Hold On to Your Wallets Middle Class!

I couldn’t help but notice Sec. of Treasury Timothy Geithner and White House advisor Larry Summers were making their rounds on the Sunday morning talk show circuit yesterday. There seemed to be a new theme coming from President Barrack Obama’s White House.

All during the campaign we heard Obama promise tax cuts for 95% of Americans, even though less than 95% of Americans pay taxes, but that is a whole different story I already covered. Anyways, now they won’t commit to uphold the tax only the rich pledge and the new theme is “We can’t rule out taxes on the middle class.”

Geithner told George Stephanopoulos deficit reduction is going to be the key to economic recovery, but when asked if the president will have to break his pledge to 95% of Americans he said this:

“We’re going to have to do what’s necessary. We have to bring these deficits down dramatically, and that is going to require some real hard choices.”

Yeah…real hard choices, not like Geinther is paying his taxes anyway.

Then we have Summers who was on CBS Face the Nation and NBC Meet the Press who admitted he cannot rule out tax increases on the middle class in order to pay for Obama’s healthcare reform plans.

“It’s never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what, but what the president has been completely clear on is this:

That he is not going to pursue any of his priorities, not health care, not energy – nothing – in ways that are primarily burdening to middle-class families.”

Did you catch the key phrase that tells all? “Primarily burdening…” In plain English he is basically saying the middle-class is going to be burdened, but not burdened as much as the rich.

Hold on to your wallets middle class! They are coming for your money next.

Hawaii Residents Now Taxed On Vegas Winnings Even If They Lose!

State governments are scrambling to reform their tax codes in order to bring in more tax revenue. Are they lowering taxes to bring in more businesses, create more jobs, which generates more tax revenue? Well some states are, but the majority are finding every way they can to raise taxes.

Hawaii has recently increased its top marginal tax rate to 11 percent making it tied with Oregon for the highest in the country. Hawaii is also going to tax its residents on gross winnings from Las Vegas trips not just the net winnings.

Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle signed the bill this month that will no longer allow gamblers to offset their winnings with their losses. So, what exactly does that mean?

Well, lets say you sit down at the roulette table and win $10,000 then you go and play black jack and lose it all. You then try your luck at the craps table, but you crap out there too and lose $5,000. So now you are down lets say $5,000. That is a net loss of $5,000, but your gross winnings were $10,000. You as a Hawaii resident would now owe taxes on $10,000. Your gross winnings!

Don’t you just love government and taxes?

Big T’s Letter to the IRS

I haven’t mailed yet, but…

Dear Internal Revenue Service,

I fully regret to inform you I will more than likely not be able to pay my federal income taxes owed on April 15 for I am all taxed out!

In the hard economic times that have fallen upon us, I ran out of money paying other taxes. I renovated some rental properties to help improve the look of the buildings and had to pay a building permit tax. This raised the assessed value of my properties which increased my property taxes. I also have corporate income taxes and capitol gains tax. The stress of this led me to start drinking and smoking again, and I was hit with a cigarette and liquor tax. I needed a friend and got a dog and was hit with a pet license tax.

There were also unemployment taxes, gasoline taxes, hunting license taxes, fishing license taxes, inheritance taxes, inventory taxes, luxury taxes, Medicare taxes, social security taxes, commercial real estate taxes, toll road taxes, sales taxes, telephone federal excise tax…and other taxes I can’t think of at the moment.

So please note, when you do not receive my payment on April 15, it is an honest mistake.

I also request that I receive the same treatment as Congressmen Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, former Congressman Tom Daschle and your new boss Timothy Geithner; penalty free with no interest.

I will start payments just as soon as I get my stimulus check, or will pay in full once nominated for a cabinet position by the president.

Thanks,

Big T

Some how I don't think this is going to work out in my favor...

Fact: Obama cannot give a tax cut to 95% of working families in America.

For reasons unknown to me, the McCain campaign just doesn’t seem willing to throw any real punches at Obama. One of many areas they should be attacking Obama on is his ridiculous claim to cut taxes for 95% of Americans.

I have been over this before, but lets go over it again. The most important thing to remember when Obama starts talking about tax cuts is 47% of Americans have no tax burden. In order to give them a so-called “tax cut” the government would have to literally write them a check.

That is not a tax cut; it is income re-distribution. In order to cut taxes you have to cut them on people who actually pay them, but that would be the top 53%. This would include tax cuts for the evil rich, which doesn’t work in Obama’s rhetoric.

Then again, it wouldn’t matter if McCain pointed this out. Most Americans can’t comprehend such matters.

Enjoy your checks folks. It may be the last one you get for a while after Obama taxes your employer and your job is cut to make up the difference!

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

This has been around for a while, but still holds true. Everyone says our tax system and economics is complex. Well this professor of economics does a great job breaking it down into laymen terms. Everyone should be able to understand this. Hopefully you will understand the tenth man has left the table in many places. You can only rob someone for so much and so long before they find somewhere else to do business.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all tencomes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would gosomething like this:

The first four men (The poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with thearrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are allsuch good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your dailybeer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so thefirst four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could theydivide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that fromeverybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end upbeing paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would befair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceededto work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued todrink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to comparetheir savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed tothe tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 backwhen I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. Thesystem exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat downand had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, theydiscovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all ofthem for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, this is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the mostbenefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

By David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.Professor of Economics University of Georgia

For those of you who understand this concept no explanation needed. For those of you who don’t understand this there is no explanation possible.

David Strom explains the dangers of Barack Obama’s tax plans for the economy.

The Wall Street Journal explains why we cannot tax our way out of the entitlement crisis. I wonder if Barack Obama supporters can comprehend this?

He stole from the rich, to give to the poor.

