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Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 11:38:41 AM

Obama is doing the exact wrong things. Raising taxes is exactly what FDR did that extended the depression. Going to war against business is exactly wrong. Increasing the size and scope of government is exactly wrong. Some lowlights.

Tax rates going from 33%/35% to 36%/39.6% which will impact 2.6million taxpayers.

Capital gains from 15% to 20%.

45% tax rate on any estate over $7M

New restrictions on deductions for families earning over $250K that will dramatically harm small businesses.

1/3rd of the trillion will come from new taxes on business. The U.S. already has one of the highest business tax schemes in the world.

This is exactly the wrong prescription for economic recovery.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 11:49:24 AM

With all due respect to your position, how would you propose to pay for all these bailouts, if you don't raise taxes?
The truth is most families don't earn over $250K a year, and most people do not have estates over $7M.
I have heard the comments that this is potentially bad for small business and that is unfortunate.
I'm beginning to think they should stop trying to bail out and save everyone and let the market correct itself.

Name:	lotowner -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 11:54:57 AM

I vote for letting the market correct itself. We are creating addictions which cannot be sustained. Our bankruptsy laws were created to allow businnese to undergo surgery and come back healthy.

Name:	rude evin -	Reply
Subject:	Of course MM..........
Date:	2/27/2009 12:00:08 PM

you know the answer as to the reason for these actions, his hero FDR, did these things, but it also locked the D's into political power for 40 years.........so strong that to this day no party can correct and deal with the entitlement programs. It's about political power, the consequences are incidental to the power equation.

Name:	water_watcher -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 12:21:39 PM

That would be wonderful if he would let the market correct itself. It would do it faster and be much more beneficial than this wasteful spending and deciding who should pay what (can you say redistribution of wealth). I know we would recover faster and be better off without bigger government and bigger deficits that we will be taxed and taxed to pay for.

Name:	Summer Lover -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 12:55:55 PM

Careful Hound, that would be advocating Capitalism.

Name:	Council Roc Doc -	Reply
Subject:	$1 Trillion in New Taxes
Date:	2/27/2009 1:32:32 PM

So Hound, I would like to do my part to help stimulate the economy. There are truly once in a lifetime opportunities for purchase of investment real estate. I am keeping my head above water, paying more people in need to do the things that I would typically enjoy doing myself, and fortunate and thankful to be in the position to do so. But what about the trepidation I feel about my new increased tax rate, the new social security tax ceiling, new gas tax, dropped deductions for interest payments on my 1040, and on and on. I am very reluctant to spend the money to take advantage of the opportunity because of Obama's reckless decisions in the first 50 days of office. Very shrewd on his part, he will take my discretionary money first, redistribute it to those who pay nothing at all. We know from experience that this tactic is doomed to fail. The private sector, believe it or not, is willing and able to help jumpstart this economy, but will not make the decision to invest based upon pure fear of what is to come down the pike. So what would Obama say I should do?

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	How many jobs
Date:	2/27/2009 2:46:53 PM

are created by people that make less than $250K per year? Are you about class warfare or job creation? This is class warfare and will hurt workers more than anyone else. Besides, even you have admitted the stimulus plan isn't about stimulus, its about pork and entitlements and government spending and health care and on and on.

Who do you think is going to pay for the stimulus plan?!?!? Give me a break!

Name:	Jim Dandy -	Reply
Subject:	Smoke & Mirrors
Date:	2/27/2009 2:47:05 PM

From todays Wall Street Journal
**********

In the closing weeks of last year's election campaign, we wrote that Democrats had in mind the most sweeping expansion of government in decades. Liberals clucked, but it turns out even we've been outbid. With yesterday's fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Obama is attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back.

The first point to understand is the sheer magnitude of federal spending built into this proposal. As the nearby chart shows, federal outlays will soar in fiscal 2009 to $4 trillion, or 27.7% of GDP, from $3 trillion or 21% of GDP in 2008, and 20% in 2007. This is higher as a share of the economy than any year since 1945, when the country was still mobilized for World War II. It is more spending by far than during the Vietnam War, or during the recessions of 1974-75 or 1981-82.

But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Obama is right that this spending is needed now to "jump-start" an economic recovery. Though the budget predicts that the economy will recover in 2010, spending will still be 24.1% of GDP that year, and the budget proposes that spending will remain higher than 22% for the entire next decade even as the defense budget steadily declines. All Presidential budgets predict spending will decline in the "out years," if only to give the illusion of spending restraint. Mr. Obama tries the same trick, but he is proposing so many new and expanded nondefense programs that his budgeteers can't get anywhere close even to Jimmy Carter spending levels.

These columns focus on spending, rather than deficits, because Milton Friedman taught us that spending represents the real future burden on taxpayers. Nonetheless, the 2009 budget deficit is estimated to be an eye-popping 12.7% of GDP, which once again dwarfs anything we've seen in the postwar era. The White House blueprint predicts that this will fall back down to 3.5% as soon as 2012, but this is based on assumptions about Washington that aren't going to happen.

