My, my. Who woulda thunk it? After a summer of “Obama is throwing seniors and poor people under the BUS!!!” coming from the left, it turns out, HE ISN’T. According to the New York Times and others, President Obama is proposing cutting the deficit by $3.6 tillion over the next ten years and paying for at least half of it with a new, minimum tax on the über-wealthy.
President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.~SNIP~
Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the “Buffett Rule,” in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained repeatedly that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate than wages.
But, wait! Where is the raising of the retirement age we’ve been promised by the left for so many months? It’s not there.
[T]he 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. Obama had already signaled last week that he would not tackle Social Security in his plan, another shift away from his high-wire talks with Boehner.
Oh, and in case you think the President isn’t serious, the Times also says this:
In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.
Politico describes all of this as “responding to pressure from progressives”. Maybe that’s true. What’s more likely is that the president never intended to do that. It would be completely out of character for him to sacrifice the country’s most vulnerable populations on the altar of deficit reduction and that, of course, is not something he has yet done. He’s only been accused of it.
Needless to say, the Republicans are now calling this “class warfare”. Paul Ryan of “kill Medicare” fame said “Class warfare may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics.” Other prominent Republicans are using that phrase, “class warfare”, too, so you know it’s in a full-of-talking-points strategy memo that was hastily sent out over the weekend.
If this is class warfare, making the country’s wealthiest individuals pay a fair tax rate, I’m in. Bring it. I don’t know too many people that are crying for the segment of our population that has done so well these past few years when everyone else has done so bad.
And DO NOT give me any crap about this being “job killing” or “attacking the job creators”. (A) They aren’t creating jobs. They are sitting on their wealth. (B) What we are talking about here is INDIVIDUAL TAX RATES. Not buisiness tax rates. Businesses have enjoyed scads of tax cuts from this administration. Individual tax rates have almost nothing to do with job creation outside of them maybe hiring a few less gardeners or servants and mansion remodelers or yacht builders. Individuals create few jobs. Businesses create LOTS of jobs. So don’t buy this crap about raising taxes hurting job creation. It’s bunk.
President Obama has his eye on the ball and, as I and others have repeatedly pointed out, he is not out to hurt vulnerable Americans. He’s about getting our economy going again, protecting the middle class and the vulnerable, and moving our country forward while making those who have benefited most pay their fair share. To anyone who has been paying attention, none of this is a surprise. In other words, WE woulda thunk it.
