The Senate Democratic plan - which has been endorsed by the White House and is, in fact, the only Democratic plan actively under consideration right now - doesn't touch corporate jets. We asked Carney if the White House is upset that the Senate Democrats' plan protects corporate jets. His answer:With this administration it's all about political posturing. They don't want to talk about truth...just posturing and talking points. More here. Is it just me, or does this administration have fun with the truth?
"Our position - in the president's plan that has been available for ages but republicans and some reporters pretend doesn't exist - is that the corporate jet loophole should be eliminated. We'd be fine if it were eliminated as part of the revenue component of a sequester buy-down or as part of broader tax reform in a bigger balanced deficit reduction deal. Either way. And either way, Republicans oppose it, and would rather see sequester hit than ask corporate jet owners to give up their special tax break. How is that not true?"
Even if the Senate plan did end the tax break for private jets, it wouldn't make much of a difference. The tax break - which allows the owners of private jets to depreciate their airplanes over five years instead of the standard seven years for commercial airplanes - would raise less than $300 million a year. That's a tiny fraction of the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts scheduled to go into effect this year.
Obamacare law contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses
WASHINGTON, DC -- Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses. Arranged by their respective sizes according to CBO scores, below is the total list of all $500 billion-plus in tax hikes (over the next ten years) in Obamacare, their effective dates, and where to find them in the bill.
$123 Billion: Surtax on Investment Income (Takes effect Jan. 2013): A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:
Capital Gains Dividends Other* 2012 15% 15% 35% 2013+ 23.8% 43.4% 43.4% *Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8% surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens. (Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93)
$86 Billion: Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Current law and changes:
First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/EmployeeAll Remaining Wages
Employer/EmployeeCurrent Law 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employedObamacare Tax Hike 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employedBill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2000-2003; 87-93$65 Billion: Individual Mandate Excise Tax and Employer Mandate Tax (Both taxes take effect Jan. 2014):
Individual: Anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance as defined by Obama-appointed HHS bureaucrats must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following
1 Adult 2 Adults 3+ Adults 2014 1% AGI/$95 1% AGI/$190 1% AGI/$285 2015 2% AGI/$325 2% AGI/$650 2% AGI/$975 2016 + 2.5% AGI/$695 2.5% AGI/$1390 2.5% AGI/$2085 Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS). Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337Employer: If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346(Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion)$60.1 Billion: Tax on Health Insurers (Takes effect Jan. 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993
$32 Billion: Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Takes effect Jan. 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956
$23.6 Billion: “Black liquor” tax hike (Took effect in 2010) This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105
$22.2 Billion: Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Took effect in 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980
$20 Billion: Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986
$15.2 Billion: High Medical Bills Tax (Takes effect Jan 1. 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995
$13.2 Billion: Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389
$5 Billion: Medicine Cabinet Tax (Took effect Jan. 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957-1,959
$4.5 Billion: Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Takes effect Jan. 2013) Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994
$4.5 Billion: Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Took effect in 2010): This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113
$2.7 Billion: Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (Took effect July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399
$1.4 Billion: HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Took effect Jan. 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,959
$0.6 Billion: $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Takes effect Jan. 2013): Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,995-2,000
$0.4 Billion: Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Took effect in 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004
$ Negligible: Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Took effect in 2010): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971
$ Negligible: Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Took effect in Jan. 2012): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957
The One Big Thing you miss is presuming the GOP candidates are smart enough to catch on. After all, the leadership of the GOP in congress promised real spending cuts...and delivered "cuts in future spending." As if that means anything (since no Congress can restrict what a future Congress can do...without a Constitutional amendment.).If we could actually get the GOP in Congress to actually deliver on what they promised BEFORE the election of 2010, when the country gave them a majority in the House of Representatives, and near parity in the Senate.
