Tax the rich, the left says, tax the rich and we will solve our government budget problems. But of course this is just a folly the left has come up. From the Wall Street Journal:
Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the "cost" of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730104576260911986870054.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop In addition, if you took away all that income just for the Feds, there would be money for the state governments and their income taxes. And of course the obvious, if you tax that amount, the rich wouldn't be able to buy anything, throwing millions out of work. So, go on liberals, tax the rich and see where it gets you.
We were solvent in 2000. So what has changed since then?
ReplyDelete- Afghanistan war
- Iraq war
- Medicare part D
- Tax cuts
- Recession
Longer range we need to slow the growth of medical costs (private insurance, medicare, medicaid, VA, everything).
So the easy part is:
- get out of Afghanistan & Iraq (slow, but in progress)
- put the tax rates back to the Bush I/Clinton levels, which were not particularly high
- wait out the recession
No one wants to end Medicare Part D, because it's popular with seniors and they vote. So you have to either raise taxes or find other cuts.
And that's more or less what Obama proposed.
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