Thread: Senate permits gov't to borrow an additional $1.9 TRILLION

Senate permits gov't to borrow an additional $1.9TRILLION
By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 28, 7:13 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Thursday to allow the government to go a whopping $1.9 trillion deeper in debt, offering a vivid election-year reminder that the government has to borrow 40 cents of every dollar it spends.

The measure would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion — more than $45,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

And the debt is increasingly held by foreign nations such as China.

The budget for the current year is about $3.5 trillion and the deficit will probably match last year's $1.4 trillion. The government would have to borrow to cover that $1.4 trillion.

The measure passed 60-39 under ground rules insisted upon by Republicans that required 60 votes to pass it. Democrats and allied independents control 60 seats — for now — and were only able to win the vote because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated.

While Thursday's vote went smoothly, it came after weeks of difficult negotiations between the White House and both House and Senate Democrats.

Moderate House "Blue Dog" Democrats came away with a tough new "pay-as-you-go" budget law to make it harder to run up the deficit with new tax cuts or federal benefit programs. Senate Democrats won a promise from President Barack Obama to name a bipartisan task force to come up with a plan for dealing with the spiraling debt — but one whose recommendations are unlikely to ever see an up-or-down vote.

Meanwhile, Obama won symbolic support for his proposal for a partial domestic spending freeze.

A 56-strong majority of senators supported a plan, by Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., that was strikingly similar to Obama's freeze on domestic programs annually funded by Congress. It failed because 60 votes were required, but the tally serves as a positive sign that even though there's significant opposition from Democratic liberals, Obama's domestic freeze is likely to be adopted when Congress debates its budget.

The debt limit increase comes as a relief to Democrats worried about having to cast multiple, bite-sized increases in the debt in the run-up to the critical midterm elections this fall. Instead, the new limit would allow majority Democrats to avoid another vote until after the midterm elections this fall.

The House is slated to vote on the debt legislation next week to send it to Obama to be signed into law. The new pay-as-you-go rules, approved by the Thursday on a 60-40 vote, should help House leaders round up the votes, despite the political anxiety caused by Brown's stunning win in heavily-Democratic Massachusetts last week.

The new budget rules are designed to curb the spiraling deficit by requiring spending increases or tax cuts to be "paid for" with cuts to other programs or tax increases. If the rules are broken, the White House budget office would force automatic cuts to programs like Medicare, farm subsidies and veterans' pensions.

The idea is that the threat of cuts to such popular programs would be enough to block Congress' free-spending ways, but skeptics say lawmakers can find ways around them fairly easily. Weaker pay-as-you-go rules are in place already, but have been routinely waived.

The new rules would have the force of law and would make it harder to extend permanently some tax cuts — especially on large estates and middle-class tax filers threatened by the alternative minimum tax — that expire at the end of this year.

Lawmakers would be able to extend President Bush's middle-class tax cuts past their expiration a year from now even though they would add another $1.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade. But the top rate for individuals making more than $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000 would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

Extended unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless coming to a vote next month may also be exempt at a cost of tens of billions dollars more.

Republicans generally opposed the rules as a recipe for tax increases. There had been a few GOP supporters in the past, but Republicans who had voted for the rules in earlier years switched their positions and opposed them.

They included John McCain of Arizona, facing a primary battle with former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who's winning support from conservative anti-tax "tea party" activists.

Obama's promise to name a bipartisan deficit task force promises to have less of an impact.

Unlike a proposal rejected this week that would legally bind Congress to vote on a commission's plans, there's no way to force the Senate to take a vote on the panel's recommendations. Those would likely blend tax increases with painful spending curbs to programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — which would probably die as a result of a filibuster.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/...5hdGVwZXJtaXQ-

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Obama's $3.8 trillion budget heading to Congress
By Andrew Taylor And Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press Writers
Sun Jan 31, 7:03 pm ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking almost $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, then start to recede in 2011 to just below $1.3 trillion.

Still, the administration's new budget to be released Monday says deficits over the next decade will average 4.5 percent of the size of the economy, a level that economists say is dangerously high if not addressed.

A congressional official provided the information, which comes from a White House summary document circulating freely on Capitol Hill and among Washington's lobbyists. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the spending proposal is not supposed to be made public until tomorrow.

Details of the administration's budget headed for Congress include an additional $100 billion to attack painfully high unemployment. The proposed $3.8 trillion budget would provide billions more to pull the country out of the Great Recession while increasing taxes on the wealthy and imposing a spending freeze on many government programs.

