Barrack “Taxman” Obama–Yes He Can Take Your Money–But Only You Can Stop Socialism!

Posted on July 1, 2008. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Climate, Economics, Immigration, Links, Music, Politics, Quotations, Rants, Raves, Resources, Taxes, Technology, Video, War |

Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

~Thomas Sowell

Taxman

Obama Tax Plan

Barack Obama on Taxes

Obama; Taxes, Capital Gains

Obama: Payroll Tax on Incomes Above $250,000

Obama’s Ill-Timed Tax Increases

Neal Boortz on Obama’s Fairness Tax Plan

Response to Obama, 4: What’s wrong with Obama’s Leftist View

Response to Obama, 5: Tax Rates and Job Creation

Response to Obama, 6: The Difficulty of Change

Response to Obama, 7: Liberals and the fall of Detroit

Bob Barr: Taxes & Spending

Bob Barr: American Economy

Barrack “Taxman” Obama passionatley loves more and higher taxes to finance all the new government programs he is proposing.

He learned the politics of resentment well from his mentor and pastor Reverand Wright, a true believer in liberation theology.

His goal is to make more and more Americans dependent upon government as they keep less and less of their hard earned money.

High taxes are a direct attack by the federal government on the American family and undermines the family by forcing both spouses to work.

The thought of actually cutting government spending and reducing the size and burden of the Federal government never entered Senator Obama’s mind.

Obama asserts that the privatization of social security is a bad idea. Why?

Obama like the rest of the liberal progressive socialist left wants to go on spending your social security taxes on whatever program they can dream up to make you more dependent on government and beholding to them.

Privatizing social security or a private account for each social security tax payor is a great idea. Why?

The American people should have the freedom to choose where their social security taxes are invested and protect it in their own private account that they own and not the Federal government.

First, the people who pay their social security taxes should have the right to choose where their social secuity taxes are invested.

Let each individual decide whether he wants his taxes invested in a diversified portfolio of Federal bonds or notes or in private equities or stocks or a combination of both.

Second, over a forty year period, the higher rates of return in stocks will result in significantly more retirement income.

Third, each individual should have a seperate private account that only they control and the balance of this account should go to the person they designate as the beneficiary when they die.

WSJ Editorial Writer Stephen Moore on Social Security Reform

McCain Social Security reform

Barack Obama: Social Security and Medicare

Dirty Little Secret – Universal Healthcare? Social Security?

Strengthening Social Security for Future Generations

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/social-security/

Romney on Social Security 10/26/07

Obama would also like to increase the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 28%. Why?

Obama wants to punish over 100 million American when they sell their houses and other investments by increasing the federal government’s cut of any gain you realize.

Yes he can take your money if you let him and he will if he is elected President of the Untied States.

More taxes and higher tax rates is not new, Senator Obama.

It is a very old idea that has ruined economies world wide throughout history.

Senator, you are clueless when it comes to economics or tax policy.

Your ideas have been tried in the sixities and they did not work then.

Obama on a tax increase for the wealthy

Obama on capital gains tax

Obama; Taxes, Capital Gains

Senator Obama is the first socialist candidate for President of the United States of America.

Therefore, I am not surprised in the cavalier and imprudent tax policy the Senator is proposing.

His proposed tax increases if implemented would destroy million of jobs and throw the US economy into a major recession, if not a depression.

This is a change that the American people neither want nor can afford.

His ignorance of basic economics is amazing for someone running for President of the United States.

He gives new meaning to Clinton’s phrase, it is the economy stupid!

Stupid is as stupid does.

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Does he really hate the American people, free enterprise and America this much that he would blindly implement tax policies that will led to massive unemployment and wreck the economy.

Apparently he does–Yes he can.

Barrack Obama is a radical socialist and do not forget this when you go to the polls in November.

Only you can stop socialism in America.

The American people will vote their pocket books.

Vote no to Barrack “Taxman” Obama in November.

LOL–Voices of The American People

Solution to Gas Problem is More Taxes…

Red State Update: Gas Prices

The Beatles-Money

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area – crime, education, housing, race relations – the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them. …”

~Thomas Sowell

Is Reality Optional?, 1993

Background Articles and Videos

Charlie Rose – Economist Milton Friedman.

Obama’s Truly Radical Capital Gains Tax Agenda

“…MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.

