Obama risks it all for tax hikes
Not only would the additional payments by those families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 be a relatively small sum – something like one week of federal spending next year – but the president is turning down proposals that would provide similar revenues by closing loopholes.
For Obama, this is in part about principle. He believes income inequality is a huge problem facing the nation. The president also seemingly believes that by knocking down the income of the top 2 percent of earners by an estimated average of $36,000 per household, and then taking that money and spending it on government programs aimed at lower-income Americans, it will help narrow the gap between the rich and the middle class. …
But again, the president is rejecting plans that would provide similar reductions in net income for top earners, so he pretty obviously isn’t as concerned that this particular deal comports with his goal of wealth redistribution.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
It needs to be hammered home that Obama is holding the middle class tax cuts for his pet “eat the rich” theme that is wearing thin as the “cliff” approaches.
THAT’s what needs to be hammered home…Obama is unwilling to make sure that the middle class is “protected” from the rate increases because of his class warfare.
But hey, he really doesn’t care anyway…he’s got his. And wants ours. Frackin’ Commie Basta*d
ProfShadow on December 4, 2012 at 7:20 PM
It’s all about tax rates for him, as a showcase for his sense of fairness. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”. “Why, you are, President Obama”.
He MUST have the tax rate hike, even if he can achieve the same thing through other means. What does that say about his motives? It scares me to contemplate.
Paul-Cincy on December 4, 2012 at 7:24 PM
Vengeance born of spite – that’s all this is. He is well aware that this will play nicely with his target audience.
OldEnglish on December 4, 2012 at 7:27 PM
Risks what?
The BSM will be kneeling in front of him no matter what.
Chip on December 4, 2012 at 7:29 PM
Rich people pay exactly the amount of taxes they want to pay. It’s called itemized deductions.
Raise the tax rates and they will simply get out of it with shelters, tax deferment, incorporating, front-loading losses, decreasing take-home, you name it. It’s not hard.
Chuck Schick on December 4, 2012 at 7:29 PM
If they are revenue neutral, why is closing loopholes preferential to the GOP?
jonknee on December 4, 2012 at 7:31 PM
Then why all the fuss?
jonknee on December 4, 2012 at 7:32 PM
It’s disgusting and immoral that the Leftists’ “solution” to income inequality is to steal money from one group of Americans who worked hard to you know, earn their money and then give it to someone who had absolutely nothing to do with earning it.
I hate Liberals. Hate them.
Charlemagne on December 4, 2012 at 7:34 PM
Read this, it explains things quite well.
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
JPeterman on December 4, 2012 at 7:34 PM
Risks what? It’s not like he’s going to lose his job or something because he’s a lying liar.
Sheesh.
kim roy on December 4, 2012 at 7:35 PM
Because it solves absolutely nothing. Zilch.
Tell me otherwise.
Chuck Schick on December 4, 2012 at 7:36 PM
Actually,
If he gets his rate increase on the “rich” we will see a drop in receipts, I’m pretty certain. Look at what happened in Britain…millionaires left and receipts from their “income class” dropped.
Rich people hire smart people to help them do those kind of things. I know I was only six numbers away last week (ba-dum!) from hiring them myself.
But it has never been about more tax receipts…it is about his skewed belief in “fairness” or perhaps his implementation of class warfare as per Alinsky and Cloward-Piven.
Anyway you look at it, it is a lose for the country.
ProfShadow on December 4, 2012 at 7:42 PM
He’s not risking squat, and he knows it. It’s the GOP that’ll be damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t.
This isn’t about solving income inequality, and it’s not about paying down the deficit. It’s about punishing the most successful with confiscatory tax policies in order to fund more stuff for the great unwashed, so that they become ever more reliant on gov’t (read: Dems).
This is all designed to consolidate and grow Democrat power.
changer1701 on December 4, 2012 at 7:44 PM
Risks What? He already got re-elected. Its the American people that are at risk, not the anti-American Marxist bastard.
Dumbest headline ever.
clippermiami on December 4, 2012 at 7:46 PM
Obama may not care, but doesn’t his party? He has consistently thrown them under the bus. They remember the shellacking of 2010 and must fear the same for 2014–didn’t 78 of them lose their jobs that year?