Administration projections show the deficit never dropping below $700 billion, even under assumptions that war costs will drop precipitously to just $50 billion in some years instead of more than three times that this year and next.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration believed "somewhere in the $100 billion range" would be the appropriate amount for a new jobs measure made up of a business tax credit to encourage hiring, increased infrastructure spending and money from the government's bailout fund to get banks to increase loans to struggling small businesses.

That price tag would be below a $174 billion bill passed by the House in December but far higher than a measure that could come to the Senate floor this week.

Gibbs said it was important for Democrats and Republicans to put aside their differences to pass a bill that addresses jobs, the country's No. 1 concern. "I think that would be a powerful signal to send to the American people," Gibbs said in an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."

Job creation was a key theme of the budget President Barack Obama was sending Congress on Monday, a document designed, as was the president's State of the Union address, to reframe his young presidency after a protracted battle over health care damaged his standing in public opinion polls and contributed to a series of Democratic election defeats.

Obama's $3.8 trillion spending plan for the 2011 budget year that begins Oct. 1 attempts to navigate between the opposing goals of pulling the country out of a deep recession and dealing with a budget deficit that soared to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion last year.

The startling budget numbers — deficits would total $8.5 trillion over the decade — are raising worries among voters and the foreign investors who buy much of the country's debt.

On the anti-recession front, congressional sources said Obama's new budget will propose extending the popular Making Work Pay middle-class tax breaks of $400 per individual and $800 per couple through 2011. They were due to expire after this year.

The budget will also propose $250 payments to Social Security recipients to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation. Obama will also seek a $25 billion increase in payments to help recession-battered states.

Obama's new budget will set off months of debate in the Democratically controlled Congress, especially in an election year in which Republicans are hoping to use attacks against government overspending to gain seats. Obama has argued that he inherited a deficit of more than $1 trillion and was forced to increase spending to stabilize the financial system and combat the worst recession since the 1930s.

Obama's new budget was expected to repeat many of the themes of his first budget. But in a bow to worries over the soaring deficits, the administration is proposing a three-year freeze on spending for a wide swath of domestic government agencies. Military, veterans, homeland security and big benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare would not feel the pinch.

The freeze would affect $447 billion in spending and is designed to save $250 billion over a decade. However, it would not fall equally on all domestic agencies. Some would see budget cuts to free up spending for programs the administration wants to expand such as education and civilian research efforts.

NASA's mission to return astronauts to the moon would be grounded with the space agency instead getting an additional $5.9 billion over five years to encourage private companies to build, launch and operate their own spacecraft for the benefit of NASA and others. NASA would pay the private companies to carry U.S. astronauts.

Obama's budget repeats his recommendations for an overhaul of the nation's health care system, the fight that dominated his first year in office. It proposes to get billions of dollars in savings from the Medicare program and again seeks increased taxes on the wealthy by limiting the benefits they receive from various tax deductions. Both ideas have met strong resistance in Congress.

Gibbs insisted Sunday that the president's push for health care was "still inside the 5-yard line," but Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, also appearing on CNN, said the public was overwhelmingly against the bill and the administration should "put it on the shelf, go back and start over."

In addition to the freeze on discretionary nonsecurity spending, Obama is proposing to boost revenues by allowing the Bush administration tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire at the end of this year for families making more than $250,000 annually. Tax relief for those less well-off would be extended.

The new Obama budget will also include a proposal to levy a fee on the country's biggest banks to raise an estimated $90 billion to recover losses from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund. Those losses are expected to come not come from the bank bailouts but from the support extended to General Motors and Chrysler and insurance giant American International Group as well as help provided to homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosures.

Also on the deficit front, the president has endorsed a pay-as-you-go proposal that passed the Senate last week. It would require any new tax cuts or entitlement spending increases to be paid for, and he has promised to create a commission to recommend by year's end ways to trim the deficits. However, a legislatively mandated panel was rejected in a Senate vote last week. Republicans opposed establishing the panel because it might recommend tax increases to close the deficit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/...FtYXMzOHRyaWw-

Obama budget would impose host of tax increases
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer
50 mins ago

WASHINGTON – While President Barack Obama is proposing to cut some taxes for companies that hire workers, his budget would raise a host of other taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.

Obama's budget would extend his signature Making Work Pay tax credit — $400 for individuals, $800 for a couple filing jointly — through 2011. The administration released the budget Monday.

