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-Election 2012

Obama denies class war over big tax call

2012-01-28

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] US President Barack Obama
I am the change that you seek...
on Thursday denied Republican claims he was waging class warfare as he set out to sell his call for tax raise on the rich in states crucial to his reelection bid.

Hours after his combative and populist State of the Union address, Mr Obama appeared first in Iowa, the cradle of the 2008 campaign which swept him to the White House, and then in Arizona, launching a three-day, five-state tour.

Mr Obama hopes to convince voters that his vision of a remodeled economy -- where everybody, not just the wealthy, gets "a fair shot" -- merits handing him a second term in November's election.

He argued that those who earn one million dollars a year should pay at least 30 percent in taxes, decrying loopholes which offer rich Americans, like his possible Republican foe Mitt Romney
...whose real first name is actually, no kidding, Willard, was governor of Massachussetts and is currently the front-runner for president on the Publican ticket. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's foot is in an ideological bucket because of Romneycare, a state-level experiment that should have been a warning against Obamacare if anyone had been paying attention. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field...
, a much lower rate on investment income.

"I hear a lot of folks running around calling this class warfare," Mr Obama said at a factory in midwestern Iowa.

"This is not class warfare," Mr Obama said, citing legendary financier Warren Buffett's argument that he should pay a higher tax rate on his vast fortune than his own staff pay on their annual income.

"Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary is common sense," President B.O. said, warning Americans must decide whether to build an equitable economy, fund education and the military or let the rich evade fair taxes.

Posted by:Fred

#17 TW, I do agree with and appreciate your assessment completely.

However;

Congressmen Boehner and Cantor can explain themselves blue in face. But if the population lacks the basic education in economics and business principles necessary to understand their explanation, the population will simply tune them out and call them obstructionists.

Posted by: junkiron 2012-01-28 23:00

#16 Sadly, our beloved president has the financial acumen of a retarded kindergartner. Also, he tells lies.

LMAO! TW, if we were schoolgirls, I would totally hang out with you at recess. So long as you deemed me cool enough. :)

Posted by: RandomJD 2012-01-28 16:36

#15 Nicely explained, junkiron. :-)

Posted by: trailing wife 2012-01-28 16:12

#14 Obumble has to know that an increase in the Capital gains tax rate will reduce federal and state revenue at a time when both are running record deficits.

Why? He never had to, before.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-01-28 14:26

#13 The failure of the vast majority of our population to instantly recognize and dismiss as absurd, the Warren Buffett's tax rate comparison to that of his secretary, can only be attributed to our basic lack of understanding of basic economics and sound business principles.

Wages and investment income are two entirely different things and comparing them as if they were the same is completely erroneous.

The most blatent falsehood promoted by Obama, Warren Buffett and the media is the principle of double taxation.

Wage earners normally do not own the company. Investors in theory do. And that fact requires that they are taxed on entrely different principles.

In C type corporations, profits are taxed at least twice. Once at the corporation level and then again at the private level.

The accepted tax accounting principle is that the corporation profits are first normally taxed at 35%. The remainder of the profit is then divided among the owners (investors) and then taxed again at the individul investors personal tax rate. Usually at about 15%.

In reality the IRS recieves 50% of the corporation profits, hence the investors actual tax rate is also 50%.

The blatent omission of the fact that the investors dividend is first taxed at the corporation level and then again at the private level is a pure misrepresentation of the actual percentage the investor pays.

Investment income is only taxed in the year it is distributed. If Warren Buffett chose to reinvest his profits and live on his personal savings account his tax rate would in fact be 0 because he did not recieve a dividend that year.

There are some types of government bonds ect. that can be invested in tax free but the fact that Warren Buffett's secretary (or anyone else) could invest ther own money at the exact same tax rate as Warren Buffett leaves this entire argument with no logical reason to begin with.

It just astounds me that vast majority of the American people would fall for this charade.

Posted by: junkiron 2012-01-28 14:09

#12 If the billionaire in question is guilty about not paying enough taxes, he could write a check for the roughly billion or so his damn corporation has owed in back taxes for a big chunk of the last decade.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-01-28 14:02

#11 "Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary is common sense"

Why, because his secretary has a lousy tax accountant?

Posted by: Pappy 2012-01-28 13:30

#10 And Congressmen Boehner and Cantor have the opportunity to explain, repeatedly, exactly why they won't write the laws he wants.
Sorry, but Boner is just another spineless RINO IMHO. all hat and no cattle.
caves to Bambi and the D's everytime.

