$1.75 TRILLION
If you thought incurring a federal deficit of $450-500 billion was bad, try $1.75 trillion!
Link - Official: Obama budget sees $1.75 trillion deficit
Here's a good read from the Wall Street Journal:
The 2% Illusion: Take Everything they earn, and it still won't be enough
From the Article:
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
Even with raising taxes on the wealthy, capital gains, and dividend rates, Obama is still short hundreds of billions of dollars he will need for his agenda.
How can we believe that Obama can promise that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime?"
The middle class is going to get taxed. It is simple as that.
Comments
Posted by:
Posted on: February 26, 2009 11:20 AM
You are not thinking of other sources of tax revenues. For example, you could increase the taxation on corporations. You could also increase taxes on luxury items such as second (or seventh) homes and yachts. One goal of the administration is to close loopholes.
Likewise, you could remove the maximum withholding tax on social security which would make social security solvent and provide revenue.
Lastly, I believe it is the hope of the Obama administration that everyone will see an overall increase in income/wealth, rather then the few you pointed out, which in itself would generate more tax.
Posted by: James (Author)
Posted on: February 26, 2009 11:41 AM
Increasing corporate taxes can be easily offset by them reducing salaries and wages to workers.
From the CBO Fiscal 2007 figures, government revenues: 45% individual, 35% payroll, 15% corporate, 3% excise, 2% other.
Out of the 3.8 million people that earn more than $250,000, not all of them have second, third, or four homes, or yachts. Unless the Obama administration is assuming large figures, trying to squeeze out more revenue from this population group may not produce the billions of dollars he needs for his agenda.
Applying higher taxes would be realized when they sell the property but if they just keep it, how can the federal government get more money from them?
Lifting the social security tax cap will not make the program solvent. Based on current projections, the Social Security Trust Fund will start to go negative around 2018 and exhaustion by 2041. Then it cannot maintain 100% benefits to all retirees. Lifting the cap would only extend the program's life by another couple of years. It is based on the number of workers versus retired, and life expectancy. The number of current workers supporting retirees is decreasing thus making it harder for the Social Security system to remain viable. By 2041, the choice would be to either increase payroll taxes to 17.6% or cut benefits by 25%.
How can you support a program that won't be beneficial for the young workers? By the time we retire, the program is bankrupt or is able to give only a fraction of that retired paycheck in the mail. We ought to have the right to opt-out of this government program and make our own choice to fulfilling our dream for retirement.
Of course everyone will see an increase in income/wealth, but it seems that if you make less than $50,000, your taxes ought to be zero, and the rich have to pay for everyone else. Is that really fair in the long run?