Why anyone in his right mind, who has some sort of income, be it from your job, business or investments; would vote when he proposes such incredibly high taxes?
Very good question. Economic illiteracy, envy, stupidity and a tax system that really only requires those in the upper 30 or 40% of incomes to pay much in any case.
Are you saying middle class americans should have a problem with this: "As part of the initiatives, the senator proposed a $1,000 cut on payroll taxes for working families, the elimination of income taxes on retirees making less than $50,000 a year, a 10 percent tax credit on mortgage interest payments and a $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.... The Illinois Democrat also promised to pass a universal healthcare bill that would cut family premiums up to $2,500 by 2012." http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/11/obama-tax-plan.html
Only if they are economically literate and understand that social security and medicare("payroll taxes") are broke already and need more revenues not less, that retirees making <$50k don't pay income taxes as it is and that tax credits for college costs will just be gobbled up by monopolistic schools in the form of increased tuition. As for mortgage tax credits, do we really need to be wasting more money on subsidizing housing? It all rests on this enormous fantasy that there is a giant pot of money out there that can be tapped painlessly with no offsetting damage to the economy. Clinton got away with a giant tax increase because we had a roaring economy that could shrug it off. That is not the case now. The proposed costs of this plan are woefully understated as well, because they don't include the 50 million illegal immigrants he will let in and immediately give amnesty to.
It's not the point, I was merely trying to correct the premise of this thread that Obama is proposing tax hikes on most americans when in fact he is proposing tax breaks for 90% of the country. And he does want to offset it and pay for his programs by raising taxes on the richest 5-10%. PS I just love it, Obama's idea of tax breaks for the middle class is "enormous fantasy that there is a giant pot of money out there that can be tapped painlessly" according to you. But Bush's tax cuts for the rich were the right thing to do and they must be made permanent.
There are so many false assumptions and fallacies in your statements that I can't deal with all of them. Actually, I was not all that big a fan of the Bush tax cuts. They had limited supply side benefits. Too much of the cuts were wasted on things like subsidizing big families, etc. The dividend tax cut perhaps was good economics but poor tax policy, as more bang for the buck could have been had elsewhere, eg by eliminating cap gains taxes. In truth, it was a payoff to the the coupon clipping old rich. The problem is, as even McCain recognizes, repealing them would constitute a huge tax increase. To address your fallacies, I would say there are two things you ignore. One, the economy is not a fixed pie, where cuts for one group necessarily come at the expense of another. Some cuts, such as cap gains, tend to pay for themselves by generating more activity or by encouraging more investment, which grows the economy. Two, the so-called rich pay virtually all the income taxes as it is. Necessarily, any cuts will benefit them disproportionately, as they pay disproportionately. But they are not powerless if their taxes are raised, as Obama and the democrats promise. They can shift funds to tax free bonds, for example. They can take money out of productive investments and put it in beach houses. They can move it offshore in extreme cases. If Obama were to limit his increases to CEO's who were ripping off stockholders with enormous comp packages, I would be all for it. That won't happen though. The bulk will end up being levied on upper middle class taxpayers, just as Clinton's was. In democrat lingo, anyone making more than a schoolteacher is by definition "rich."
Of course taxes are going to have to go up. We've just spent TRILLIONS on the war in Iraq. Did anyone here really think that we could spend TRILLIONS and never get a bill? Unfortunately, when the US government spends beyond its means, it can't just declare bankruptcy.