But it would also impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing Bush-era tax cuts for them. Obama would extend tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush for families and individuals making less.

Obama revived numerous proposals for business tax increases that didn't fare well in Congress last year, including a scaled-down plan to increase taxes on U.S. companies with major overseas operations, and plans to increase taxes on oil and gas companies.

His budget features $38 billion in tax cuts that he wants Congress to include in a new jobs bill. It would give companies a $5,000 tax credit for each new worker they hire in 2010. Businesses that increase wages or hours for their current workers in 2010 would be reimbursed for the extra Social Security payroll taxes they would pay.

The tax increases on wealthy families would fulfill a campaign pledge by Obama, who has blamed Bush's tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug program for swelling the government's debt by $7.5 trillion.

The Making Work Pay tax credit provides families with up to $800 a year and individuals up to $400 a year through small increases in their weekly pay. Extending the tax credit through 2011 would save them $31 billion.

Some of Obama's other tax proposals would:

_Raise the top two income tax rates for individuals, from 33 percent and 35 percent, to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively. Unless Congress intervenes, those rates will rise next Jan. 1 when Bush's tax cuts expire. That government would reap $365 billion over the next decade.

_Limit the itemized tax deductions high earners can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes, raising about $210 billion for the next decade.

_Increase the top capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The proposal would raise about $105 billion.

_Make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent, saving businesses about $83 billion over the next decade.

_Extend a provision allowing businesses buying equipment such as computers to speed up depreciation through 2010, saving them $20 billion over the next decade.

_Impose a "financial crisis responsibility fee" on large financial institutions, raising $90 billion over the next decade.

_Repeal a widely ignored law that taxes the personal use of company-issued cell phones like other fringe benefits, saving taxpayers $2.8 billion over 10 years.

_Restrict the ability of international companies to defer taxes on profits made overseas, raising about $26 billion over the next decade.

_Impose a total of about $39 billion in tax increases on oil, gas and coal companies over the next decade.

_Change the way profits made by investment fund managers are taxed, raising an additional $24 billion over the next decade.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100201/...s_budget_taxes

Peter Orszag blogs this morning about the newly unveiled, $3.8 trillion White House budget: “The Budget lays out a plan to put the country back on a sustainable fiscal path.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/...ng-2011-budget

Via the House Republicans, this is what the Obama administration’s idea of a “sustainable fiscal path” looks like: http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/
http://www.house.gov/budget_republic...tsgraphs.shtml



The WSJ breaks the debt deluge down further: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...289762694.html

President Barack Obama will propose on Monday a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011 that projects the deficit will shoot up to a record $1.6 trillion this year, but would push the red ink down to about $700 billion, or 4% of the gross domestic product, by 2013, according to congressional aides.

The deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, would eclipse last year’s $1.4 trillion deficit, in part due to new spending on a proposed jobs package. The president also wants $25 billion for cash-strapped state governments, mainly to offset their funding of the Medicaid health program for the poor.

The president’s $3.8 trillion budget will move deficit levels to an all-time high. The News Hub discusses the budget’s chance for passing Congress.

To get the deficit down by the middle of the decade, Mr. Obama will be relying on some cuts that have previously been proposed without success, on cooperation from a wary Congress and on a yet-to-be set up debt commission to suggest politically difficult choices.

At the same time, Mr. Obama is under pressure to address the country’s continued high unemployment rate. And he will propose increases in spending for priorities such as education and domestic scientific research. All of this raises questions about how much progress the president is likely to make in trying to fulfill his pledge to halve by 2013 the $1.3 billion deficit he inherited.

Via C-SPAN, here is video of the behemoth budget being trucked in to Capitol Hill:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6RO4OqWkb8&

Obama budget: Record spending, record deficit
By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 42 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Spelling out painful priorities, President Barack Obama urged Congress on Monday to quickly approve a huge new shot of spending for recession relief and job creation, part of a record $3.8 trillion budget that would boost the deficit beyond any in the nation's history while only slowly beginning to put Americans back to work.

If Congress goes along with Obama's election-year plan, the nation would still end the year with unemployment pushing double digits at 9.8 percent and this year's pool of government red ink deepening to $1.56 trillion under the administration's accounting.

