Obama offers plan to destroy all economic growth...

[Manedwolf]

Can we say "investors bailing to foreign markets and crashing recession"?

Obama offers plan for middle-class tax cuts
Democratic contender wants burden shifted from labor to capital
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:34 PM ET Sep 18, 2007
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Charging that the tax code places too heavy a burden on wage earners in order to make breaks for investment income, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama outlined a plan Tuesday designed to provide tax cuts to middle-income Americans while closing corporate tax loopholes and boosting taxes on capital gains and dividends.

"For decades, we've seen a successful strategy to ride anti-tax sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work. And for decades, we've seen the gaps in wealth in this country grow wider, while the costs to working people are greater," Obama said in a speech hosted by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Obama said his plan would provide a tax credit of up to $1,000 per family to offset the payroll tax on the first $8,100 of earnings, provide a universal mortgage credit that can be used by homeowners who don't itemize their deductions, eliminate income tax for seniors making less than $50,000 a year, and simplify the tax-filing system.

The Illinois senator said the measures would reduce revenues by $80 billion to $85 billion, and would be offset by closing a variety of corporate tax loopholes and raising taxes on capital gains and dividends, which are now taxed at a top rate of 15%.

Obama didn't say at what level he would seek to tax investment income, but said the top rates for dividends and capital gains would return to levels "closer to but no greater than" the top 28% rates signed into law by President Reagan in the 1986 tax overhaul.

Obama: Hey, that looks like an interesting coral reef! Let's turn the ship around and sail towards it at full speed!

[The Rabbi]

With today's actions by the Fed I don't think there will be any economic growth for him to destroy.
But since the top 20% of wage earners already pay 80% of all taxes while the bottom 60% pay no taxes I don't know where he's going to go.

[Manedwolf]

Ah, yes. I can't wait to see what the fed's rate cut does to inflation.

[charby]

Ah, yes. I can't wait to see what the fed's rate cut does to inflation.

1/2 percent cut I just read... be interesting to see

I've been telling my wife that before long we are going to have less free money because of the price of basic necessities are going to shoot through the roof.

[Paddy]

What makes this chucklehead presidential material?

[Manedwolf]

Ah, yes. I can't wait to see what the fed's rate cut does to inflation.

1/2 percent cut I just read... be interesting to see

I've been telling my wife that before long we aren't going to have less free money because of the price of basic necessities are going to shoot through the roof.

Yes. Compensate for the stupidity of home buyers who bought beyond their means by punishing everyone, especially all the people who bought within their means or didn't buy a house yet at all because they knew they couldn't afford it.

Fiscal responsibility as a virtue? Nahh...live it up! Be a grasshopper, the government will make the ants pay more to cover for you!

Enjoy that yummy $5 a gallon milk!

[Waitone]

Shocking, just shocking that a marxist would favor labor over capital.

[El Tejon]

What if the top 20% just gave up and told Obama that we want to be grasshoppers too?

Badger shrugged.

[The Rabbi]

What makes this chucklehead presidential material?

He's over 36 and was born here.
What other qualifications are there?

[Monkeyleg]

When the folks in the middle class realize that capital gains taxes on their investments are going to go up with Obama's plan, he won't be so popular.

[Jamisjockey]

What makes this chucklehead presidential material?

He's a smooth talker.  And the Democraps think that the last election was a mandate on Left wing idiotology, not on the war. 

[Brad Johnson]

With today's actions by the Fed I don't think there will be any economic growth for him to destroy.
But since the top 20% of wage earners already pay 80% of all taxes while the bottom 60% pay no taxes I don't know where he's going to go.

Source:  The Tax Foundation
Compiled September 2006 (2004 tax year data).  The 2007 report (2005 tax year data) should be out shortly.

Top 50% (all wage earners above $30,122 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 96.70%

Top 25% (all wage earners above $60,041 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 84.86%

Top 10% (all wage earners above $99,112 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 68.19%

Top 5% (all wage earners above $137,056 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 57.13%

Top 1% (all wage earners above $328,049 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 36.89%

[Angel Eyes]

Source:  The Tax Foundation
Compiled September 2006 (2004 tax year data).  The 2007 report (2005 tax year data) should be out shortly.

Top 50% (all wage earners above $30,122 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 96.70%

Top 25% (all wage earners above $60,041 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 84.86%

Top 10% (all wage earners above $99,112 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 68.19%

Top 5% (all wage earners above $137,056 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 57.13%

Top 1% (all wage earners above $328,049 AGI)
Share of total taxes paid: 36.89%

Are these AGI figures for total household income or individual?  Just curious.