That being said, the media anointed "front runner," Mitt Romney is Obama "Light"...see RomneyCare, the blueprint for ObamaCare (not that I object of Massachusetts having a state mandated health care system...that's covered by the 10th Amendment). Rick Perry is faltering, and I don't really think that he has what it takes to puts things back on track. Herman Cain, has a clue, but I'm not certain he has the political experience to get things done either.
Soooo...never under estimate the ability of the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The real problem with the GOP currently is that it's current leadership, has "gone along to get along" for so long, that they just don't know anything else. They've compromised (i.e. sold out to) with the Democratic Party on every item that's been passed through Congress over the past 50 years. I don't think they have what it takes to...right the vessel of state.
Congress if they really wanted to could pass a genuine austerity budget, and derail the Obama attempt at growing government by fiat and through the regulatory agencies (EPA, alphabet soup offices) by simply NOT FUNDING THEM...they can't pass new growth chocking regulation if they have no funds.
The GOP needs to pass a budget, a real budget and send it to the Senate and watch the Democratically controlled Senate, choke on it. 23 Democratic Senators are up for reelection...let them explain to their constituents WHY THEY VOTED AGAINST A BUDGET THAT WOULD MOVE THE COUNTRY FORWARD...unfortunately, Mr. Boehner doesn't have the courage, or character to do this...and the country will continue to suffer because both parties are playing politics.
Here is a theory that many believe on Capitol Hill. The walk out by Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) from the Vice President’s debt limit negotiations on Thursday was staged and agreed to by both parties as a means for Republicans to look tough before they cave on increasing the debt limit.
Vice President Biden has been meeting behind closed doors with a bipartisan bicameral group of politicians for weeks in an effort to cut a deal on a package to increase the statutory $14.3 trillion debt limit. These meeting have been extremely secretive and not many specifics of the negotiations have been provided to the public. One of the few details leaked was that liberals were putting tax increases on the table as a means to balance the budget.If this is the case...then the GOP has done it again. They've FUBAR'd in a way that will hurt the country immesurably. What we need, isn't to raise the debt ceiling, but a significant roll back of government spending. When the Demcrats took control, first of Congress in 2007, and then the White House in 2009, the increased federal spending by 40%.
I don’t want taxes or spending at 21.3 percent of GDP. I don’t want them at 18.5 percent, for that matter. I might go for spending at 14.2 percent and taxes at 16.1 percent as a good start, which would take us to the savage Darwinian conditions of . . . 1951, not exactly the Dark Ages or a time of notable national austerity. As I hear it, 1951 was a pretty good year. From 1950 to 1955, our average real GDP growth exceeded that magic 5 percent threshold that Tim Pawlenty and Larry Kudlow and the optimists are talking about, and that includes a little recession in 1954. (Granted, there are excellent reasons to believe that the postwar boom is not easily replicable. Here’s one. Here’s another. And one more. Not a unicorn in the bunch.)The emphasis above is mine, not Kevin's. He makes a good point. If you want to spend level X, then you have to tax at level Y...or you spend your grand children's money...which we've been doing for 70 years. When the Soviet Union did that...they went the way of the dinosaurs....maybe it's our turn to collapse as a nation. That's not out of the question until we get spending into the realm of sanity.
But here’s the thing: If you want spend 21 percent, you really need to tax 21 percent. If you want to tax only 18.5 percent, you can only spend 18.5 percent. So far, Republicans have been pretty insistent about taxes, and not without reason (this probably is not the optimum moment to announce a large tax increase). But if you are not willing to move one variable, then you have to show yourself willing and able to move the other variable far enough to bring things into balance. The Republicans have been moving in the right direction, but they aren’t quite there. You want to take taxes off the table, then show me you can get the job done with cuts alone — not on paper, but in Congress.
Why haven’t I mentioned the Democrats? They control the Senate and the White House, holding a far stronger hand than do the Republicans. The reason is that the Democrats are a lost cause. Their commitment to maintaining the current path of entitlement spending and public-sector expansion will ensure national bankruptcy at virtually any level of taxation. (Don’t believe me? Have a gander at what a $30 trillion deficit looks like.) Removing Democrats from power probably is a precondition for averting a national fiscal meltdown. A necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.
