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

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