For example, Mr. Obama's budget assumes that nearly all of the new stimulus spending will be temporary -- a fantasy. He also proposes to eliminate farm subsidies for those with annual sales of more than $500,000. This is a great idea, and long overdue. But has the President checked with Senators Kent Conrad (North Dakota) or Chuck Grassley (Iowa)? We hope we're wrong, but a White House that showed no interest in restraining Congress during the recent stimulus bacchanal isn't likely to stand athwart history to stop the agribusiness lobby.

The falling deficit also assumes the largest tax increase in U.S. history, starting in 2011 with the repeal of the Bush tax rates on incomes higher than $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. The White House says this will yield upwards of $1 trillion, if you choose to believe that tax rates don't affect taxpayer behavior.

In the real world, two of every three tax filers who fall into this income category are small business owners or investors, who are certainly capable of finding ways to invest that allow them to declare less taxable income. The real impact of this looming tax increase will be to cast further uncertainty over economic decisions and either slow or postpone the recovery. Ditto for the estimated $646 billion from a new cap-and-trade tax, which no one wants to call a tax but would give the political class vast new leverage over the private economy.

Then there is Mr. Obama's plan for national health care. The White House has put a $634 billion place holder in the budget to pay for covering tens of millions of uninsured Americans with government subsidized coverage. But even advocates of this government plan say the cost will be closer to $1 trillion over 10 years, and probably much more. Meanwhile, the President is promising to reform entitlements, but his budget proposes a net increase of about $1 trillion in Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

The biggest illusion in this budget may be its optimistic economic forecast. The White House assumes that the economy will decline by only 1.2% this year, before growing by 3.2% next year. This assumes the recovery will begin later this year and gather steam quickly to return to normal levels of growth. By 2010 to 2013, the budget adds, the economy will be cooking by an average of 4% a year -- which is also how it conjures up magical deficit reduction.

This growth is a lovely thought, but how? The only impetus for growth in this budget comes from the government spending more money that it is taking out of the job-producing private economy. With $1 trillion of new entitlements, $1.4 trillion in new taxes, and $5 trillion in new debt, America's entrepreneurs aren't getting any help soon from Washington.

Democrats will want to rush all of this into law this year while Mr. Obama retains his honeymoon aura and they can blame the recession on George W. Bush. But Americans are only beginning to understand the magnitude of Mr. Obama's ambitions, and how much of their own income will be required to fulfill them. Republicans have an obligation to insist on a long and considerable debate on all of this, lest Americans discover in a year or two that they live in a very different country.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	The Truth is
Date:	2/27/2009 6:26:29 PM

that we all will. In the end, every American will pay for new programs, all of the bailouts and propping up the economy.

Y'all can cry and whine all you want. Enjoy your money while you can because when this is all over, the US is going to be a very different place. I believe we are seeing the last days of American as we knew it. It's not BO's fault or the Democratic Congress or even Bush's fault. We've been on this road for a very long time. Tax increases, tax cuts, none of it is going to matter.

I'm not for or against Obama. There is nothing he will do that will ultimately change the road that we are on. Don't know whether it will be better or worse but it will be change. And it wouldn't matter if a Republican had been elected. It would be the same. Maybe just a different route to the same place.

MM - you made a number of predictions pre-electio. This is my post-election prediction.

Name:	Mack -	Reply
Subject:	How to Pay for IT??
Date:	2/27/2009 6:34:08 PM

Look for big buckets of money available, preferably ones which renew themselves.
Social Security?? It is a "Social" program, right?
How about "WE", the fair-minded politicians that we are, tap into SS distributions? And, be Fair about it.
- Have a private pension plan? ZAP! No payout, but continue to pay.
- Have investments over $250K? ZAP! No payout.
- None of the above? ZAP! Tax SS at 100%

Drastic, but not beyond the reach of these slugs.

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	The Truth is
Date:	2/28/2009 9:11:57 AM

Sadly, as much as I wish your prediction will not come true I tend to think you are right. While I recognize the incremental shift in this direction you have to recognize that historically there have been milestones and all have been led by Democrats. First FDR with the New Deal, then LBJ with the Great Society and now Obama with what I call the New Marxism. In between we have had mostly smaller movements in the wrong direction with periods of relief like Reagan and Clinton/Republican Congress.

So you might not want to blame Obama or a certain party but it is inarguably true that Democrat presidents are responsible for the vast majority of the movement to socialism. Obama understands two things: 1) we are still a basically right of center country; and 2) these periods of significant advancements in the size and scope of the federal government always revert back to a baseline significantly higher than before. He is going to move with incredible speed in the next two years while Dems control both houses of Congress.

Here's another prediction: by the end of his first term Republicans will control one or both houses of Congress. If he is reelected he will not get much if anything done to move this country closer to socialism in his second term but it won't matter. The damage to the country will be done and he will have his legacy.

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