As my previous blurbs from the wall st. journal have come under fire as "ideologically" partisan though the numbers etc. are never disputed regards Obama tax policies as hes laid them out so far, I sought something a totally outside the media mechanism.

The tax foundation, http://www.taxfoundation.org/ is one of the if not the oldest tax watchdog grps extent, non partisan, non profit that have been watching tax policy since 1937....so their president weighed in with remarks from a study of Obamas plans etc so far. IBD ( Investors biz daily) etc...

To those that feel the below description of how tax policy will be applied and its results are okay, he you are certainly entitled to that opinion, my point is, lets just stop the game playing and call it what it is, period.


A Few To Support The Many
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 02, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Taxation: For those who like the politics of redistribution, Sen. Barack Obama is their man. The presumed Democratic presidential nominee's plan would soak the richest Americans and spread the wealth around.

Economist Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, has looked at the Obama plan and found that it "would redistribute more than $131 billion per year from the top 1% of taxpayers to all other taxpayers."

$131 billion. In one year. That's the value of Intel, bigger than Coca-Cola and just below the market caps of Cisco and ConocoPhillips.

It's enough cash to fund the Education Department for almost two years or the entire Defense Department for nearly three months. And remember, this isn't the overall tax bill for the top 1% of taxpayers — it's just the amount beyond their current taxes that they would have to pay under the Obama plan.

If all that's not alarming enough, then how about this:

"In 2009," Hodge writes, "after the income-shifting in the Obama plan, the top 1% of taxpayers would pay a greater share of the total federal tax burden than the bottom 80% of Americans combined."

Apparently Obama believes it's fair for 1.13 million Americans to pay more to the federal government than, as Hodge notes, "128 million of their fellow citizens combined."

These numbers don't even include Obama's plan for hiking the Social Security tax, which he would apply to income above $250,000 a year, leaving a poorly thought-out, tax-free doughnut on income between $102,000, where the tax currently stops, and $250,000.

With this tax hike figured into the equation, the amount of money redistributed from the top 1% goes up by $40 billion in 2009 "and more than $629 billion over the next ten years."

That $40 billion tax hike alone is twice as much as all the federal taxes paid by the 39 million Americans in the bottom quintile.

We're sure that Obama's camp would address our concerns by pointing out that raising the tax bill for the top 1% eases the tax burden on the rest of America. But that's a superficial rationalization designed to appeal to class envy.

Rather than appeal to emotion, let's look at the facts.

First, increasing the burden on the top taxpayers will not make the poor rich. It will instead make the rich poorer, which hurts low income Americans, as there will be 131 billion fewer dollars in the private sector for investments that create businesses and jobs.

Second, squeezing the federal tax burden onto an ever smaller group is not smart. The Marxist appetite for radically progressive taxation is both unfair and dangerous.

Depending only on a small number of wealthy earners will cause tax revenues to become volatile. The shrunken tax base also will eventually erode — as will the economy itself — as the incentive to become wealthy is killed by government.

Third, the large majority that pays little or no taxes will make excessive demands on the small group that is saddled with the burden because the non- and low-paying group is insulated from the pain.

It sounds so much better, though, for a politician to promise the masses that he will make the rich pay their "fair share" of the taxes.

That's too bad, because this nation was not built on wealth envy but on a freedom-based system that rewards hard work, thrift, ingenuity, preparation and diligence.

If we keep moving away from it, as Obama is advocating, we doom ourselves to a future of perpetual economic struggles.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- A Few To Support The Many

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Obama-e fungis nati homines....

Greetings and Felicitations,

In the entire post this is the only thing that really got my attention. We spend more in 3 months for defense than we spend in two years for education. If people don't want to raise taxes to provide for things then perhaps we should, perish the thought, cut back on military spending to pay for things. If you don't want people to keep raising taxes to pay for programs then perhaps we should stop spending so much money dedicated to killing people and deal with more pressing issues.

World Military Spending


Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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federal spending on schools. most school money comes at the state and local levels.

bingo...but he has a point regards spending on the military BUT we are in a conflict and, I hope neely realizes that if we turned off the switch And that money for iraq was not spent, that does not mean it would go to exactly what he thinks it would, it never does.

