Debunking President Obama's Great TAX LIE

What's the best way to make our economy stronger? Do you think "The Buffet Rule" is the answer? If you do, then Please, allow me to expose the "Great Lie / Class Warfare" that President Obama is using to divide this nation with.

Warren Buffett’s revelation that his secretary paid a higher percentage of her income taxes than he did, the Buffett rule is a change in the tax code designed to ensure that the wealthiest Americans do not pay a lower share of their income in taxes than members of the middle class. According to a report released by the White House on Tuesday, 22,000 American households made more than $1 million in 2009 but paid a tax rate of less than 15 percent. Please take a look at the graph below to get a better understanding of the "Capital Gaines Tax LAW".

Capital Gains Taxation in the United States from 2003 forward
2003–2012					2013–
	2003–2007		2008–2012		2013–
Ordinary Income Tax Rate	Short-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	Long-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	Short-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	Long-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	Ordinary Income Tax Rate	Short-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	Long-term Capital Gains Tax Rate	5-year Capital Gains Tax Rate
10%	10%	5%	10%	0%	15%	15%	10%	8%
15%	15%	5%	15%	0%
25%	25%	15%	25%	15%	28%	28%	20%	18%
28%	28%	15%	28%	15%	31%	31%	20%	18%
33%	33%	15%	33%	15%	36%	36%	20%	18%
35%	35%	15%	35%	15%	39.6%	39.6%	20%	18%

A capital gain is a profit that results from investments into a capital asset, such as stocks, bonds or real estate, which exceeds the purchase price. It is the difference between a higher selling price and a lower purchase price, resulting in a financial gain for the investor. Conversely, a capital loss arises if the proceeds from the sale of a capital asset are less than the purchase price.

Capital gains may refer to "investment income" that arises in relation to real assets, such as property; financial assets, such as shares/stocks or bonds; and intangible assets such as goodwill.

Many countries impose a tax on capital gains of individuals or corporations, although relief may be available to exempt capital gains: in relation to holdings in certain assets such as significant common stock holdings, to provide incentives for entrepreneurship, or to compensate for the effects of inflation.

A new "fairness" agenda that starts with the "Buffett Rule," a proposal to raise tax rates on millionaires to the same levels as middle-class earners typically pay. This would be followed by other measures meant to assure that "everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share," as Obama has said repeatedly.

But it also seems like the wrong place to start trying to revive America's fortunes, for this reason. The problem is that the Buffett Rule and Obama's whole fairness doctrine perpetuates the fiction that Washington can solve the overarching problem of fading prosperity. This might have been plausible 50 years ago, when the U.S. economy was far more self-contained and growing at a heady pace that made lavish government spending possible.

These days, however, the federal government is heading toward insolvency, and many aspects of the global economy are beyond Washington's control. The enormity of the national debt, which now tops $15 trillion, makes it a mathematical certainty that Washington is going to do less for citizens and ask them to contribute more. If politicians were honest, they'd prepare voters for the sacrifices that lie ahead, instead of promising 99 percent of them that everything will be fine as long as the other 1 percent pays more.

The Buffett Rule would impose a minimum effective tax rate of 30 percent on people who earn more than $1 million per year, raising the average tax rate for that group by a few percentage points. But even the White House acknowledges the amount of extra revenue raised would be trivial compared to the size of the debt. Obama suggests that higher taxes on the wealthy will reduce the need to raise taxes on the middle class. But nearly every budget expert will tell you that the only way to get the debt under control is to raise taxes on virtually everybody, or eviscerate government services.

 Rick Santelli 

The Buffett rule would do nothing to help the economy: It wouldn't help create jobs or do much to cut the budget deficit, running at more than $1 trillion this year and around $6 trillion over 10 years because it would only apply to a limited number of taxpayers. Rick Santelli explains why President Obama’s so-called “Buffett rule” would do little to remedy federal deficit woes.

Santelli projected new government revenue that would be earned by imposing the rule, taking the number of millionaires and billionaires and applying the tax hike to their earnings. 

At the end of the scenario, even with the rosiest projection of the number of millionaires and billionaires used, the new revenue falls significantly short of correcting the deficits the government is accumulating, according to Santelli. 

“If you look at total public debt held, it has increased $792 billion in this time to a grand total of $15.6 trillion,” Santelli said. “You see what the problem is? We can bash people. We can drag people that used to be called successful and drag them down. But is it going to cure a problem? No. We cannot collect enough taxes to catch up with spending. Do I know a solution? Not really. Does your politicians know a solution? Does our commander-in-chief offer a solution? Absolutely not.

 Santelli added that he wasn’t clear on how making people pay their so-called “fair share” would result in better opportunities for his children. “I have solutions but you know what? It will take a long time to go there,” he said. “People don’t really want to hear solutions. 

They want to change the dialogue, bait and switch so we get more worried about what people pay, what’s fair. How are my kids’ opportunities affected by how many millionaires there are? I don’t see that opportunities are affected. You wanna  know what I see that will affect their opportunity? $15.6 Trillion.” 

In reality, the politics of the Buffett Rule, it has absolutely no chance of passing when the Democratic-controlled Senate takes it up next week — because Republicans have enough votes to block it from advancing and would almost certainly shoot it down in the House.