They won’t get the low info voters off the couch to vote for Dems this time.
PattyJ on December 4, 2012 at 7:52 PM
Exactly. Communist principles MUST be implemented.
yhxqqsn on December 4, 2012 at 7:59 PM
Hey, what’s the risk when the GOP is a bunch of wusses. Wusses ripe for the taking. Our elected reps bending over and bringing their own soap for Obama. They screw us. We crew them 2014.
Hey, Obama, in 2014, you bring your own soap.
petefrt on December 4, 2012 at 8:12 PM
This is why the whore Warren Buffet is so hot to push his namesake rule onto the rich: so they will hire his companies to minimize their tax exposure.
Buffet is nothing more than a capitalist turned rent-seeking parasite these days.
Wanderlust on December 4, 2012 at 8:31 PM
Should have been hammering his class warfare schtick(and a lot more) for the past 4 years, but especially during the presidential campaign.
xblade on December 4, 2012 at 8:34 PM
It makes sense if you presume that Obama actually knows that credits and deductions are part of government spending. He doesn’t want to cut any spending at all, and wants to increase marginal tax rates as much as possible.
Count to 10 on December 4, 2012 at 9:17 PM
If he really believed that, he wouldn’t be showering wealth on leeches like Solyndra and he wouldn’t be doing the happy dance with people like Buffet, who by socialist terms, is a blood sucking capitalist vampire who buys and sells companies, but otherwise buries his money in Foundationland and generates donations to the likes of Obama
Buffet is the fourth richest man in the world according to Bloomberg. Buffet calls people making a fraction of what he makes ‘rich’, and he wants them to pay tax percentages which will leave him, in buying power, even more massively rich than the lesser rich. (lose ten percent of a million, and you are even less competitive with someone who loses 10 percent of 50 million)
If Obama was a real redistributionist, would he be awarding himself a 4 million dollar trip to Hawaii?
Obama is a destroyer of those he dislikes, which include the rich people who do not support him. This makes him more like the National Socialists of Nazi Germany
He and his wife despise the American system, and revel in the end of the order
IMHO his emotional empathy is with islam, not America, and it is seen in the way he has encouraged the muslim brotherhood, with a few tut-tuts over Israel. No conflict between islam and national socialism, but total conflict with the American Constitution. The guy does not exchange Christmas presents with his family (like an orthodox muslim), but takes a lot of presents from the Treasury to consolidate his power
He is acting on principle. The tax hikes are intended to hog tie his enemy, which is the America that stood above the loser socialist, facist, and islamist nations
entagor on December 4, 2012 at 9:24 PM
As someone said above: “Risks what?”.
He risks nothing.
And as far as principles…. The only two principles he has are:
1: Will it hurt America?
2: Will it get Moochhell enough lobster?
LegendHasIt on December 4, 2012 at 11:11 PM
I think it’s about even more than crushing the Republicans. I think the goal is to move more power to the president and make Congress irrelevant.
A huge part of the country already believes the president controls the economy, even though the economic climate is more controlled by what Congress does.
Obama wants it all. If the Democrats control both houses of Congress and Obama leads the Democratic party, then Congress is no longer a factor.
I guess Obama really does want to be more like China.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 4, 2012 at 11:24 PM
Money hidden by the rich so it won’t get taxed is lost to the economy just as surely as money confiscated by the government.
The “fuss” is not and never has been abut the so-called “rich.” It has always been about helping the economy or hurting it. Raising taxes hurts everyone in the nation, but especially the middle class.
There Goes The Neighborhood on December 4, 2012 at 11:29 PM
I miss Jesse Helms, he would have called out this dog and pony show for the farce that it is. Jesse was Tea Party before Tea Party was cool, and NYT/WaPo and others hated and despised him fro it. In other words, he was a true man of integrity.
/sigh
Wanderlust on December 5, 2012 at 1:28 AM
No risk here. If he can get Boehner to screw it up, he’ll have control of both houses by 2014, and can drive through whatever he wants with Reid’s simple majority rule. Get ready for the new improved single payer healthcare, green energy, and $10 a gallon gas.
Red Creek on December 5, 2012 at 5:35 AM