The spending blueprint for next year calls for tax cuts for workers and business and more aid for cash-starved state governments as well as the unemployed. The jobs initiative largely mirrors last year's stimulus bill, but is about one-third its size. The president is asking for nearly $300 billion for recession relief and job stimulus.

The budget paints a remarkably dire picture of a federal government that will have to borrow one-third of what it spends next year as it runs a deficit that still would total some $1.3 trillion.

At the same time, Obama is acutely aware that persistent joblessness is the issue most likely to spell political trouble for Democrats in this year's midterm elections — and perhaps for his own re-election chances in 2012.

The president's budget plan sees the deficit coming down by nearly $300 billion next year, and he's offering more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction proposals over the coming decade.

While proposing increases for immediate needs, he urged lawmakers to follow his lead and make cuts, even painful ones in programs dear to them. "I'm asking Republicans and Democrats alike to take a fresh look at programs they've supported in the past to see what's working and what's not, and trim back accordingly," he said.

Obama's deficit salve mixed nearly $1 trillion in tax increases on higher-income people with $250 billion in savings over a decade from a partial freeze on domestic programs. But popular benefit programs like Medicare would remain untouched.

Republicans weren't impressed.

"They're not willing to do big ideas. They're doing ideas that create perception but don't do anything big," said New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, senior Republican on the Budget Committee. "The spending freeze for example. You're talking what, $10 billion on a $1.6 trillion deficit?"

Democrats, facing the prospect of major losses in November, are likely to join Republicans in balking at many of Obama's proposals. Moderate Democrats already are wary of another debt-financed economic stimulus program and may also choke on many of the recommended tax increases and spending cuts.

Obama's proposal to cut payments to wealthier farmers, for example is probably dead on arrival and his renewed push to end purchases of new C-17 cargo planes for the military is sure to incite a battle with lawmakers from California, where the planes are assembled.

Proposing a partial spending freeze, tax increases for wealthier people and a new fee on banks, the president's proposal still amounts to just tinkering at the edges of the larger budget problem.

Obama's budget presents a delicate balance between trying to cement the fragile recovery and pivoting to curb deficits that are on the rise not only in dollar figures but also as a political issue that is causing Democrats to lose popularity with independent voters.

So while pledging to tackle deficits, he also said that continuing them in the short term is necessary to help lower unemployment. We will "do what it takes to create jobs," he said. "It's essential."

His budget proposed a job creation tax credit of up to $5,000 for each new worker that businesses hire, another round of one-time $250 checks for senior citizen on Social Security and extending unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless through the end of the year. Obama also wants to extend a $400 "Making Work Pay" tax credit for most workers through 2011.

While White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spoke Sunday of a $100 billion jobs initiative, these "temporary recovery measures" in fact total $282 billion through the autumn of 2012, according to budget documents.

At the same time, Obama wants to hand off to a commission decisions on the tough steps needed to reduce deficits and slow the growth in the federal debt to levels economists deem prudent. The panel's recommendations wouldn't be due until after the midterm election.

Obama's proposal lays out a path to reduce annual deficits to about $700 billion in four years, but ideas for tax increases or cuts in popular benefit programs like Medicare or Social Security to reduce them an additional $200 million would have to come from the commission.

"We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences, as if waste doesn't matter, as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money, as if we can ignore this challenge for another generation," Obama said.

Balancing the budget or producing surpluses of the kind from 1998 through 2001 is now seen as all but impossible. Instead, many policymakers are for a secondary goal of stabilizing the national debt in relation to the size of the economy. That generally requires keeping the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product. Just three years ago, the deficit stood at 1.2 percent of GDP. This year it's 10.6 percent.

Obama dropped his plan into a poisonous election-year atmosphere. Republicans in Congress immediately labeled it as a toxic mix of higher taxes, big spending and debt, saying it would still produce deficits totaling $8.5 trillion over the coming decade.

Obama inherited a difficult deficit situation when taking office amid a severe recession and financial crisis that made tax revenues plummet and caused unemployment benefits and food stamp costs to spike.

"When I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion," Obama said, citing the estimates that greeted him a year ago.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, top Republican on the Budget Committee, acknowledged that Obama inherited a mess but said he's gone overboard with spending on pet Democratic programs.

"You can't blame everything on the past," Ryan said.

Obama now mostly owns the deficit as a political issue after passing last year's $862 billion economic stimulus bill and other major spending legislation that's earned mixed reviews with the public.