Posted by: USN, Ret. 2012-01-28 11:34

#9 Politicians push redistribution of income and class warfare in order to get re-elected. After all, if a politician robs Peter to pay Paul, he's already got half the vote. Meanwhile, the financial industry pushes unjust redistribution of assets (debt crisis, bailouts, Federal reserve subsidies to the big banks) and rent-seeking (legally mandated or enforced supports to one group at the expense of another, see SOPA, PIPA, immortality of copyrights, courts tolerating foreclosure abuse and perjury, federal exemption of student loans from discharge in bankruptcy, etc. etc.). Conservative economists manage to avoid mentioning rent-seeking in their pronouncements. Vast majority of electorate is utterly oblivious to such economic evils.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-01-28 11:01

#8 Purely class warfare, social justice and redistribution of income. He has been playing one group against another in this country since he was elected. This is evil. I just hope people recognize the evil for what it is; however, I doubt it -- Some voters like such anti-American tripe.

Posted by: JohnQC 2012-01-28 10:13

#7 Obama has simply changed the subject, once again. None has so far mentioned vast amounts of utterly wasteful federal spending, the presupposition that federal spending MUST continue to rise at X% (you pick the figure) annually FOREVER, and that the national debt must continue its inexorable rise, without any real limit.
The revolutionary idea that government spending must be limited to what the electorate wishes to tax itself on, is also never mentioned.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-01-28 10:04

#6 This is pure class warfare for a reason no one is mentioning. Why is the Capital gains tax rate 15%?

It isn't because the greedy rich guys could force Congress to let them keep more of their ill gotten gains. It was set at that level so that the greedy government would maximize revenue by encouraging investors to realize profits it could tax.

If the capital gains tax were raised, the cost of recognizing the gain would be increased and fewer investors would realize their gain by selling the appreciated asset, reducing gains subject to the tax.

Investors are by definition able to live without the money they have invested. They can easily choose to forgo selling an asset if the cost is too high. This is why changing the Capital gains tax rate is so powerful in generating (or stifling) government revenue.

Obumble has to know that an increase in the Capital gains tax rate will reduce federal and state revenue at a time when both are running record deficits. It will only aggravate the deficits. So why else would he be doing it, if not class warfare?

Why is no one making this argument?

Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-01-28 09:46

#5 Many people from other countrys consider Americans to be economically illiterate

Many people from other countries consider Americans to be a great many things, all of it inferior to their august, clever selves by definition. Thus do those many people reveal their own weaknesses. At the moment only Canada and Switzerland seem out of economic danger, leaving the money sense of the rest in the category of seriously suspect.

Nonetheless, many Americans have indeed been entirely too clever by half about matters financial, including the boffins who took jobs in finance and the government, and we're all paying the price. Sadly, our beloved president has the financial acumen of a retarded kindergartner. Also, he tells lies.

Fortunately, he doesn't write the tax laws -- that comes out of the lower house of Congress. And Congressmen Boehner and Cantor have the opportunity to explain, repeatedly, exactly why they won't write the laws he wants.

Posted by: trailing wife 2012-01-28 08:23

#4 It isn't class warfare when you take from the working poor to give to the idle rich.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-01-28 08:21

#3 "I hear a lot of folks running around" Sounds like racism to me. He left out the you.

Posted by: Dale 2012-01-28 07:08

#2 Many people from other countrys consider Americans to be economically illiterate. And for good reason. We are.

The Buffet rule proves one thing. The American people don't even know the difference between earning a wage and investing in a corporation.

In an economically literate society if Obama had promised to raise the tax rate on investors to 30% he would have been booed out of the building.
Instead he got a standing ovation.

We live today in a global economy. Wealthy people are very mobile, and so is their money. Raising taxes on the rich simply causes them to move their money outside the country. Which is the opposite of an economic stimulus.

Taxing investment capital out of pockets of corporations and businesses, who pay the wages, will never increase the wages of the middle class and poor at the bottom of the food chain.

The American dream is to shrink the income gap between the rich and poor by raising the living standards of the poor up to the standards of the rich.

Obama's plan is to drag the rich down to the level of the poor.

Bill Clinton said, "It's the economy supid!". But that is only half the truth.

If he had spoken the whole truth he would have said, "It's the economy stupid, but the American people are to stupid to understand the economy.

Posted by: junkiron 2012-01-28 00:59

#1 That Picture, you need the one with steam coming out both his ears.

Posted by: Redneck Jim 2012-01-28 00:24

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