Here is the problem with base year comparisons - we don't have the population structure we had in 1999, let alone in 1951.Just take a look at the Greeks, they've had their 12 or 13th bailout, and are STILL going to founder, economically. (follow the link and "read the whole thing.")
In 1999, payroll contributions covered 80% of federal transfer payments for the big entitlements - social security, medicare, and medicaid. Payroll taxes brought in 7% of GPD and spending was 8.75% of GDP. Already out of balance, and accounting for most of the persistent deficit, but still in some reasonable relation to each other.
In 2010, payroll contributions covered only 63% of those transfers. Contributions brought in only 6.7% of GDP - down in yield, not up. Spending on them meanwhile ran %10.6% of GDP. There is a 4% of GDP structural gap between payroll contributions and transfer expenditures -and no it isn't being funded out of general revenue - there isn't any. It is all being borrowed.
Demographics push the federal government 0.2% of GDP further into the red every year. Every decade, government spending takes 2% more of GDP and payroll contributions bring in a marginally smaller share - because a smaller portion of the population are of working age, and a larger portion are in the receiving age categories, and are living longer and costing more each.
Similarly, all the means tested programs grow like topsy as people learn to get on them, regardless of economic growth or anything else. There are 50% more people on medicaid today than in 1999, for example. SSI today is as big as medicaid was then. Etc.
Just to balance this portion of the federal fiscal train wreck would require an immediate 58% increase in payroll taxes. Counting employer side, that would be a jump from 18.3% of gross pay to 29% - which amounts to a 13% fall in after tax payroll kept.
This would still leave the 0.2% demographic headwind; it only makes up for the past headwind not faced squarely or paid for. To deal with that remaining headwind, payroll tax *rates* would have to continue to climb by about 2% per year. This would consume essentially the entire increase in real wages we can expect from future productivity increases.
In other words, present Americans would need to drop their standard of living by about an eighth and sign away all future real increases in their income, to keep the present (frankly, certifiable) promises to give everyone a lavish retirement and free healthcare - which we have not remotely paid for.
We ought to offer the American people a clear choice between that path and Ryan's alternative. The present "let's pretend" path of borrowing huge shortfalls to cover the difference between what payroll taxes are collecting and what we are giving away on middle class entitlements, is not an option. It leads straight to national bankruptcy
Work hard all your life...Put up with this idiot...
Alan Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming, Co-Chair of Obama's deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared " Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. August, 2010 .
Here’s a response in a letter from a fellow in Montana, I think he is a little ticked off.
He also tells it like it is.
“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight…
1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU.
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old - I am now 63).
3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are “greedy”. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch. ”
More than two-thirds of those who responded (67 percent) said they believe it will take three years or more. The unscientific online survey was conducted between Dec. 21 and Dec. 27. About 15 percent said "never" and about 13 percent said two years. Only 5 percent believe it will happen in the next year.One reader opined that,
"The American economy will only recover once we realize that our economic problems reside in Washington and the state capitol. Mr. Obama and his supporters whether they be on Capitol Hill or the state legislature continue to cling desperately to the failed economic ideals of Keynes. Keynesian economics has never worked. When you looked at the failure of Keynesian economics along with the fact that Mr. Obama, his economic team, most of Congress along with many state legislators have never participated in western capitalism; i.e. owned a business, had to make a payroll, or produced anything of material value, it is obvious why the economy continues to remain in the tank."My comment is that, Robert B is exactly correct. Until Washington and the local state capital politicians get their collecctive heads out of their a$$es, then relatively high unemployment will continue to linger...possibly as long as a decade. BUT, if the new GOP majorities can roll back the both the size and regulatory scope of big government (at least back to "medium" government) then the recovery will pick up steam.