Obama would extend most of President George W. Bush's tax cuts, as they apply to middle-income earners. Married couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,00 would see their marginal tax rates rise to as much as 39.6 percent and also lose some of the benefits they take on itemized deductions like charitable gifts and mortgage interest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100202/...i_ge/us_budget

Monday, February 1, 2010
$1 Trillion Obama Will Never See
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.co...never-see.html

Raising tax rates on high income earners is the key to the Obama way, both during the campaign and in his latest budget and tax proposals. Taxing the wealthy, or rather, taxing those making over $250k a year, is the gospel according to Obama.

Obama is raising taxes on people making over $250k by over $1 trillion (yes, with a "t") over ten years. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9718923

Those with the power to tax never learn from history. I've written about the "revolt of the kulaks" phenomenon http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.co...has-begun.html in which the producers of society would rather not produce than be subjected to confiscatory taxation. A related phenomenon is tax avoidance, in which people structure their lives so as so avoid creating taxable income (for example, purchasing municipal bonds rather than corporate bonds).

Whether it is a revolt of the kulaks, or mere tax avoidance, there is economic distortion from high rates of taxation.

The British are seeing this effect in their current budget, as wealthy Brits engage in tax avoidance (structuring their financial lives so as to legally avoid taxes) in anticipation of a rise from a 40% to a 50% rate: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7011728.ece

High earners will cost the public purse hundreds of millions of pounds through tax dodges as they avoid the new 50p rate of income tax, a minister indicated yesterday.

Lord Myners, the City Minister, said that the Treasury had “significantly reduced” its estimate of the revenue to be earned from the historic change.

He said that he believed that the new top rate, due to come into force this April, would still generate extra income from the wealthiest 2 per cent of the national workforce. But he cast doubt on whether the Treasury would pocket the £1.13 billion it has earmarked for 2010, and the £2.5 billion it hopes to raise in 2011. “We still believe it will be beneficial,” he said.

Lord Myners told peers that “behavioural consequences of the new higher rate of taxation” — shorthand for tax avoidance — had forced the Treasury to lower its expectations.

Guaranteed future headline: "Obama administration surprised at lower than expected revenues from taxes on the wealthy."

They never learn, do they?

----

comments:

Originally Posted by Ric Locke

It's not just avoidance -- the avoidance has follow-on effects, as does the tax itself.

Rich people use their money to make more, by investing in profit-making enterprises which employ people. The schemes for avoidance all have in common a lesser return paid for by either promotion of some do-good intention, or being purely financial manipulation, or both. Less investment in profit-making enterprises yields less business expansion, lower employment, and less tax collected from other parts of the economy.

Also, rich people spend their money, which results in income and consequent tax paid for waiters and concierges and hotel maids and people who bolt fenders onto Rolls-Royces and Jaguars.

The combination of the two, plus emigration to tax havens, lowers the general economic level and consequently lowers tax revenues.

Sheesh. They've already done that once, and should be able to cite chapter and verse from the pre-Thatcher era. The second time as farce...

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama purported to reach across the aisle by endorsing a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” …before pushing cap and trade.

The nearly $4 trillion budget he released today exposes his nuclear lie.

It zeroes out funds for the besieged Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility in Nevada — one of the few, prominent Obama campaign pledges that he looks like he’s actually fulfilling: http://content.usatoday.com/communit...gers-outrage/1

President Barack Obama will propose eliminating funding for the Yucca Mountain project in a new budget he will submit to Congress on Monday, according to Nevada lawmakers who were notified over the weekend.

The White House also said it will take steps “in the near future” to withdraw a pending license application to build the long-planned nuclear waste repository, which could be a decisive move in ending the government’s 23-year focus on developing the Nevada site for radioactive waste storage and disposal.

Coupled with the formation Friday of a blue ribbon commission to study nuclear waste management, officials said the budget will underscore Obama’s “commitment to pursuing a responsible, long-term strategy” for handling waste generated by nuclear utilities and government defense agencies.

The plan also would fulfill an Obama campaign promise to end the Yucca Mountain program, which has been unpopular with many Nevadans and the state’s top leaders.

“This is great news,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has consulted with Obama on an exit strategy for Yucca Mountain.

“President Obama is keeping his word to Nevada and I thank him for working with me as we try to find a safer solution for dealing with the nation’s nuclear waste,” Reid said in a statement.