The Senator then proceeded to bash evil rich (sorry for the redundancy) people, so the moderator asked the question again:

MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not. It depends on what’s happening on Wall Street and how business is going.

This exchange is particularly revealing since Senator Obama actually admitted that a tax rate increase might lose revenue, but he held firm to his position that the capital gains rate should be increased from 15 percent to 28 percent. This reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with an economics professor from an Ivy League university. He told me that he once asked his left-wing colleagues whether they would support lower tax rates if they knew that tax revenues would rise. Most of them, he said, shared Obama’s viewpoint that punishing success was more important to the statist ideology than increasing revenue for government.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/04/17/obamas-truly-radical-capital-gains-tax-agenda/

An Old Newness

By Thomas Sowell

“…There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president — especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans. …”

“…Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things — using the mantra of “change” endlessly — the cold fact is that virtually everything has says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not — all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police. …”

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/04/29/an_old_newness?page=full&comments=true

Obama vs McCain – Candidates on Taxes

Barack Obama: Taxes Galore!

European Levels of Taxation: Barack Obama’s Tax Plan

by Rea S. Hederman, Jr. and Patrick Tyrrell

“…Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama (D–Ill.) has unveiled his economic plan of raising taxes on the successful. His plan would boost the top marginal rate to well over 55 percent—before the inclusion of state and local taxes—resulting in many individuals seeing their marginal tax rate double. The consequences of this policy would be a return to the bad old days of tax avoidance, with taxpayers disguising personal income as business income or capital gains and the migration of capital from the United States to abroad.

Among the more prominent elements of his tax proposal, Senator Obama would end the Bush tax cuts and allow the top two tax rates to return to 36 and 39.6 percent. He also would allow personal exemptions and deductions to be phased out for those with income over $250,000. The real kicker, though, is that Senator Obama would end the Social Security payroll tax cap for those over $250,000 in earnings. (The cap is currently set at $102,000.) These individuals will then face a tax rate of 15.65 percent from payroll taxes and the top income tax rate of 39.6 percent for a combined top rate of over 56 percent on each additional dollar earned.

High-income individuals will be forced to pay even more if they live in cities or states with high taxes such as New York City, California, or Maryland. These unlucky people would pay over two-thirds of each new dollar in earnings to the federal government. …”

http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/wm1973.cfm

MONSIEUR OBAMA’S TAX RATES

“…Americans should be so lucky: Theirs is the only industrialized country that taxes its people even if they live overseas. That hasn’t been a big problem as long as U.S. tax rates have been relatively low. But with Barack Obama promising to lift rates to French-like levels, this taxman-cometh policy could turn Americans into the world’s foremost fiscal prisoners.

And make no mistake, taxes under a President Obama could be truly à la française. The top marginal tax rate, including federal, state and local levies, could approach 60% for self-employed New Yorkers and Californians. Not even France’s taxes are that high now that President Nicolas Sarkozy has capped the total that high-earning Frenchmen like Mr. Ducasse can pay in income, social and wealth taxes at 50% of earnings. …”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121451667614808563.html

Obama’s Global Tax Bill Coming Soon

Lee Cary

“…The Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433) is coming up for a Senate vote sometime after the July 4 recess, according the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Once Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership put it on the calendar, we could have as little as a week to prepare for the vote.

The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Barack Obama. Read about it here.

If passed, it will cost taxpayers $845,000,000,000 over the next 13 years, in addition to our current foreign aid expenditures.

And the best part is that it will be administered in conjunction with…brace yourselves…the United Nations. The same one of “Food-for-Oil” fame. …”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/06/obamas_global_tax_bill_coming.html

Obama’s Global Tax

By Lee Cary

“…Senator Barack Obama’s sponsorship of Senate Bill 2433 aligns with the emerging core theme of his general election campaign. The change he promises will bring much-needed relief, not just to America’s victims of economic injustice, but to victims worldwide.

On December 7, 2007, Obama introduced the Senate version of the Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433). On February 13, the bill cleared the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on which Obama and 6 (Biden, Dodd, Feingold, Hagel, Lugar, Menendez) of the bill’s 9 co-sponsors serve. The House version of the bill (H.R.1302) passed by a unanimous voice vote last September 25.

Here’s an abstract of the proposed legislation:

“To require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the [U.N.] Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/the_global_candidate_proposes.html

Obama Tax Policies Penalize, McCain’s Reward

by Terry Easton

“…When you compare the Republican’s tax position of enlightened free-market capitalism versus the Democrat’s heavy socialist agenda, the differences become obvious — especially to anyone who pays taxes. Obama’s tax plans will hit the middle class American where it hurts the worst: in his wallet.

Let’s take income taxes first.

McCain calls for no changes to today’s low rates. Obama will revert to the pre-Bush tax cut regime. Bottom line: if you’re single, making $30,000, McCain will tax you $4,500. Obama will extract $8,400 from your wallet — almost double the take! Single making $50,000: McCain’s tax is $12,500; Obama’s is $14,000. Single making $75,000: McCain’s tax is $18,750. Obama will bite you for $23,250.

And it’s no better if you’re married. Married making $60,000: McCain’s tax is only $9,000. Obama will hit you for $16,000. Married making $75,000: McCain’s tax is $18,750, Obama’s $21,000. Married making $125,000: McCain’s tax is $31,250. Obama’s hit — $38,750. Ouch, Obama!

So much for Obama’s plan to tax the “filthy rich”. Now we know just what that means: everyone in the middle class.

Well, you say, what about capital gain taxes?

Again, McCain says he’ll make no changes. The maximum rate will stay at 15%. Obama is all for change. He’ll roll back this tax cut to the pre-Bush rate of 28%, again almost doubling your taxes overnight. This plan is especially cruel to older folks who have planned to sell their bigger homes and count on using this income (after their homeowner’s exclusion) to help fund their retirement. Ouch again, Obama.

Then there is the dividend tax.

OK, you’ve been religiously saving over the decades and buying up blue-chip stocks whose dividends you now count on to carry you through your golden years. Or, you have your savings invested in an IRA or retirement plan, mutual fund or life insurance annuity. McCain’s dividend tax won’t change from the maximum rate of 15%. Obama will once again repeal the Bush tax cuts, bumping this tax rate up to 39.6%, an increase of — hold your wallets — over 160%. The impact on the middle class, much less our barely-growing economy — are obvious. Really ouch, Obama! …”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27025&page=1&cp=1#hec301759

The Supply-Side Solution
If tax-cut strategies don’t work, why are they so popular abroad?

by STEPHEN MOORE

“…In any case, the share of taxes paid by the top 1% and 5% income earners has consistently risen from 1980 through 2007, even as tax rates declined. Today the highest income tax rate is half what it was in the 1970s. Yet the share of taxes paid by the top 1% of income earners is twice (39%) today what it was then (19%).

Regardless of what one believes about the distributional effects of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, there’s no expunging the reality that the economic growth rate surged after each of these changes–just as they did in the 1960s after President Kennedy’s tax rate cuts. Robert Rubin and others reply that the economy boomed in the 1990s too, after Bill Clinton raised taxes. But supply-siders never argued that only tax cuts matter. Trade matters. Sound money matters. Regulations matter. In the 1990s, monetary, trade and spending policies were all leaning in a pro-growth direction, possibly offsetting the negative impact of the Clinton tax rate hikes.

What the critics have no plausible answer for is this: If the supply-side tax rate reduction model is truly so abhorrent, why are so many nations around the world latching on to it? What explains the Irish Miracle? Why are Germany, France and the U.K. slashing their corporate tax rates? Why are there 18 countries with flat taxes? Are their leaders deranged, or been bamboozled by crackpots? Perhaps a better explanation is that they know intuitively what a new National Bureau of Economic Research study has found: Nations with low tax rates on business have statistically significant higher rates of new business formation, investment and income. …”

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010844

A Plan For Privatizing Social Security

by Peter J. Ferrara

“…In this study, Peter Ferrara offers a proposal based on the following key elements:

Current workers could be free to choose either the private option or Social Security. For those who choose the private plan, workers and employers will each pay 5 percent of wages, instead of the current Social Security payroll tax of 6.2 percent for each, into private investment accounts, resulting in an eventual payroll tax cut of 20 percent. Besides supporting retirement benefits, the accounts would finance private life and disability insurance, thus replacing Social Security survivors and disability benefits.

Workers who opt out of the current Social Security system would receive recognition bonds from the federal government that would pay them a proportion of future Social Security benefits equal to the proportion of lifetime taxes they had already paid.

Benefits promised to current retirees would be paid in full, with no reduction of any kind.

The biggest objection to privatizing Social Security has been the transition to a privatized system. But the projections of the fiscal impact of the plan offered in this study show that the transition can be financed without new taxes and without cutting benefits for today’s recipients.

Indeed, the yearly transition deficit would be offset after about 14 years. After that, the privatization reform actually starts producing a surplus for the federal government. About 20 years after the reform is begun, that surplus would be large enough in 1996 dollars to eliminate completely a federal deficit as large as today’s. …”

http://www.cato.org/pubs/ssps/ssp8es.html

Your Tax Bill:
How McCain,
Obama Differ

Capital-Gains Rates Are Likely
To Rise, No Matter Who Wins;
Far Apart on Estate Taxes

“…Sen. Obama is calling for higher taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year. That includes increased taxes not only on ordinary income such as salary but also on capital gains and most corporate dividends. The Illinois senator also is calling for higher Social Security taxes on many upper-income workers.

Sen. John McCain has staked out a strong antitax stance. That includes extending President Bush’s income-tax cuts and enacting new breaks, such as raising the exemption for dependents. …”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121374794468982701.html

Barack Obama on Minimum Wage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRcC3Iz2JSk

Milton Friedman on Minimum Wage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk

Milton Friedman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfdRpyfEmBE

BARACK OBAMA Pastor ANTI-AMERICAN Rev Jeremiah Wright Racism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw&feature=related

LOL: Red State Update: Obama’s Preacher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvrIKrK1Xso

The revelation of Rev. Wright

“…Obama cannot be expected to answer for the outrages of everyone with whom he has associated, but his 20-year relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is another matter, profoundly different than John McCain’s association with intemperate pastors who have endorsed him. Wright is a man to whom Obama himself has directed our attention, naming a book after a Wright sermon and, until recently, presenting the man as something of a father figure.

Wright, of course, is anything but unifying and post-ideological. He views the United States as unrepentantly racist and evil. It is, in his view, an imperialist force for evil in the world and a fundamentally unjust place in which little racial progress has been made.

Wright has made it clear that these views are part and parcel of his theology and definition of church. It is evident that the congregation at Trinity Church is quite familiar and enthusiastic about his claims that America brought Sept. 11 upon itself and has deliberately addicted blacks to drugs and infected them with AIDS. Those in the pews appear to be more than comfortable with his suggestion that our country is damned in the eyes of God.

It is inconceivable that anyone could sit in his church for any appreciable length of time or have more than a passing acquaintance with him without knowing that racial pandering and a rather bleak view of contemporary America is central to Wright’s ministry. …”

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=761961

Glenn Beck: Obama – Black Liberation Theology 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cA0GEV1ibY&feature=related

Glenn Beck: Obama – Black Liberation Theology 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQuzyvHOl30&feature=related

John McCain vs. Barack Obama on Gas Taxes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BKLr4eUWKY

Karl Rove: “Yes I Do Think Barack Obama is Arrogant”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de3gukJRxxo

Bush wants offshore oil and gas drilling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zN5kC_KFXk

Drill For Oil You Hypocritical Democrats. DRILL DRILL!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJcnhUG-28

The Energy Crisis Is Real – 1979 Jimmy Carter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABqE0Yl12FY&feature=related

New Data: Top 1% Pay Greater Dollar Amount in Income Taxes to Federal Government than Bottom 90%

“…Washington, DC, October 4, 2007 – New data released by the IRS today offers interesting insights into the distributional spread of the federal income tax burden, new analysis by the Tax Foundation shows.

Summary of Federal Individual Income Tax Data, 2005 (updated October 2007)

	Number of Returns	AGI ($ millions)	Income Taxes Paid ($ millions)	Group’s Share of Total AGI	Group’s Share of Income Taxes	Income Split Point
All Taxpayers	132,611,637	$7,507,958	$934,703	100.00%	100.00%	–
Top 1%	1,326,116	$1,591,711	$368,132	21.20%	39.38%	above $364,657
Top 5%	6,630,582	$2,683,934	$557,759	35.75%	59.67%	above $145,283
Top 10%	13,261,164	$3,487,010	$657,085	46.44%	70.30%	above $103,912
Top 25%	33,152,909	$5,069,455	$803,772	67.52%	85.99%	above $62,068
Top 50%	66,305,819	$6,544,824	$906,028	87.17%	96.93%	above $30,881
Bottom 50%	66,305,818	963,134	28,675	12.83%	3.07%	below $30,881

Source: IRS …”

http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22652.html

Who Pays Income Taxes? See Who Pays What

“…For Tax Year 2005

Percentiles Ranked by AGI

AGI Threshold on Percentiles

Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid

Top 1%

$364,657

39.38

Top 5%

$145,283

59.67

Top 10%

$103,912

70.30

Top 25%

$62,068

85.99

Top 50%

$30,881

96.93

Bottom 50%

<$30,881

3.07

Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
Source: Internal Revenue Service

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

June 25, 2008

Hard Numbers on Obama’s Redistribution Plan

by Scott A. Hodge

Fiscal Fact No. 132

“…Table 1 presents the share of total federal taxes currently borne by each income group compared to the changes that would occur under the Obama plan. A couple of figures jump out. First, the table illustrates how few taxes are paid by Americans at the bottom end of the income scale and, thus, how difficult it is to give them tax relief.

According to Tax Policy Center tables, there are roughly 72 million tax units in the bottom two quintiles, representing 48 percent of all tax units. Under current policies, these people pay just 4.8 percent of all federal taxes. Those in the lowest quintile would receive $22 billion in various tax credits under the Obama plan, which would reduce their overall federal tax liability by an average of $567. However, since these 39 million people currently pay an average of only $489 in federal taxes, they would see their federal tax liability fall below zero, meaning they would get money back from the government in excess of any taxes paid. For those in the second quintile, the Obama plan would cut their current average tax liability of $2,995 by 30 percent, or $892.

At the other end of the scale, the Obama plan would boost the average tax bill for the top 1 percent of taxpayers by $115,974, from $559,181 to $675,155. The overall tax burden on the top 1 percent would climb from 25.7 percent of all federal taxes to 31.3 percent. Thus, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would shoulder a greater burden of all federal taxes than the bottom 80 percent combined. Again, these figures do not include Obama’s proposed increase in payroll taxes on high earners.

Table 1
Impact of Obama Plan on Federal Taxes Paid by Income Quintile

	Tax Units*		Share of Federal Taxes
Cash Income Percentile*	Number (thousands)	Percent of Total	Current Share of Total	Change Under Obama’s Proposal	New Shares Under Obama’s Proposal
Lowest Quintile	39,102	26.0%	0.8%	-0.90%	-0.12%
Second Quintile	32,942	21.9%	4.0%	-1.16%	2.84%
Middle Quintile	30,075	20.0%	10.7%	-1.18%	9.53%
Fourth Quintile	25,152	16.7%	17.9%	-1.15%	16.75%
Top Quintile	22,287	14.8%	66.5%	4.39%	70.88%
All	150,241	100.0%	100.0%	0%	100%

Addendum
80-90	11,264	7.5%	14.1%	-0.88%	13.23%
90-95	5,439	3.6%	10.4%	-0.52%	9.88%
95-99	4,454	3.0%	16.3%	0.16%	16.48%
Top 1 Percent	1,131	0.8%	25.7%	5.63%	31.29%
Source: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/Content/Excel/T08-0114.xls.
* Quintiles have equal numbers of people but unequal numbers of tax units

While many Americans may cheer this outcome as just or equitable, this sort of direct redistribution raises some important questions that should be part of a larger national discussion:

What is the long-term effect on the economy of so few households shouldering such a large share of the tax burden?
What are the consequences for our democratic system when a majority of Americans are disconnected from the full cost of government? Will that majority demand more from the government because they bear little of the cost?
Should the tax system be used as a means of redistributing income or simply as a neutral mechanism for raising money for government services? Can a tax system premised on redistribution also be compatible with economic growth?
The Obama plan assumes little behavioral change from such a large tax hike on high-income workers. Is this realistic or will the higher rates encourage tax minimization strategies and reduced work effort, which will lead to lower tax revenues?

The Tax Policy Center has done the public a service by putting hard numbers on the candidates’ tax plans and bringing a dose of reality to the political rhetoric. While it is easy for the press and voters to consider only “What’s in it for me?,” there are larger issues raised by these findings that deserve more public discussion.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html

NYU scholar named as Obama’s director of economic policy

“…Furman has a wealth of experience in this capacity. He held the same position during the Kerry-Edwards campaign and had previously served as special assistant to the president for economic policy during the Clinton administration. In addition, he has been a visiting lecturer at both Columbia and Yale universities.
“…”I think the whole debate between raising taxes and cutting taxes is false,” he added. “The true debate is who are you cutting taxes for.” …”

It seems clear that the economy will play a large role in determining the next president. News Corporation CEO and politically conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch told Reuters last month that he predicts there will be a Democratic landslide in November, citing the failing economy and an apparent recession.

Murdoch is not alone. Many on both sides are predicting that a dark economic outlook leading up to the election will only help the Democrats. …”

http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2008/06/30/University/Nyu-Scholar.Named.As.Obamas.Director.Of.Economic.Policy-3386670.shtml

PRESS CONFERENCE: Obama’s economic plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V85_zDs7Ik8

The McCain Economic “Team”
Intellectual diversity, for better and for worse.
by Andrew Ferguson

“…McCain came to the House of Representatives in 1983. He was a standard-issue Republican of the day–an adherent of the newly minted Republican orthodoxy of Reaganism, which made rapid economic growth, rather than a balanced federal budget, the chief goal of fiscal policy. He supported deep cuts in the marginal tax rate on income and capital gains. At the same time (like Reagan himself) he maintained a mostly theoretical advocacy of a balanced budget, pushing such hopeless nostrums as a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and a presidential line-item veto. When he bucked the party’s leadership, it was on the side of a smaller government and lower taxes. After Congress approved Reagan’s plan for a government-run catastrophic-care insurance program, financed by a tax increase on wealthy seniors, McCain led the successful effort to repeal the new tax a year later, in 1989. Like many Republican senators, he voted against President George H.W. Bush’s 1990 budget because it contained multiple tax increases that violated Bush’s famous read-my-lips campaign pledge. Three years later, he joined in his party’s unanimous rejection of President Clinton’s 1993 proposed increase in marginal tax rates on capital gains and income.

By the time McCain announced for president in 1999, he had built a consistent roll call of conservative votes on fiscal issues–a record that was, however, largely indistinguishable from those of his Republican colleagues. In an interview at the time, he said that “tax reform–i.e., a flat tax,” would be one of his signal issues during his coming presidential …”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/751tryie.asp?pg=2

McCain’s econ brain

Economic conservatives take heart: Phil Gramm is influencing the candidate’s platform.

By Shawn Tully, editor-at-large

“…But economic conservatives should take heart. McCain’s chief economic adviser – and perhaps his closest political friend – is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. If McCain follows Gramm’s counsel, and most of his current positions are vintage Gramm indeed, his policies as president would represent not just a sharp departure from the Bush years, but an assault on government growth that Republicans have boasted about, but failed to achieve, for decades. …”

“…What about taxes? McCain now advocates extending the Bush tax cuts that he twice voted against. For Gramm, McCain’s strength is that, unlike Bush, he will be a relentless hawk on spending. “McCain’s main objection when Congress passed the tax cuts was that we didn’t have spending controls,” says Gramm. “If we’d had them, we could cut taxes again and not make do with some temporary stimulus.”

McCain pledges to balance the budget by 2012, not by increasing taxes, but by vetoing all pork barrel spending, and curbing outlays for Social Security and Medicare. That would accomplish the seemingly impossible, reducing federal spending as a portion of GDP, a holy grail for conservatives. Could Gramm be the Treasury Secretary who spearheads the McCain plan? He says he’d be reluctant to return to public life, but doesn’t rule it out. Indeed, he says that he and McCain talk every day. Gramm even quotes Rudyard Kipling to salute his friend’s grit in political combat.

McCain is a hero to Gramm but not to free-marketers. Conservatives are hoping that by embracing their hero, McCain will become one himself. …”

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/18/news/newsmakers/tully_gramm.fortune/index.htm

Taxation in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States

Taxation history of the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United_States

Percentiles Ranked by AGI	AGI Threshold on Percentiles	Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid
Top 1%	$364,657	39.38
Top 5%	$145,283	59.67
Top 10%	$103,912	70.30
Top 25%	$62,068	85.99
Top 50%	$30,881	96.93
Bottom 50%	<$30,881	3.07
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income Source: Internal Revenue Service

Barrack “Taxman” Obama–Yes He Can Take Your Money–But Only You Can Stop Socialism!

