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from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/...pr/biden_taxes
The article also re-stated the canard that higher taxes "proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama" would only affect "people earning more than $250,000 a year...while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut."
The best article I've seen on the true effect of Obama's tax proposals is here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405562,00.html
The article is written by John Lott who is the author of Freedomnomics and a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland.
Lott writes:
Obama has also promised to close corporate tax "loopholes," to impose an "excess" profits tax on energy companies and to increase the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll (FICA) taxes. Many of us understand that these increased taxes on corporations and businesses inevitably trickle down to the rest of us in the form of increased prices for the consumables we purchase.
However, there are economically illiterate people who are willing to accept Obama's promises at face value. "Only the rich will pay Obama's increased taxes," they argue. For these naive souls I offer the following:
First, in 1913 the "income tax" was first imposed. It was sold as a minor tax on the "super rich." It was politically palitable to middle class taxpayers only because they couldn't imagine the tax would ever apply to them.
Second, words to ponder by Martin Niemöller:
And finally there is this, from Ludwig von Mises: "The first objection to this proposal [equal redistribution of wealth] is that it will not help the situation much because those of moderate means far outnumber the rich, so that each individual could expect from such a distribution only a quite insignificant increment in his standard of living. This is certainly correct, but the argument is not complete. Those who advocate equality of income distribution overlook the most important point, namely, that the total available for distribution, the annual product of social labor, is not independent of the manner in which it is divided. The fact that that product today is as great as it is, is not a natural or technological phenomenon independent of all social conditions, but entirely the result of our social institutions. Only because inequality of wealth is possible in our social order, only because it stimulates everyone to produce as much as he can and at the lowest cost, does mankind today have at its disposal the total annual wealth now available for consumption. Were this incentive to be destroyed, productivity would be so greatly reduced that the portion that an equal distribution would allot to each individual would be far less than what even the poorest receives today."
What von Mises is saying, for those among us who are just plain illiterate, is that income redistribution will kill the goose that lays the golden egg the "poor" among us covet so. If that's not plain enough, I can't imagine what is.
"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."
Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."
The best article I've seen on the true effect of Obama's tax proposals is here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405562,00.html
The article is written by John Lott who is the author of Freedomnomics and a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland.
Lott writes:
John McCain’s proposals have top marginal income tax rates of 35 percent for individuals and 25 percent for corporations, while Barack Obama’s plan has rates of 39.6 and 35 percent respectively. But the official marginal tax rate isn’t the rate that people actually pay, because they also lose tax breaks as their income rises.
While Obama would directly increase the marginal income tax rate on families making more than $250,000 per year and raise the rates on capital gains and dividends, he has a whole set of new and expanded tax breaks for the poor, retirees, students, homeowners and new farmers. All these tax breaks phase out with higher incomes, producing high effective marginal tax rates for those with low incomes as well as for people making between $100,000 and $120,000.
The effects of these phase-outs are dramatic. Alex Brill and Alan Viard, at the American Enterprise Institute, show that a two-earner couple with two children (one of whom is in college) can face a 34 percent marginal tax rate when they earn $31,000, with the tax rate rising to 39 percent when their family income reaches $45,000. And families making $110,000 to $120,000 may have to think twice about making more money with the federal income tax alone taking almost half of each additional dollar they make.
While Obama would directly increase the marginal income tax rate on families making more than $250,000 per year and raise the rates on capital gains and dividends, he has a whole set of new and expanded tax breaks for the poor, retirees, students, homeowners and new farmers. All these tax breaks phase out with higher incomes, producing high effective marginal tax rates for those with low incomes as well as for people making between $100,000 and $120,000.
The effects of these phase-outs are dramatic. Alex Brill and Alan Viard, at the American Enterprise Institute, show that a two-earner couple with two children (one of whom is in college) can face a 34 percent marginal tax rate when they earn $31,000, with the tax rate rising to 39 percent when their family income reaches $45,000. And families making $110,000 to $120,000 may have to think twice about making more money with the federal income tax alone taking almost half of each additional dollar they make.
However, there are economically illiterate people who are willing to accept Obama's promises at face value. "Only the rich will pay Obama's increased taxes," they argue. For these naive souls I offer the following:
First, in 1913 the "income tax" was first imposed. It was sold as a minor tax on the "super rich." It was politically palitable to middle class taxpayers only because they couldn't imagine the tax would ever apply to them.
Second, words to ponder by Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Communists,
- but I was not a communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists,
- but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews,
- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
- but I was not a communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists,
- but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews,
- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
What von Mises is saying, for those among us who are just plain illiterate, is that income redistribution will kill the goose that lays the golden egg the "poor" among us covet so. If that's not plain enough, I can't imagine what is.
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