Obama’s new budget: $25,000 per taxpayer

posted at 7:43 pm on February 26, 2009 by Allahpundit
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I have nothing to offer you except links and despair. $3.6 trillion in spending divided by 139 million taxpayers equals $25,573.48 apiece. Just put it on my tab along with my student loans. Or better yet, put it on your kids’ tab: According to Boehner’s office, by 2019 the annual deficit will still be north of $700 billion and the national debt will stand a shade over … $15 trillion, almost double what it is now.

New taxes? Tapper’s run the numbers and says they’ll hit $1 trillion over the next 10 years, but (a) evidently that doesn’t include another $600 billion businesses will have to cough up as part of the new cap-and-trade program and (b) it assumes that the only new taxes levied will be on individuals making more than $250,000 and corporations, which of course is absurd. Read the Journal’s analysis of The One’s “2% lie” to see why. Quote:

Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can’t possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama’s new spending ambitions…

[A]s a thought experiment, let’s go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable “dime” of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

Fast forward to this year (and 2010) when the Wall Street meltdown and recession are going to mean far few taxpayers earning more than $500,000. Profits are plunging, businesses are cutting or eliminating dividends, hedge funds are rolling up, and, most of all, capital nationwide is on strike. Raising taxes now will thus yield far less revenue than it would have in 2006.

How bad is it? Even Olympia Snowe sounds unhappy.

For good measure, one of the bill’s 9,000 earmarks comes courtesy of The One himself, left over from his Senate days when he was off on the trail every day railing against earmarks. And I haven’t even mentioned TARP II, which they’ve gone ahead and allotted $250 billion for on the assumption that most of the money given to the banks will be recouped. If it isn’t, then the true cost’s more like $750 billion, which would be slightly more than the original TARP that blew everyone’s mind back in September. That’s my only comment on this, really — how completely and dangerously inured I am now to unbelievably extravagant spending. And given the fact that 63% of the public’s already blessed the idea of a second stimulus, I can only assume they feel the same way. Gulp.

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