Robert Reich: The Truth About Obama's Tax Proposal (and the Lies the Regressives Are Telling About It)

Over the years I have not always agreed with Robert Reich but one thing I will say on his behalf is that he is not afraid to go after members of both parties.  When a Democrat steps out of bounds, he pounces on them the same as Republicans.  Didn't know who he was until Monicagate and then we all learned how honest he was.

When I read this, a lot of what I have been questioning began to make sense.  My comprehension level is pretty high but what the Romney Republicans were against the Obama Tax Proposal, it set off the BS meter.  Then it clicked.  We have been fed a narrative on Obama that the leaders of the Romney Republican Party wanted us to believe in order to vote for Romney over Obama.  Note that I said vote for not 'support' Romney.  This is not even close to being about voting for Romney but ousting Obama.  That is not how you win elections and is flat out stupid.  Many Republicans warned the RNC and other leaders in 2008 that it would be the last election they would vote for a candidate they didn't like.  Now that same leadership thinks those people are now going to vote for Romney in 2012 because they believe they have sufficiently demonized Obama?  My bet is that it is not going to happen.

When you take off the blinders you realize this is an honest proposal and the comments coming out of Romney Republican leaders that this will be a huge tax hike on small business is a LIE!  The only small business owners affected earn over $250,000 a year and anything over the $250,000 will be taxed at the Clinton tax level which Romney praised yesterday.  That amounts to 3.3% of small business owners a far cry from most small business will get a tax hike being touted by the Romney Republicans.  BTW someone forgot to tell him that Clinton raised taxes not lowered them.  Obama has signed laws that lowered taxes and fees 17 times during his Presidency.  You don't hear that out of the Romney Republicans that accuse him of being the biggest liberal tax and spend President ever.  It is simply not true.  When Obama has a plan to cut Government, the Republican House tosses it out right away.

President Reagan worked with then Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill from MA to get bills passed that would help all Americans not just the wealthy.  Reagan was about helping those who needed help not some fat cat Wall Street types who could care less about anything but their bottom line and how much richer they can become who Romney favors who seem to all be wealthy white guys like the Koch Brothers.

It seems that the bought and paid for Romney along with some Republicans who are speaking out are more worried about the rich getting a tax hike when the vast majority of jobs are created by small business not the wealthy who for the most part have sent jobs overseas including Romney when he was head of Bain.   Guess he is now using the Democrat tactic of accusing your opponent of what you are doing even if it is not true.

When Rick Santorum said that Romney was the worst person in America to be the Republican nominee, he wasn't kidding.  He was 100% correct.  Everyday you understand even more how right he was.

The Truth About Obama's Tax Proposal (and the Lies the Regressives Are Telling About It)

Robert Reich 

Posted: 07/10/2012 11:19 am 

To hear the media report it, President Obama is proposing a tax increase on wealthy Americans. That's misleading at best. He's proposing that everyone receive a continuation of the Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of their incomes. Any dollars they earn in excess of $250,000 will be taxed at the old Clinton-era rates. 

Get it? Everyone is treated exactly the same. Everyone gets a one-year extension of the Bush tax cut on the first $250,000 of income. No "class warfare." 

Yet regressive Republicans want Americans to believe differently. The editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal say the president wants to extend the Bush tax cuts only "for some taxpayers." They urge House Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for "everyone" and thereby put Senate Democrats on the spot by "forcing them to choose between extending rates for everyone and accepting Mr. Obama's tax increase." 

Pure demagoguery. 

Regressives also want Americans to think the president's proposal would hurt "tens of thousands of job-creating businesses," as the Journal puts it. 

More baloney. 

A small business owner earning $251,000 would pay the Bush rate on the first $250,000 and the old Clinton rate on just $1,000. 

Congress's Joint Tax Committee estimates that in 2013 about 940,000 taxpayers would have enough business income to break through the $250,000 ceiling -- and, again, they'd pay additional taxes only on dollars earned above $250,000.  

All told, less than 3 percent of small business owners would even reach the $250,000 threshold. 

A third lie is Obama's proposal will "increase uncertainly and further retard investment and job creation," as the Journal puts it. 

Don't believe it. 

The real reason businesses aren't creating more jobs is American consumers -- whose purchases constitute 70 percent of U.S. economic activity -- don't have the money to buy more, and they can no longer borrow as before. Businesses won't invest and hire without consumers. Even as executive pay keeps rising, the median wage keeps dropping -- largely because businesses keep whacking payrolls. 

The only people who'd have to pay substantially more taxes under Obama's proposal are those earning far in excess of $250,000 -- and they aren't small businesses. They're the fattest of corpulent felines. Their spending will not be affected if their official tax rate rises from the Bush 35 percent to the Bill Clinton 39.6 percent. 

In fact, most of these people's income is unearned -- capital gains and dividends that are now taxed at only 15 percent. If the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, the capital gains rate would return to the same 20 percent it was under Bill Clinton (the Affordable Care Act would add a 3.8 percent surcharge).

Funny, I don't remember the economy suffering under Bill Clinton's taxes. I was in Clinton's cabinet, so perhaps my memory is self-serving. But I seem to recall that the economy generated 22 million net new jobs during those years, unemployment fell dramatically, almost everyone's income grew, poverty dropped, and the economy soared. In fact, it was the strongest and best economy we've had in anyone's memory. 

In sum: Don't fall for these big lies -- Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cut "only for some people," small businesses will be badly hit, businesses won't hire because of uncertainty this proposal would create, or the Clinton-era tax levels crippled the economy, 

A ton of corporate and billionaire money is behind these lies and others like them, as well as formidable mouthpieces of the regressive right such as Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial page. 

The truth is already a casualty of this election year. That's why it's so important for you to spread it. 