“This budget is a bulldozer that will help Nevada flatten Yucca Mountain into a permanent pile of rubble,” said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu and eco-czar Carol Browner are also dancing on Yucca’s grave — and will oversee a toothless new panel to come up with something better. Paralysis by analysis. As Brian Sussman points out, we already had an alternative: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...clear_lie.html

Following the State of the Union, in a conference call with reporters on the same day the nuclear financing plan was unveiled, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the creation of a special panel to find a solution for storing nuclear waste.

Problem is, we had a solution — Yucca Mountain. But it’s on the president’s no-fund list.

The Obama Fail blog draws parallels to the Gitmo debacle: http://www.obamafailblog.net/2010/01...clear-lie.html

In his first week in office, President Obama signed an executive order promising to close Guantanamo Bay within one year. It hasn’t happened and there is no indication it will happen anytime soon. Here’s how it breaks down:

1. Make a bold announcement

2. Do nothing

3. Blame someone else when #1 fails to happen

This is exactly what is happening with nuclear energy. Americans are supposed to feel some sort of pride that “we can do better”…Furthermore, we will figure out exactly where to store spent nuclear material, even though there are no options presently on the table. But we are Americans so you just have to believe that it will be sorted out.

And when it is all finally sorted out, then President Obama can get around to building all those new power plants.

Ain’t.

Gonna.

Happen.

The budget includes loan guarantees of more than $54 billion for nuclear energy firms — but the feds haven’t approved a new application for a reactor in more than two decades.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbyi...es-for-revival


False hope, chump change. http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/01...s-nuclear-lie/

Advisory: Backdoor taxes to hit middle class
Mon Feb 1, 8:07 pm ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100202/..._backdoortaxes

Startingly, the Obama-friendly Reuters news outlet has a detailed report outlining how the Obama administration plans to stick it to the middle-class with so-called “backdoor taxes,” this after candidate Obama promised not to “pay for the recovery” on the backs of anyone outside of “the rich”:

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) –The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration’s Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 — though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a “patch” that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.

Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year’s levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy — the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/..._backdoortaxes

Let’s also not forget the administration’s fascination with VATs as a way to “raise revenue.” http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...-middle-class/



Not that this is exactly news or anything. The writing has been on the wall for months. As I’ve written before, you simply can’t have an as ambitiously liberal agenda as President Obama has without raising taxes on more than just “the rich.” In the eyes of a socialistic liberal, everyone must “pay their fair share” in order to pay for “what’s best for them” – even if they don’t know it yet.

But even though the tax hikes are not surprising, what makes my blood boil is how this administration has consistently refused to acknowledge that an expiration of tax cuts is indeed a tax hike. Their rationale is “well, the tax rate would go back to what it was before the tax cut, so that’s not really a hike” – as if that makes any bloody sense whatsoever. The administration has also pointed to the Bush deficits to suggest that tax cuts are bad for the economy, in spite of the fact that for roughly 6 years, in spite of the 9-11 attacks, the Bush administration enjoyed a fairly robust economy and, contra to the claims of this administration, tax revenue poured into the Treasury thanks in large part to Bush’s tax cuts. The problem with the Bush administration was that they didn’t have it in them to control spending.

Which is also a problem with this administration, on a much more deeper level – in addition to the fact that this administration, like most liberal administrations, never met a tax hike it didn’t like. Dangerous, considering that tax hikes on any “class group” in the middle of a troubled economy are bad news.

It reeks that in the middle of this nation’s jobless “recovery” that President Obama and his elite team of clueless wonders would continue to lie to the American people about where the money will come from to pay for his healthcare “reform” package, his cap and trade agenda, and a whole host of other big spending ticket items. Then again, their duplicity on the issue of taxes and spending, as well as on the issue of how many jobs they have “saved or created” is necessary in order to, well, continue to dupe Americans into believing that the “adults are in charge,” that this administration knows what it’s doing, when in fact they do not. And judging by the polls, more Americans are taking their blinders off and waking up from their post-Obama election slumber and figuring this out. So the lying and misrepresenting of the “facts” must continue.

And we must continue to stay vigilant and not let them get away with it.

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...ackdoor-taxes/




Related reading: steveegg – How much of the deficit is Obama’s fault?
http://norunnyeggs.com/2010/02/how-m...-obamas-fault/



[b][i]Comments]

Originally Posted by NC Cop

Apparently, Reuters got its orders and pulled the story. Imagine if Bush had done this.

I’m sure the B.O. administration will come out later this week with a completely sugar coated, rose colored glasses version of this very same policy and the media will run with it.