-Jack

[wooderson]

The tax numbers are rather misleading - note that they never say what percentage of income "the top 1%" take home - it isn't 36.89%, but it sure as hell isn't 1% either.

Payroll taxes account for 40-50% of yearly federal tax revenue, and the majority of households pay more in payroll taxes (that wind up capped for the top 25-30%, severely capped for the top 15%) than they do in income taxes - payroll taxes are never figured into the stated amounts or percentages.

And the elephant in the room is the percentage of wealth held by each bracket.

[The Rabbi]

The tax numbers are rather misleading - note that they never say what percentage of income "the top 1%" take home - it isn't 36.89%, but it sure as hell isn't 1% either.

Payroll taxes account for 40-50% of yearly federal tax revenue, and the majority of households pay more in payroll taxes (that wind up capped for the top 25-30%, severely capped for the top 15%) than they do in income taxes - payroll taxes are never figured into the stated amounts or percentages.

And the elephant in the room is the percentage of wealth held by each bracket.

I dont understand any of this comment, except perhaps as some vague attempt to profer the idea that the rich (whoever they are) are not paying enough in taxes.
Actually the elephant in the room is the fact that the top 10% of taxpayers arent a static group by change wildly year by year.

[wooderson]

I dont understand any of this comment, except perhaps as some vague attempt to profer the idea that the rich (whoever they are) are not paying enough in taxes.

Think of it as a longer version of "lies, damn lies and statistics," then. Or perhaps the old one about the drunk and lamppost.

[Tuco]

Compiled September 2006 (2004 tax year data).

Holy shnikies, I'm in the top 25%!?!?!?!
I guess I'd better start acting like it.

Bourgeois Soakers

[charby]

Compiled September 2006 (2004 tax year data).

Holy shnikies, I'm in the top 25%!?!?!?!
I guess I'd better start acting like it.

Bourgeois Soakers

Kind of what I thought also.. sure doesn't seem like though. Since my wife and I are in the top 25% why the hell can't we afford one of those big houses and a matching set of Escalades to go with it.

[Manedwolf]

Likewise. I'm in the "top 25%", why don't I have a massive McMansion yet?

Oh, yeah, right. I keep doing that "not in over my head" thing. Silly me. I should, Big Government will bail me out, since it did to all the stupid people.

[roo_ster]

I'm so happy the Fed cut rates 0.05%.  Now, I can get less from my inflated dollars without a commensurate increase in my income.



wooderson:

Get over it and deal with reality: The folks who make the money in this country pay the cost to keep Leviathan rolling.  The poor just don't have much worth stealing to make it worthwhile, which is why the lower 50% of income earners pay diddly & squat.  I wish my greatest exposure was just payroll taxes.

[The Rabbi]

It was actually .5%.

I guess people are discovering that when gov't rails against "the wealthy" they're talking about them.  Yikes.

[Brad Johnson]

Think of it as a longer version of "lies, damn lies and statistics," then. Or perhaps the old one about the drunk and lamppost.

It's a straight breakout of total income.  No analysis necessary, especially not the "their 1 percent is different than my 1%" class warefare crap. 1% of the total tax burden is the same amount whether you make a thousand bucks or a hundred thousand.

By the way, it's www.taxfoundation.org if you want to dig any deeper.  They have all the information you are looking for.  All the way from raw data to analyses of every kind.

Brad

[Paddy]

Obama's the darling of the egocentric Hollywood elite and he has a good command of the English language.  Other than that, he's just another mushy headed liberal.  And nobody named 'Barak Hussein is gonna be  elected POTUS.

[Sindawe]

Enjoy that yummy $5 a gallon milk!

No biggie to me, I don't drink the stuff and already pay better than $6.00/gallon for the soy based fake to put on my morning granola and bananas. 

Holy shnikies, I'm in the top 25%!?!?!?!

I KNEW there was a reason I enjoy fine cigars and 18 y/o Scotch Whiskey.  I'm in the top echelon of society despite driving an econobox and living in a crackerbox.

[Northwoods]

Enjoy that yummy $5 a gallon milk!

No biggie to me, I don't drink the stuff and already pay better than $6.00/gallon for the soy based fake to put on my morning granola and bananas. 

Holy shnikies, I'm in the top 25%!?!?!?!

I KNEW there was a reason I enjoy fine cigars and 18 y/o Scotch Whiskey.  I'm in the top echelon of society despite driving an econobox and living in a crackerbox.

Sindawe - Good, I'm not the only one