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy from House Republicans

Republican leadership of Cantor and Ryan for starters are tone deaf.  Republicans have a man who is worth over $250M running for President, and they want to cut tax rates which will affect millionaires.  He effectively has been paying a 15% tax rate reserved for approximately 500 Wall Street hedge fund types while most of us are at the 28% tax rate.  Never thought I would be agreeing with the Democrats on taxes but this has gotten out of control.  How did a tax cut for wealthy to 15% ever get in the tax code?  Was it part of the Bush Tax Cuts?

The Tax Code needs overhauled bad and loopholes closed -- everyone should agree to that but to cut taxes on people making over a million dollars when people making $60,000 are struggling to pay there taxes is going to hit people wrong again.  The ton deafness of some in Republican leadership today makes you wonder what they are thinking.

nearly half of the tax cut would go to people with annual income over $1 million, and more than four-fifths would go to those making over $200,000, according to the Tax Policy Center

Why are we giving any tax cut to people making over a million dollars is what I would like to know.  I have always fought against the label of Republicans are the Party of the Rich because of the large amount of rich on the Democrat side but I think if you throw them in a sack, shake them up, and they will come out together.

Why are we even talking tax cuts when it is aimed at a select few while the people who go to work at jobs every day are having trouble making ends meet with the high cost of gas and groceries.  Yet because of the way inflation is figured today, groceries and gasoline don't count for inflation but if I buy a computer it does.  Go figure what the people in DC are thinking because it doesn't seem to have a lot of sanity.

Used to laugh when they said throw out both parties and elect all new people as being a joke.  I am not laughing any more.  I am tired of the Republican Tax Cuts solve all because they don't.  We have a 'severe' deficit but their answer is to bring in less money to government from the people who can afford it and burden those that cannot like the Middle Class.

The Ryan spending blueprint is a start.  We will know about whether the bill meets the spending cuts after the budget bill is filled in with the actual numbers and facts.  How about real cuts in spending not gimmicks for starters?  That would be refreshing.  Anyone who says the Defense Department bureaucracy cannot be cut along with some out of date programs isn't being honest.  There is a lot of duplication within the services that could go away for starters.  Then you have the blue sky types who think they have an unlimited supply of money to waste.  Every department has them.  There should be a cut in manpower across the board with the out of control hiring the Federal Government has been doing sending the ceiling numbers for federal employees back to January 1st, 2007.  This hiring boom the Feds have been on is ludicrous and unnecessary.

At least the GSA made a start with canceling their event in Las Vegas after previous ones came to light.  Just who are these people who think they have a right to waste our tax dollars starting with members of Congress where the first cuts in staff should happen.

Read this when I logged on this morning and it hit me wrong.  In today's job market environment, who is going to want to hire someone more than part time?  The idea to give a company a tax break if they hire someone sounds great but what about the ones who get the break and then lay off employees?  That's one way to scam the system.

Time to do one thing in Congress and that is to cut what it cost to run the Federal Government and quit the tax cut gimmicks.  If you are going to cut tax rates, cut them for the people who need them the most not people making over $1M a year.  This is sounding like class warfare but frankly the way some of the Republicans in Congress are acting about more tax cuts with such a huge deficit, they deserve it.

More Help for the WealthyPublished: April 14, 2012 

Taxes are never popular, especially in April of an election year. But the Republicans’ latest effort to tilt the tax code in favor of the wealthy, and starve the government of needed revenue, is particularly cynical.

This week, the House Republican leadership is expected to bring up the “Small Business Tax Cut Act,” a bill to let most business owners deduct up to 20 percent of their business income in 2012 — a $46 billion tax cut. Despite the Mom-and-Pop label, it is designed so that nearly half of the tax cut would go to people with annual income over $1 million, and more than four-fifths would go to those making over $200,000, according to the Tax Policy Center. 

The bill’s proponents, led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, say that lower taxes would lead to more hiring. But the economic reality is that employers, big and small, are hesitant to hire because of slow or uncertain demand for their products and services, not because of their tax burden. And companies would receive the tax cut even if they did not hire new workers — making it a windfall, not an incentive. 

The bill is predicated on an overly broad definition of “small business” — one with fewer than 500 employees, which can include multimillion-dollar partnerships and corporations. It is also based on a willful denial of the reality that small businesses are not the big job creators politicians often say they are. 

If “small” were set at 50 employees, small businesses would be credited with creating less than a third of the new jobs over the last 20 years. And many such jobs are soon lost as small businesses struggle or fail. The best way to encourage their success is with continued government spending to support demand and by building a well-regulated banking system that is not prone to the busts that devastate small businesses. 

As for the broader economy, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed 13 policies last year for their potential impact on economic growth and job creation in 2012 and 2013. The option of a business tax cut along the lines of the Cantor bill ranked next to last in bang for the buck. More effective options include fiscal aid to states and increased safety net spending, which create jobs by bolstering consumer demand — and which Republicans fiercely oppose. 

Another immediate step Congress could take to create demand and jobs would be for House Republicans to drop their objections and reauthorize the highway bill, at least for two years, as the Senate has done. That would help private-sector contractors and suppliers, as well as government workers, boosting local businesses in areas where jobs are created. Extending the research and development tax credit would also help some businesses, but Senate Republicans have blocked that. 

The business tax cut for not-so-small businesses will almost certainly pass the House. Senate Democrats have introduced a tax relief bill that is linked specifically to companies hiring new employees. They should stick with that. This doesn’t mean that the tax system doesn’t need fixing. It does. In the Senate this week, the Democratic leadership will make an argument for more fairness, by calling for a vote on the Buffett Rule. It would require the wealthiest taxpayers to pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes and, in the process, raise some $47 billion over 10 years. Republican senators are expected to block the vote. When you mail your taxes this week, think about that. 

Source:  NY Times