Who are those miscreants not paying their fair share? YOU! As Obama goes on his campaign to institute the "Buffett Tax," one has to look back to his original proposal to see what he wants to actually tax. A look at the "White House" site only reveals the current political campaign, without the actual proposal. It's still there, but buried under numerous campaign messages from 2011 and 2012. He has put parts of it in the 2013 DoD budget proposal and 2013 Government budget proposal, but that only demonstrates his focus on getting the other taxes through.
It isn't just a tax bill. It's also a spending bill. And a shell game. Hidden amidst flowery words, it recognizes the law of diminishing returns, i.e., even the part that "taxes the rich," the returns diminish quickly. Who wouldn't want to tax the rich, after all? You'd be surprised to learn that the Nation's Elderly, Military Retirees, and Farmers are the "Buffett Rich."
The Elderly? Yep, the Obama Administration proposes taxing them for the medications and health care. He doesn't call this a "tax." He calls it a "savings," because they survived to 65, paying into Social Security and Medicare, their entire lives, and now they're sponging off the system that taxed them. He has determined that by increasing their costs for Part B Medicare (as well as Part C & D), they can pay their "fair share" of the Buffett tax. Eventually, you too will qualify for this tax, no matter who you are.
Farmers? Yep, the Obamas have determined that Farmers are making too much money to protect from price fluctuations. He wants to raise taxes on "mandatory insurance" as well as end subsidies. The "Buffett Tax" means you'll pay more for your food at the store, as farmers will have to increase the price in order to make up the loss, and pay higher prices for insurance. The reality is that this will push more family farms out of business, as it benefits the big farming corporations that can weather this increased cost and the children of ancestral farms are forced to find work at McDonald's and elsewhere to make a living. One of his stated goals is to lower the value of farmland, which means those corporations can buy up more land at cheaper prices as the family farmers get less for giving up.
Military Retirees? They're driving up the National Debt by cashing in their years of service for prescriptions & long procrastinated doctor's appointments. It's time, according to the Administration, that they start paying for their own pain medications and health insurance, and not just a little bit. They need to pay enough that they won't want to use it.
And if you need more than one or two medications? Well, you're in a special category! The "Buffett Tax" requires that those that use too many meds to be put on a special watch list. It requires big brother to monitor your usage. This one isn't likely to catch me. I don't like pills, and I recognize that Americans are over-medicated, but I am opposed to big brother putting you on a watch list just because your Doctor believes you need 4 or 5 pills a day.
Did I mention spending? Obama wants to get the Government into the Real Estate business. As it calls for selling off Federal buildings, it espouses the purchase of residential and commercial properties, particularly in the inner cities. This is part of the Buffett Tax. While Section 8 of the 1st Article allows for purchase and maintenance of Federal Properties for the purpose of governance and Military Protection of the Nation, it does not afford for the Federal Government to be a business owner, nor landlord, nor Real Estate agent.
And he doesn't just want to buy up properties in the city, he wants to buy them new railroads. No where does the Constitution allow the US Government to interfere in the affairs of cities, except that the US Congress has sole jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, but that won't stop Obama, particularly in the award of US Taxdollars to those that keep him in power.
But creating jobs in political base with trains and real estate deals aren't his only plan. He also wants to further inject the Federal Government in the School System. The Department of Education has no students, despite the size of its budget. It serves solely as a means of distributing tax dollars to the schools that beg the best and comply with its dictates. Education is primarily a function of the municipal government or county government, with oversight from the State government. Every tax dollar cycled through it is diminished by the cost of the bureaucrats, energy costs, and buildings it takes to have the mechanisms to tax and spend this money. Every Federal Tax dollar collected for this diminishes the money available for those lower, closer, more responsive governments to tax those that are parenting the school kids. But if your school board complies with Obama's dictates rather than the voters of your district, he'll be more than happy to send some of your tax dollars back to it.
Most of the new taxes won't be seen at all by Americans. They're invisible, unlike the Federal Withholding Tax and Federal Insurance Corporation. FICA taxes are the combination of Social Security and Medicare taxes. Until recently, the fixed amount of those two combined were 7.65% paid by the Employee and an equal amount paid by the Employer. If you worked for yourself, your part was called the Self-Employment tax. It goes into a separate account which Congress can borrow from but not spend from to pay for the rest of government. It is a flat tax, only labeled a tax when it benefits the politicians.
Obama has proposed cutting this, the "employment tax" multiple times, successfully, and wants it cut more. In the "Buffett Tax" he wants to cut the Social Security portion in half from its previous levels, from 6.2% (on each, the Employer & Employee side of the equation) to 3.1%. This reduces the amount going into the Social Security Trust Fund by half, but does not effect the Federal Deficit. On the other hand, it rapidly accelerates the date Social Security will run out of money. It also decreases the amount the Federal Government can borrow from future retirees, which means it must borrow more from China, who is all too willing to take the interest payments that come along with that.
While Obama is decreasing the likelihood that you will get ANY return on those FICA taxes, he simultaneously wants to increase the tax on Employers, in the form of "unemployment insurance." This is paid into the Federal Treasury, not Social Security Administration, and is not tied into payouts of unemployment compensation. He wants to increase the rate of this tax (from 6.1% to 8.2%) on employers by 25% and the amount taxed (maximum subjected to tax) by 200%. This is a tax you won't see, unless you're working payroll, but this will effect a business owner's decision on whether to have existing employees work 60 hours or to hire new Employees. It increases his incentive to have one employee that he's already paid the maximum tax on, rather than 2 or more employees that barely make the maximum he has to pay that tax on.
If you're forced to rely on that "safety net" of a few hundred taxed dollars a week after a layoff, he wants it to be more painful. He wants you to have to go face-face with a bureaucrat to prove you're actually looking for work. This of course will cost the states more money, and it will increase the amount you have to pay in gas to get your paltry check, but it should give you an incentive to get off the program, even if you don't find work. It should drive unemployment claims down and make him look better in time for the election, even if jobs created continues to be less than the number of people entering the workforce.
But don't take my word for it. Read the proposal as published on the Obama Campaign website, er, White House website: Download Buffett Rule-highlighted
Oh, did I mention he wants to again increase the budget and authority of the IRS to search your papers without a warrant? Yeah, that's another way to "raise revenue," to harass taxpayers more, to shake you down more, to squeeze more money out of your pockets.
All figures in the charts to the right are in billions, and directly taken from the proposal of Obama to tax those rich Retirees, Veterans, Unemployed, and Farmers. Negative numbers represent tax increases while positive numbeers represent new spending.
But Warren Buffett is making more money than he raised to get Obama elected and far more than he will be taxed under the Obama plan to "raise revenue" on the backs of the Elderly & Veterans.
The politicization of Generals
Taxing Our Veterans
Destroying America's National Defenses
Stumble It!