No, I am not talking about Robin Hood. I am talking about Barack Obama and his tax policies. His tax policies will do just that, steal from the rich and give to the poor.

Now here is something you won’t find in the mainstream media. First off, they don’t want you to know and secondly, tax discussion just doesn’t bring in the ratings. The Tax Foundation has run some hard numbers on Barack Obama’s tax plan. Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, explains Obama’s tax plan for 2009 calls for the redistribution of more than 131 billion dollars from the top one percent of taxpayers. That will mean the top one percent of households would pay more in federal taxes of all kinds than the bottom 80 percent of households. This doesn’t even take into account the Obama plan to raise payroll taxes on those evil rich folks making over 250,000 bucks a year.

Anyways, Hodge estimates under the Obama plan 1.13 million Americans will pay more in federal taxes than 128 million other Americans combined. In other words, Obama’s plan increases the tax burden on top earners by an additional $40 billion a year. This 40 billion-tax hike is twice as much as all the federal taxes that are paid by the bottom percentile of taxpayers.

What we have here is income redistribution. He is stealing from the rich to give to the poor, a real modern day Robin Hood. I doubt Obama sees it that way though, after all he believes that income isn’t earned in the first place; it is acquired on the basis of luck and good fortune.

Here is just a thought… Is there anyone out there that thinks our economy can take a 40 billion dollar hit right now? What happens when the top gets nailed for 40 billion in more taxes? Do they not pass the expense on to the consumer? Perhaps you work for someone about to get hit with this new expense. Is your job going to pay for it, or will it be cut to make up for the difference. It is just a thought some of you may want to consider?

Here’s Barack Obama’s plan to fix our Social Security system. It is tax, tax, and tax the rich. No surprise, but you might be surprised to find out some of you reading this are rich!

Liberal New York Times celebrates $4.00 gas and death to the SUV!!!

I told you liberals are happy with $4.00 gas prices! No, you will never here a liberal politician say it. No, they will say things like we need to conserve fuel, lessen our dependency on oil by finding alternative fuel sources, but here is a piece from the New York Times that confirms my assumptions that liberals are happy with $4.00 gas because of “global warming.”

The New York Times says $4.00 gas is good for the global warmers because the SUV era is coming to an end.

“It’s hard to convince most Americans that there is a silver lining to $4-a-gallon gasoline. But General Motors provided a nugget of good news when it announced that it would shutter much of its production of pickups and sport utility vehicles…”

“A nugget of good news?” Do these liberals ever take into consideration how many jobs were lost at GM in this “nugget of good news?” Of course that doesn’t matter, after all we are trying to save a world from the gas guzzling SUV that is causing “global warming.”

The Times goes on to tell us higher gas prices can take as much of 15% of the income from rural families where pickup trucks are a necessity more than a way of life. It also tells us higher gas prices is the cause of rising food prices and hurting the economy but then in the very next paragraph:

“Still Americans’ response to rising gasoline prices makes an excellent case for a gas tax. It proves that drivers will change their behavior in response to high fuel prices. And even if Detroit doesn’t buy global warming, drivers can help persuade it to embrace fuel efficiency. They don’t even have to know that the Honda Civic emits less than half the 13 tons of greenhouse gases spewed by the Ford F-150.”

Finally…a liberal proves my theory taxes are used to influence behavior. Now doesn’t that sound like freedom?

More importantly though, this liberal is basically saying the hell with the economy, the hell with rising food prices; we need higher fuel prices to prevent “global warming.”

American Workers Suffer as US becomes home to highest corporate taxes in World

According to a new study from the Tax Foundation the U.S. ranks second in the World, trailing Japan for having the highest corporate taxes. On a more disturbing note 24 states ranked higher than Japan on the list. Iowa having the highest corporate tax rates in the World at 41.6%

States known for their fairly low state-level corporate tax rates such as Nevada , South Dakota , and Wyoming was still higher than France and 25 other countries at 35%

32 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than third-ranked Germany , 46 states higher than fourth-ranked Canada and all 50 states were higher than fifth ranked France .

This could be one of the reasons for a failing economy. It is definitely a reason for jobs leaving the US .

“This is startling news for America ’s business and workers,” said Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge. “Tax competition for jobs and investments is fierce, and the US continues to fall further and further behind. Our states should be the world’s leaders in many things, but high taxation should not be one of them. The high federal corporate tax rate is literally crushing states’ competitive abilities. That means fewer jobs for American workers.”

Don’t expect this new study to get much play in the mainstream media. Why? Well because taxes are boring, and stories like Obama and his pastor, or a real good sex scandal will always get better ratings than taxes. Plus the media really just doesn’t want you to know or understand these things. It goes directly against the liberal agenda that we need higher taxes on evil corporations.

This study rejects that idea and shows that a lot of US states are taxing the providers of jobs higher than any other developed country in the world. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about economics will immediately see this could be a problem.

Those who have read my writing for a while know I have always made the claim workers suffer the most when their employers are forced to pay high corporate taxes, but don’t take my word for it. In a related study the Tax Foundation found workers bear 70% of the burden of corporate income taxes.

You want to bring jobs back to America ? You want to revive the economy? Here is a crazy idea, how about the FairTax? It would make the US corporate tax system the most competitive in the world by eliminating it. Imagine how many jobs would flock to America if there were no corporate taxes.

Chicago will soon be the highest taxed city in the nation with a 10.25% sales tax! “ Windy City ” residents let me know how that works out for you in a recession.

Want to see the results of decades of tax and spend politics? It has put the state of New Jersey in a bad situation. Unless we stop politicians it will eventually destroy the whole nation. This is a must read.

Who is not getting a tax rebate check from the stimulus plan? The poor and the rich…Oh, if you make more than $75,000 you are rich!