Sigh... I had to find another graphic because I just used one of my favorites on class warfare yesterday in a piece highlighting a Washington Post Business article showing Barack Obama's class warfare rhetoric is exactly that, rhetoric.I wake up this morning, make my coffee, turn on the news and there Barack Obama is again, using the White House to make yet another reelection campaign speech, this one to rally his base using their favorite topic, increasing taxes on the rich aka class warfare.
The Politico
OBAMA SPEAKS IN ROSE GARDEN at 10:30 a.m. on “his vision for a balanced approach to reducing our deficit and living within our means,” plus his recommendations to the supercommittee -- Carrie Budoff Brown and Jennifer Epstein: The president’s plan would “cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade, drawing half the savings from new tax revenue and sparing Medicare recipients from having to wait longer to collect benefits, senior administration officials said Sunday. … Obama has crafted a plan that reads more like a blueprint for shoring up his restless Democratic base than a vehicle for reaching across the aisle … His proposal forces Republicans to side with corporations and the wealthy, sidesteps the most controversial remedies for overhauling Medicare and Social Security, and offers up a populist-sounding ‘Buffett Rule’ … Responding to pressure from progressives, the president will not seek an increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, stepping back from a controversial idea he endorsed during his talks with Boehner. http://bit.ly/rtgKtC
As I said yesterday:
With a dismal failure of a record on economy where the majority of the public disapprove of his handling of it, the country suffering the highest rates of unemployment under Obama, higher deficits than have ever been seen, and raising the national debt higher than any other president , Obama is making the political calculation to distract from those issues and focus his base on the unfairness of some people being more successful in business than others.
Class warfare is the only thing Obama has left.
There is plenty of hype in the blogosphere about Obama's so-called "deficit reduction plan" which is really a "tax increase campaign."
Remember that bi-partisan Super Committee that was formed after the debt ceiling battle, charged with creating a comprehensive deficit reduction plan by November, if they fail, then the law triggers spending cuts of $1.5 trillion, divided equally between domestic and defense spending?
Well, the committee hasn't even finished their work and Obama is threatening to veto their efforts because it doesn't include tax increases.
Obama knows that his plan has absolutely no chance of passing the House, but he needs to play to his base since he has lost support from every single voting demographic and his job approval poll numbers are still dropping to new lows each month.
How bad are things for Obama for him to be showing this level of desperation?
Las Vegas Review Journal explains:
One Nevada Democratic Party insider offered this tip for candidates running for public office in 2012: "Don't get your picture taken with President Obama," he said.
Ouch.
David Frum makes this point about Obama's tax increase plan:
The President’s new brainwave is a stunt that threatens the country’s long-term prosperity and growth. The lapse of the Bush tax cuts plus a new millionaire tax bracket thrusts us back to the high rates of the 1970s. The proposed new five-bracket structure opens new temptations to economically wasteful tax arbitrage.
And remember: all this comes atop the tax increases already embedded in the Affordable Care Act (taxes that, I won’t refrain from pointing out could have been negotiated away back in 2010).
As a reminder of those Obamacare taxes, many of which were deliberately set up not go into effect until after the 2012 election, we grabbed, (from ATR) the list of 21 new taxes Obama has signed into law, 20 of which are embedded into the Obamacare law.
•2. Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (takes effect in Jan 2014)
•3. Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax (takes effect Jan. 2014)
•4. Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income (Tax hike of $123 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•5. Obamacare Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Tax hike of $32 bil/takes effect Jan. 2018)
•6. Obamacare Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Tax hike of $86.8 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•7. Obamacare Medicine Cabinet Tax (Tax hike of $5 bil/took effect Jan. 2011)
•8. Obamacare HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Tax hike of $1.4 bil/took effect Jan. 2011)
•9. Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Tax hike of $13 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•10. Obamacare Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Tax hike of $20 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•11. Obamacare "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Tax hike of $15.2 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•12. Obamacare Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (Tax hike of $2.7 billion/took effect July 2010)
•13. Obamacare elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Tax hike of $4.5 bil/takes effect Jan. 2013)
•14. Obamacare Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Tax hike of $0.4 bil/took effect Jan. 1 2010)
•15. Obamacare Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Min$/took effect immediately)
•16. Obamacare Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Tax hike of $22.2 bil/took effect Jan. 2010)
•17. Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers (Tax hike of $60.1 bil/takes effect Jan. 2014)
•18. Obamacare $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Tax hike of $0.6 bil/takes effect Jan 2013)
•19. Obamacare Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 ($min/takes effect Jan. 2012)
•20. Obamacare “Black liquor” tax hike (Tax hike of $23.6 billion/took effect immediately)
•21. Obamacare Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Tax hike of $4.5 billion/took effect immediately)
Click the ATR link above for page number and portion of the bill to find these tax increases.
Speaker Boehner Statement on the President’s Debt Plan
Washington (Sep 19)House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement in response to the President’s latest debt plan.
“Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership. The Joint Select Committee is engaged in serious work to tackle a serious problem: the debt crisis that is making it harder to get our economy growing and create more American jobs. Unfortunately, the President has not made a serious contribution to its work today. This administration’s insistence on raising taxes on job creators and its reluctance to take the steps necessary to strengthen our entitlement programs are the reasons the president and I were not able to reach an agreement previously, and it is evident today that these barriers remain.”
NOTE: The President’s proposal would raise taxes on both small businesses and on private capital, which is the essential ingredient for job creation in our economy. By declining to support structural improvements to strengthen our entitlement programs, the President has chosen to ignore the warnings about our debt crisis sent by the markets in August – leaving Americans exposed to the possibility of further downgrades that will further damage confidence and make it harder for our economy to grow and create jobs.
[Update] Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain responded to President Obama's jobs speech today
Today, the Obama Administration's assault on the private sector continued. In yet another speech, he called for America's job creators to shoulder an even heavier burden than they must already. President Obama promised that his efforts were not "class warfare," but instead "math."
Perhaps he could learn a lesson or two on math from me. I have a degree in mathematics and spent the earlier days of my career as a supervisory mathematician for the Department of the Navy. Then, I worked for 40 years as an executive in the private sector where I balanced budgets, saved failing companies and created jobs. Both obviously demanded a command of advanced mathematics.
Here's what I can tell him about math: raising taxes on anyone, no matter their income level, will do nothing to stimulate our economy, create jobs or balance our federal budget. Increasing taxes on the private sector will destroy jobs, further damaging our economy and sending even less revenue to the federal government.
His eagerness to punish the private sector indicates he doesn't understand the most important truth of basic economics: the private sector creates jobs. These are the jobs that pay for the food for our families, the roofs over our heads, the heat for our homes, the clothes on our backs, the schools for our kids and the plans for our retirement.
Perhaps his ignorance of basic economics is due to the fact that both he and more than 90 percent of his Administration have no private sector experience at all. Thus, they are all too willing to continually punish America's job creators, all in the name of "fairness."
President Obama's once said, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." I agree. It doesn't matter that he calls it "paying your fair share." It's still class warfare.
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