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Obama-e fungis nati homines....

one would hope that it would just stop but the left would see to it that it get diverted into vote buying schemes. I wouldn't be surprized if we never stopped paying for the War between the States

Greetings and Felicitations,

Irrelevant data to the subject at hand. If you want to argue the specific then simply place the word federal in front. We spend more in federal money for the military in three months than we spendin federal money for education in two years. This is still a tragedy.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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Greetings and Felicitations,

The war in Iraq isn't part of the standard military budget. When you factor in the expenses of the war the amount goes up.
I don't expect anything. I know what should be done but I realize that we evidently aren't ready to make those kinds of changes. I would hope that the kind of mindset change that would cause a gross decrease of military spending we would have reached the point where we would re-organize our priorities.

Should we stop spending so much on killing? Yes. Are we going to? Probably not. At least, not yet. I think the time is coming when the changes in humanity will remove the necessity to concentrate so much on destruction and instead we will concentrate on creation.
Do I expect to actually influence those who hold on to the ancient ways? No, not really. However, I will speak my peace because to exercise restraint is to let that mindset win automatically.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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Ideally we shouldn't be spending any federal money on education. It should be an exclusively local affair.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

Greetings and Felicitations,

That would be a massively counter-productive measure. I know the value the local people and government place on education. Part of the reason that our educational system is defective is the lack of nationwide standards for education. My ex-step-son went from an intensive schooling system in California and came to the lackadaisacal system in the Tennessee (which I didn't realize was in such a state until my children went to school. I am firmly in favor of nationwide curriculum and books. I won't get into the problems I see in school simply because of the stress on sports instead of academics.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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And that is their right. If they want to put up a sign "Welcome to Pudunk TN, National Finalist Most Ignorunt Town 5 yrs Running!" who are we to say they dont' have that right? (Assuming it's truthful, of course.)

We don't have standards, but we have measures. ACTs, SATs, and Unemployment Rates come to mind. If a locality wants or doesn't mind (or doesn't like) poor ratings, they're free to (re)act accordingly.

Sounds like we agree on this aspect at least.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

To put Obama's tax proposals into perspective, we should recognize that (except for the rather odd Social Security idea) what he wants to do is not to enact a new tax, but rather to restore a measure that existed before the Bush administration made certain changes. In other words, this isn't really new.

And here's another thing:

Consider that for this to be feasible, the distribution of wealth in this country must be incredibly lopsided. If the top 1% of taxpayers have so much that the government CAN tax them more than the bottom 80% combined, we have something more seriously and basically wrong in our economy than the tax structure. For the distribution of wealth to be that lopsided is arguably unfair (although that depends on one's subjective concept of fairness), but it is absolutely and objectively bad for the economy, because it forces it to rest on an inadequate base of consumer demand. And so, given that reality, the biggest complaint that one can level against Obama's plan is not that it redistributes so much wealth, as that it fails to redistribute enough.

Although, to be fair to it, there is no way that wealth can be redistributed enough for economic health through the tax code alone. More fundamental changes that will serve to drive wages up across the country are needed. Just the same, given this reality, this criticism of the plan (that it falls heavily on the rich) is not a valid critique.

AjaxPress:

There is a legitimate question to be asked whether ignorance in Tennessee is harmful to the nation as a whole, making it a legitimate federal concern. I believe that it is, and so that federal spending on education amounts to spending to promote the general welfare of the United States and hence authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Of course, I realize you were making a philosophical argument rather than a legal one, so the fact that the action is constitutional may not be relevant to your position. However, this touches on the issue of federalism and how far state independence should go. My own belief is that education is important enough as a national issue that it trumps state authority. This goes along with my belief that most states fund education improperly, using local property taxes for the purpose so that wealthy areas have much better public schools than poor ones. Just as statewide education spending should be equalized so that the children of the rich and of the poor are on a level playing field in terms of acquiring the basic skills needed to succeed, not to mention basic citizenship, so education spending should be equalized on a nationwide level so that the children of a poor state like Mississippi are not penalized compared to those of a rich one like California.

A state has no more right to encourage ignorance than a family has to starve its children.

I agree with this. We should be spending more on national defense and less on everything else. The states can take care of education if they want. As for the topic, yes, Obama wants to redistribute wealth, but why hasnt he redistributed his own? He is a millionaire, and spends excessivly. Why does he have to use the police power of the govt,when he could just give his wealth away on his own?

When it comes to taxes, we have very few people paying nearly all the taxes, with the majority of the country contributing no taxes to the benefit of all. If we cant pay for everything we want by making everyone pay something, then govt should be scaled back to something more affordable.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

But look at what we end up with when our children aren't sufficiently educated.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Look at the U.S. before we started the Department of Education, our kids where #1 in the world in education, and the USSR was a distant second. Now, over 50 years later, we're 21 (last time I checked).

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Umm, was this intended to be ironic?

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears