Posted by
J.M. Powers on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 8:00:00 AM
President Obama held a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit”
yesterday in the White House, where apparently Senators from both sides of the
isle and others, gathered to solve the problem of fiscal irresponsibility.
They all gathered, the President told them what the goals
were, and then they split into smaller groups and brainstormed. They were to report back to him by the end of
the day with their proposed solutions.
The President warned them, "If we confront this crisis without also confronting the
deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the
road."
He has promised
to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his term. He said he would institute a pay-as-you-go
policy which would require money to be cut from the budget, before it could be
spent elsewhere.
Aside from
President Doom and Gloom’s propensity to overuse words like “crisis” and “catastrophe”,
does he remember what he signed last week?
“Pay-as-you-go”? Is he
serious? This is an interesting policy
to put into place a week after signing the largest Pork-Barrel spending bill
this nation has ever seen. He just massively
increased spending without cutting a thing, and now he is going to lecture
about responsible spending.
Perhaps he
needs to be reminded of the definition of “Hypocrisy”.
So how does he
plan to cut the deficit in half? By
cutting spending on the war in Iraq, streamlining government, and ready for
this, raising taxes on the wealthiest. The
administration says that there is a $1.5 trillion deficit. To cut that in half would mean to cut
spending by $750 billion, per year.
The most
liberal sources estimate Iraq war spending at $150 billion per year. So if he pulled everyone out of Iraq and
ceased all spending, which he is not planning on doing, that leaves $600
billion. No one in their right mind
believes that he will streamline anything, but let’s be extraordinarily
generous and say he can save $100 billion by streamlining. That leaves $500 billion in tax hikes on the
wealthy…minimum.
So who does he
consider wealthy? During the campaign,
he was asked who he considers rich? He
quickly responded, “I
would argue that if you are making more than $250,000, then you are in the top
3, 4 percent of this country…”
Who makes $250,000 a year? Most small businesses, doctors, lawyers,
corporate executives and professional families (husbands and wives who both
have professional careers and file jointly), oh yeah, most every television
reporter and weatherman.
What if you don’t make that
much? Not to worry, you’ll be doing your
part. If you use any of the services
provided by the people listed above, they are going to pass that cost on to
you, the consumer. But television is
free right? Wrong. Their salaries are paid by sponsors and
sponsors sell you goods and services, so those costs will be passed on down the
line and guess where the buck stops? It
stops with you.
In 2004, there were an
estimated 131,113,969 tax returns filed (of
course this number does not include House or Senate Democrats), but 42,545,501
of those owed zero tax liability and got everything back. So that leaves approximately 88,568,468
actual taxpayers. But that was 2004, so,
again, let’s be super generous and say today there are 100 million
taxpayers. That’s $5000 each.
That may not seem like much, but to break
that down further, if you work a 40 hour week, that’s a $2.40/hr tax
increase. And that’s if it’s divided
equally.
Even if you divide that by the total number
of tax returns, and we generously bump that number to 150 million, that’s still
$3,333, or $1.60/hr.
Now these numbers are not
terribly accurate, but only meant to give you an idea of the magnitude of the
tax hikes that Obama is planning. The
total amount will be significantly higher than $500 billion, and it will be
divided up among a fairly small percentage of Americans. But those Americans own or run businesses and
provide goods and services to us. These
people are not going to just suck it up and pay their “fair share”, they will
pass that cost onto us.
Now he’s planning on
spending another 400+ billion, all earmarks.
So what’s my point? The point is,
this promise of responsible spending is exactly opposite of what he has done
and intends to do. Almost everything he
has told us, has been a lie. Am I
calling President Obama a liar? Yes, there
is no other word for it and it’s wrong to call it anything other than what it
is.
Remember this the next time
you go to vote.