~Thomas Sowell

Obama Tax Plan

Barack Obama on Taxes

Obama; Taxes, Capital Gains

Obama: Payroll Tax on Incomes Above $250,000

Obama’s Ill-Timed Tax Increases

Neal Boortz on Obama’s Fairness Tax Plan

Response to Obama, 4: What’s wrong with Obama’s Leftist View

Response to Obama, 5: Tax Rates and Job Creation

Response to Obama, 6: The Difficulty of Change

Response to Obama, 7: Liberals and the fall of Detroit

Bob Barr: Taxes & Spending

Bob Barr: American Economy

WSJ Editorial Writer Stephen Moore on Social Security Reform

McCain Social Security reform

Barack Obama: Social Security and Medicare

Dirty Little Secret – Universal Healthcare? Social Security?

Strengthening Social Security for Future Generations

Romney on Social Security 10/26/07

Obama on a tax increase for the wealthy

Obama on capital gains tax

Obama; Taxes, Capital Gains

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

LOL–Voices of The American People

Solution to Gas Problem is More Taxes…

Red State Update: Gas Prices

The Beatles-Money

Background Articles and Videos

Charlie Rose – Economist Milton Friedman.

Obama’s Truly Radical Capital Gains Tax Agenda

An Old Newness

By Thomas Sowell

Obama vs McCain – Candidates on Taxes

Barack Obama: Taxes Galore!

McCain vs Obama on taxes

Barack Obama: Global Poverty Act = World tax = Socialism

Barack Obama’s plan on GLOBAL WARMING

Obama In Las Vegas June 1st (Part 1)

Obama In Las Vegas June 1st (Part 2)

Kudlow on Obama and his love of taxes

Ben Stein explaining how Obama will screw the US Economy

OBAMAnomics — CHANGE: $0.04

European Levels of Taxation: Barack Obama’s Tax Plan

by Rea S. Hederman, Jr. and Patrick Tyrrell

MONSIEUR OBAMA’S TAX RATES

Obama’s Global Tax Bill Coming Soon

Lee Cary

Obama’s Global Tax

By Lee Cary

Obama Tax Policies Penalize, McCain’s Reward

by Terry Easton

The Supply-Side Solution If tax-cut strategies don’t work, why are they so popular abroad?

by STEPHEN MOORE

A Plan For Privatizing Social Security

by Peter J. Ferrara

Your Tax Bill: How McCain, Obama Differ

Capital-Gains Rates Are Likely To Rise, No Matter Who Wins; Far Apart on Estate Taxes

Barack Obama on Minimum Wage

Milton Friedman on Minimum Wage

Milton Friedman

BARACK OBAMA Pastor ANTI-AMERICAN Rev Jeremiah Wright Racism

LOL: Red State Update: Obama’s Preacher

The revelation of Rev. Wright

Glenn Beck: Obama – Black Liberation Theology 1

Glenn Beck: Obama – Black Liberation Theology 2

John McCain vs. Barack Obama on Gas Taxes

Karl Rove: “Yes I Do Think Barack Obama is Arrogant”

Bush wants offshore oil and gas drilling

Drill For Oil You Hypocritical Democrats. DRILL DRILL!!!

The Energy Crisis Is Real – 1979 Jimmy Carter

New Data: Top 1% Pay Greater Dollar Amount in Income Taxes to Federal Government than Bottom 90%

Who Pays Income Taxes? See Who Pays What

June 25, 2008

Hard Numbers on Obama’s Redistribution Plan

by Scott A. Hodge

Fiscal Fact No. 132

NYU scholar named as Obama’s director of economic policy

PRESS CONFERENCE: Obama’s economic plan

The Supply-Side Solution
If tax-cut strategies don’t work, why are they so popular abroad?

Your Tax Bill:
How McCain,
Obama Differ

Capital-Gains Rates Are Likely
To Rise, No Matter Who Wins;
Far Apart on Estate Taxes

The McCain Economic “Team”
Intellectual diversity, for better and for worse.
by Andrew Ferguson