Obama and taxes

[danielh41]

This article in the New York Post explains part of the reason why I don't believe Obama and his tax plan:

MEDIA "correction" squads are insisting that John McCain can't say Barack Obama will raise taxes, no matter how much that announcing Democrats will raise taxes is like announcing the sun will rise.

In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle suggested Bill Clinton would raise taxes on the middle class - that everyone making over $36,000 could face a tax hike. Media "experts" accused the him of mangling "facts." Clinton was elected - and passed the largest tax increase in US history, right down to the middle class.

"It was Quayle who repeatedly twisted and misstated the facts," CNN reporter Brooks Jackson pronounced after the vice-presidential debate. On ABC, Jeff Green-field proclaimed: "Independent examination of this charge by, for example, press organizations, has found it, to say the least, misleading."

Cut to Feb. 18, 1993, when USA Today admitted: "Looks like Dan Quayle was right. Last year's vice-presidential debate . . . produced an accurate prediction from Quayle about the Clinton budget plan . . . The final plan, according to Clinton officials, will hit those making $30,000 and above."

Predictions about what a politician will do are predictions, not facts. Obviously, some predictions can be wilder - but predicting a massive tax hike under Democrats doesn't qualify as wild.

This goes not just for debates but also for commercials. In a fall '92 TV ad, the Bush-Quayle campaign used its estimates of how much Clinton would raise taxes, and all the networks leaped on it like starving men on a crust of bread.

NBC's Lisa Myers said "facts" were not on the GOP's side: "President Bush's new ad portrays Bill Clinton as a big taxer and a danger to the middle class . . . That's misleading. In fact, Clinton has proposed cutting taxes to the sort of people in this ad." In 20-20 hindsight, the fact is that Lisa Myers ended up with egg on her face.

In 2008, reporters and columnists touting Obama are repeatedly citing numbers by something called the Tax Policy Center. You'll never hear that this is a project operated by two liberal-Democrat think tanks. The figures suggest Obama will actually cut middle-class taxes more than John McCain. That, of course, assumes that President Obama will follow his plan to the letter, and that a newly elected liberal House and Senate will rubber-stamp his alleged tax cut for "95 percent" of Americans.

That, by the way, is a serious math error. How is it possible to cut 95 percent of Americans' taxes when the Tax Foundation reports that 40 percent of Americans don't pay any income tax? (This math apparently is too sophisticated for the guardians of "fact," who are nowhere to be found.)

When Democrats claim they'll be more generous in tax-cutting, does anyone believe a liberal-dominated Washington is going to do less taxing and spending than the Bush administration?

There's nothing wrong with the media suggesting that the Republican candidate is refusing to accept the genuineness of the Democratic candidate's proposal. But if they suggest McCain is lying or misleading voters, they're in danger of walking off yet another cliff of credibility if President Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi get to cook their own ever-expanding federal budget pie.

[dodgersteve182]

Never believe any politicians and taxes!

[danielh41]

What is obvious to me is that Democrats have to lie to get elected. In 1984, Walter Mondale decided to run an honest campaign. Maybe he has more priniciples than the Democrats today have. But he said that he would raise taxes once elected. That little bit on honest won him a grand total of 13 electoral votes. President Reagan took the other 525.

I wish that Obama was as honest as Mondale. One thing I found telling in the first debate occurred when Jim Lehrer asked Obama what he would cut to help pay for the bailout bill. Obama went into all kinds of new spending programs that he wanted to implement but couldn't come up with anything to cut.

[traininvain]

Unless Alexander Hamilton has the byline on a story, I'm not going to pay too much attention to anything that's in The Post.

[15QuestionsAway]

I know nothing I say will change your mind about Obama. But whenever anyone brings this up, I point them to the go-to chart on the subject in order to inject some facts into the discussion:

http://tinyurl.com/5s4l7j

It shows clearly that most people will do better under Obama's tax plan than McCain's. Obama has categorically stated that if you make less than $250k/yr, your taxes won't go up. That's the right promise to hold him to.

The converse can be assumed - if you make $250k/yr or more, then your taxes will go up. Obama's never said otherwise.

Realistically though, the government can't borrow and spend ad infinitum as has happened under Shrub. Some combination of increased taxes, spending cuts or inflation will occur, it's just a matter of when.

[danielh41]

I know nothing I say will change your mind about Obama. But whenever anyone brings this up, I point them to the go-to chart on the subject in order to inject some facts into the discussion:

http://tinyurl.com/5s4l7j

It shows clearly that most people will do better under Obama's tax plan than McCain's. Obama has categorically stated that if you make less than $250k/yr, your taxes won't go up. That's the right promise to hold him to.

The converse can be assumed - if you make $250k/yr or more, then your taxes will go up. Obama's never said otherwise.

Realistically though, the government can't borrow and spend ad infinitum as has happened under Shrub. Some combination of increased taxes, spending cuts or inflation will occur, it's just a matter of when.

Yes, that's Obama's plan. But the point of the article I posted is that his plan shouldn't be trusted.

[wintergreen48]

One problem that I have with Obama's plan is that he (and Biden last night) keep saying that 95% of Americans will receive income tax cuts, and I cannot figure out how that is possible, insofar as something like 40% of Americans do not pay any income taxes at all, simply because they fall below the income tax thresholds (which is also one reason why I get annoyed when people talk about how tax cuts benefit 'only the wealthy'-- since most taxes are in fact paid by 'the wealthy,' the people most likely to benefit from a tax cut would be the wealthy; people who do not pay taxes cannot benefit when you cut taxes).

Apart from the fact that it is obviously misleading to say that 95% of us will actually get tax cuts (although it might accurate to say that '95% of Americans will not see a tax increase,' IF in fact his tax plan works as promised, which is not likely, since none of them ever do), it suggests that his math skills are sorely lacking.

[TheCalvinator24]

Last night, Biden said it slightly differently. He said 95% of households with incomes below $250,000 will receive tax cuts.

I still think the claim is wrong, but at least they've changed it a tad.