Occupy Wall Street Will have A Negative Effect For Democrats In The 2012 Election

Such euphoria is best understood as a measure of how demoralized liberals have been by the popular reaction to the nation's worst economic crisis since the Depression. They figured Americans would blame Wall Street's near meltdown on greedy speculators and turn to government to keep rogue capitalists in check. The last thing they expected was a genuine grass roots uprising on the right, which leveled its pitchforks at "big government" more than malefactors of great wealth.

Liberals also were nonplussed by how quickly the diffuse and leaderless Tea Parties spread across the landscape, took over the Republican Party during the 2010 elections, and used their victories to wrest the political initiative from President Obama. Now they're hoping that the OWS protests will congeal into a progressive counterweight to the Tea Party that can stop the nation's rightward lurch.

Occupy Miami Protesters

Not likely. The protests don't seem to be swelling into a mass movement. And they're being hijacked by the usual congeries of lefty fringe groups, which are diluting the Occupiers' most compelling message--that America is increasingly a land of unequal opportunity where hard work and self-reliance are no longer rewarded. Most important, though, the counterweight theory itself is flawed.

Bedding A Radical



In this political version of the laws of thermodynamics, right-wing extremism provokes an equal and opposite reaction on the left. The center is tugged back to the left, equilibrium is restored, and liberals can compete for votes in the persuadable middle on an equal footing with conservatives. Well, not quite equal: Conservatives still outnumber liberals, and moderates still outnumber conservatives. Essentially, this means liberals need to win big among moderates to win elections. Getting in bed with radicals sporting slogans like "Eat the Rich" probably won't help them woo moderates.

Many liberals believe the embarrassing disparity in voting strength stems from a passion gap. The argument goes like this: Conservatives appeal to voters on a gut level; liberals invoke fictional analysis and irrational arguments. It's no contest: Demagoguery trumps sweet reasoning every time because, let's face it, lots of voters are none too bright. This is why the supremely rational Barack Obama is sinking like a stone. Liberals need more heat, not light, and OWS protesters are not fucused. After all, hasn't the Tea Party shown us how to win? Its cadres have purged GOP moderates, demanded absolute fealty to litmus tests on taxes and other issues, and forced Obama to swallow big spending cuts to avoid a government shut-down. Can't the left get similarly tough with wishy-washy Democrats?







It's likely, however, that the Tea Party's success owes more to economic distress than to ideological stridency. When Americans are hurting, the party in charge invariably takes a hit. Before accepting the notion that liberals need a Tea Party of their own, it's worth noting that the movement's influence may be waning. It's telling that Mitt Romney--who arouses zero enthusiasm among the Tea Party faithful--nonetheless seems to be chugging steadily toward the GOP nomination. If he wins, does the Tea Party lose?

Let's put aside partisan calculations and ask a more basic question: How will more ideological enmity and polarization help solve the nation's problems? Further hollowing out America's political center isn't the way to overcome the right or restore our political system's capacity to solve problems. Instead, conservatives need to seize the center, and shove the wingnuts back to the margins where they belong.

I Dygress




After all, the broad American center is angry too, and for the same basic reasons as the protestors in Zuccotti Park. Cut through all the anti-capitalist claptrap and what you hear is the plaintive cry of a middle class in distress. Who isn't angry that Washington bailed out the big banks--which almost immediately reaped fat profits and went back to handing out obscene bonuses--but couldn't offer effective help to the millions of middle class Americans who lost their jobs, their houses, and their savings? In fact, Occupiers and Tea Partiers are united in their disdain for Wall Street.

Michael Mandel



The nation's economic crisis--which is both structural and cyclical--has hit young Americans especially hard. As Progressive Policy Institute economist Michael Mandel has noted, college costs keep rising, but median wages for college graduates fell by 19 percent over the past decade. It costs more to get a degree that earns you less--if you can find a job. When OWS protesters complain that they've worked hard to get a good education, only to face bleak job prospects, they sound more like Bill Clinton than Noam Chomsky.

Utopian Remedy



The Eurozone debt crisis also clouds their future, threatening a relapse into recession. And it's dawning on young Americans that they're getting stuck with the bill for our own government's failure to control its borrowing and spending. Thanks to that bipartisan dereliction of duty, young people face a Hobson's Choice between austerity now, or a rising the tax burden in coming decades to pay for the baby boomers' escalating retirement costs.

The challenge for liberals is to underscore the common economic dilemmas facing these young OWS protesters and middle class Americans in general. This will require distinguishing between protesters' valid grievances and their utopian remedies; between calls for making competitive markets work for everyone, and demands that they be regulated out of existence; and between evidence-based indictments of growing inequality in the United States, and conspiracy theories that ascribe all our ills to the "top one percent."

A final point: Movements for radical change are sometimes necessary to force sensitive subjects onto the nation's political agenda. But not all radicals are simply liberals in a hurry. Those that advance their demands in the name of the fuller realization of America's creedal values have a shot at eventually winning wider public support. Examples include the anti-slavery, progressive (new deal), and civil rights movements. But radicals who demand revolution rather than reformation, and prescribe remedies contrary to those creedal values--see the Communists, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers--provoke a powerful backlash.

As a baby boomer of a certain age, I'm not immune to the resin-scented whiffs of 1960s nostalgia emanating from the OWS protests. But I also recall how the upheavals of my youth helped to unravel the New Deal coalition, drive working class Democrats out of the party, and dethrone a humane and expansive liberalism as the nation's dominant political outlook. Today's liberals need to keep their eyes on the prize. Instead of wishing for a left-wing version of the Tea Party, they should concentrate on proving to America's angry middle that government can once again be a force for equal opportunity and upward mobility.