Originally Posted by Tex

Yippeeee! European style socialism is on its way to Main Street in America! I can’t wait to fork over the rest of my meager earnings to the government so they can give it to those who are less fortunate, or perhaps just lazier, than me.

And I will sleep more soundly at night knowing my sacrifice made someone’s life better.

And I can feel secure in knowing that, although the recipients of my redistributed wealth most likely vote straight Democratic tickets in elections, there’s absolutely no way that fact entered into the minds of our leaders in the decision to redistribute my earnings. It was done to help the people – because Obama cares about us.

I’m sure that little thing about Reuters is just a misunderstanding. After all, Obama IS the President of Transparency.

Originally Posted by pocoroba

raising taxes in the middle of a recession? great idea! nothing will make barry soetoro and his marxist minions happier – that’s hope and change…driving the us economy down into the dirt, and as a result, making us more and more malleable for the chinese to push around…wait and see.

Originally Posted by Lorica

Is he doing whatever it takes to sabatage his own presidency?? I can’t wait until November. When these guys lose their majorities in Congress I will be doing the happy dance bare naked in the street!!!

In the eyes of a socialistic liberal, everyone must “pay their fair share”

I find this particularly funny. Remember when Bush told the Hollyweird crowd that they are going to have to start paying taxes on their after party gift packs?? Some of which were worth more than 100K per package. Remember how these buffoons errupted upset that they would have to pay their fair share?? I say Cameron should be taxed 75% over his Avatar profits. Isn’t that fair?? It’s not like he really did anything for that 2billion dollars.

Please keep Illinois in your thoughts and prayers today. This state really needs to get rid of it’s Chicago politicians on either side, they are all bad.

Originally Posted by Mad Monica

God go with you, Illinois. As to the tax hikes, what a surprise… not. WE all saw this coming when this joker took over the White House, yet you STILL have libby nutballs blathering and bleating about how fair it is now they’ve got their Golden God in charge.

I can’t WAIT to hear the crying next year. This year has already been a hoot listening to them complain they’ve had to add that “tax rebate” to their income when the file this year. Snicker.

It’d be WAY more funny if it weren’t so bad for this country.

Originally Posted by Severian

Don’t be silly, it’s not a tax increase, they’re just letting a tax break expire! Haven’t you had this explained to you before? This is not a tax increase! Doublethink is alive and well and living in Washington DC.

Congressional estimates show grim deficit picture
Andrew Taylor, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 29 mins ago

WASHINGTON – A new congressional report released Friday says the United States' long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama's grim budget submission last month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama's budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That's $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.

The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration's. That's because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House.

The deficit picture has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started at the end of 2007, never dipping below 4 percent of the size of the economy over the next decade. Economists say that deficits of that size are unsustainable and could put upward pressure on interest rates, crowd out private investment in the economy and ultimately erode the nation's standard of living.

Still, the Feb. 1 White House budget plan was a largely stand-pat document that avoided difficult decisions on curbing the unsustainable growth of federal benefit programs like the Medicare health care program for the elderly and Medicaid, which provides health care to the poor and disabled.

Instead, Obama has created an 18-member fiscal reform commission that's charged with coming up with a plan to shrink the deficit to 3 percent of the economy within five years. But the Republicans to be named to the panel by congressional GOP leaders are unlikely to go along with any tax increases that might be proposed, which could ensure election-year gridlock.

"While the president is intent on ramming through Congress a new trillion-dollar health-care entitlement, he appears far less concerned with addressing the looming crisis of entitlement spending already on the books," said Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the Budget Committee. "Instead, he delegates this task to a 'Fiscal Commission' — which would not even report until after the next election."

The report says that extending tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 under GOP President George W. Bush and continuing to update the alternative minimum tax so that it won't hit millions of middle-class taxpayers would cost $3 trillion over 2011-2020. The tax cuts expire at the end of this year and Obama wants to extend them — except for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making $250,000.

For the ongoing budget year, CBO predicts a record $1.5 trillion deficit. That's actually a little better than predicted by the White House, but at 10 percent of gross domestic product, it's bigger than any deficit in history other than those experienced during World War II.

The new report predicts that debt held by investors, including China, would spike from $7.5 trillion at the end of last year to $20.3 trillion in 2020. That means interest payments would more than quadruple — from $209 billion this year, to $916 billion by the end of the decade.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100306/...udget_deficits