Democrat senator Barbara Boxer introduces carbon tax legislation

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

Today, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced a bill to levy a carbon tax. But, back on Nov. 15 of last year, Pres. Obama’s press secretary promised the administration would “never” do so.

According to Reuters, the new tax law “would set a $20 tax for each ton of carbon dioxide equivalent a polluter would emit beyond a set limit, which would rise 5.6 percent annually over a 10-year period.”

Last November, however, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that would never happen:

“We would never propose a carbon tax, and have no intention of proposing one.  The point the President was making is that our focus right now is the same as the American people’s focus, which is on the need to extend economic growth, expand job creation.  And task number one is dealing with these deadlines that pose real challenges to our economy, as he talked about yesterday.”

“A carbon tax will skyrocket [the] price of everything,” a statement from Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, warned today:

“It’s not just energy prices that would skyrocket from a carbon tax, the cost of nearly everything built in America would go up.”

The cost of everything is already going up because of inflation. This carbon tax is just going to make it worse, especially for the poor.

Filed under: News, Carbon Tax, Climate Change, Democrat Party, Energy, Environmentalism, Gas Prices, Global Warming, Inflation, Oil and Gas, Tax

Middle class tax rate set to rise to nearly 50% in January 2013

From the Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog.

Excerpt:

A middle-class taxpayer’s income is subject to a 25 percent federal income tax. Then there is the federal Social Security and Medicare payroll tax of 13.3 percent in 2012—5.65 percent of that is removed from the employee’s paycheck, and the remaining 7.65 percent is paid by the employer. (In reality, the employee pays the entire 13.3 percent, because the employer’s portion of the tax does not affect the cost of labor: The employer would pay the employee 7.65 percent more if there were no employer’s portion of the payroll tax.)

So the 25 percent federal income tax plus 13.3 Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes equals 38.3 percent going to federal taxes in 2012.

And then there are state taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the average state’s income tax rate for the middle-class taxpayer is 4.82 percent, which brings the total to 43.12 percent in federal and state taxes. And it’s going higher, thanks to the nearly $500 billion in tax increases for 2013 that some have called Taxmageddon. In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent. This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent.

When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

It is outrageous that any dollar earned by a middle-class taxpayer would go as much to taxes as to supporting the taxpayer’s family. The government didn’t earn the taxpayer’s paycheck and shouldn’t be entitled to it.

People like me really do think about things like this – about getting up and going to work every day to earn half of what I am worth. Of giving up half my salary so that the Georgetown University student can have free contraception paid for by me. I am one of those people who pays about 45% of my income (federal, state and local) in taxes. If I had more of my own money, I could be following my own dreams – maybe to do a Ph.D and teach, or start a business, or become a minister. But those things can’t happen, because people keep voting for more and more benefits for themselves on my back – so that they don’t have to be burdened to make the decisions that it takes to take care of themselves and their families.

That’s what being a Democrat means – it means persisting in perpetual adolescence at the expense of people like me. It means taking away my dreams so that they can have my standard of living without having to work or play by the rules. Being a Democrat means piling up trillions of dollars of debt onto people who haven’t even been born – so that feminists can have free contraceptives. That’s what a Democrat is.

Filed under: News, January 2013, Tax, Tax Rates, Taxes

Are people who don’t pay any federal taxes “paying their fair share”?

The top 20% paid 94.1% of all income taxes in 2009

From Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

The proportion of those paying no income taxes continues to hit higher highs — a trend that will ultimately make lowering taxes and reducing government impossible.

For decades, “fairness” has been liberal Democrats’ outcry against demands for lower taxes. The rich, President Obama endlessly contends, don’t pay “their fair share.”

It’s about as far from the truth as you can get. As the Congressional Budget Office showed in a new report on the distribution of household income and federal taxes, the rich are getting hit by the taxman harder than ever.

As CNBC reporter Robert Frank put it, the top 1% that Obama complains about “paid an average effective tax rate of 28.9% on their income — far more than any other group, and more than twice the average effective rate of the middle class, who paid 11% on average.”

Beyond that, however, is the fact that more Americans who are nowhere near to being rich are paying no taxes at all on the money they take in — which means they have no interest in getting our ever-expanding government leviathan under control.

A new study from the Tax Foundation found the number of those filing tax returns who pay no income taxes now numbers over 58 million, amounting to a staggering 41% of all tax returns. Compare that with 1990, when only about 21% of tax returns were found to have no tax liability.

What’s more, the median income of these nonpayers has increased by 40% in just nine years. “The threshold at which a typical married couple with two children will likely be a nonpayer is now $47,000,” the Tax Foundation found.

It’s remarkable to me that people complain about the rich not paying taxes. The rich are the only ones who pay taxes. Half the country has no federal tax liability at all. The top 50% of taxpayers are paying almost ALL the federal taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office data in the image above, the top 20% of taxpayers paid 94.1% of all taxes. That data is echoed by data from the Internal Revenue Service.

Is that fair?

How can anyone look at these numbers and honestly claim that “the rich”, by which the leftists mean the most productive entrepreneurs and workers, are “not paying their fair share” of taxes? THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO PAY TAXES.

Filed under: News, Business, Fair Share, Federal Income Tax, Income Tax, Tax, Tax Rates, Taxes, The Rich, The Wealthy

Keith Hennessey explains one strategy for undoing Obamacare

In the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled ObamaCare’s individual mandate constitutional, the direction of American health policy is in the hands of voters. So how do we get from here to “repeal and replace”?

Step one is electing Mitt Romney as president, along with Republican House and Senate majorities. Without a Republican sweep, the law will remain in place.

But a President Romney does not need 60 Republican senators to repeal core elements of ObamaCare. Democrats lost their 60th senate vote in early 2010 after Scott Brown took Edward Kennedy’s seat. To bypass a Senate GOP filibuster and enact portions of ObamaCare, they used a special legislative procedure called reconciliation.

Reconciliation allows a bill to pass the Senate in a limited time period, with limited amendments, and with only 51 votes; filibusters are not permitted. In 2010, Democrats split their health-policy changes into two bills, one of which they enacted through this fast-track process. In 2013, a Republican majority could use the same reconciliation process to repeal those changes.

The reconciliation process, however, applies only to legislative changes to taxes, spending and debt, or the change must be a “necessary term or condition” of another provision that affects taxes or spending.

Crucial parts of ObamaCare meet this test. Thus, if a President Romney has cohesive and coordinated majorities in the House and Senate, a reconciliation bill could repeal the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, insurance premium and drug subsidies, tax increases (all 21 or them), Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts, its long-term care insurance program known as the Class Act, and its Independent Payment Advisory Board, a 15-member central committee with vast powers to control health-care and health markets.

Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the financial penalty enforcing the individual mandate is within Congress’s constitutional power to “lay and collect Taxes,” and that the mandate and penalty are inextricably linked. This should suffice to enable repeal, through reconciliation, of both the individual and employer mandates, and their respective penalty taxes.

The state exchanges and insurance rules—”guaranteed issue,” which forces an insurer to sell a policy to someone who is already sick, and “community rating,” which severely limits the insurer’s right to charge that person a higher premium—are procedurally more difficult. Yet both are linked to the individual mandate, which increases taxes. Whether they can be repealed in a reconciliation bill will ultimately be decided by the Senate Parliamentarian.

Once the individual mandate is repealed, these popular insurance changes cannot stand by themselves. Without the mandate, people have every incentive to save on premiums and not buy insurance until they fall ill. This will send premiums through the roof for healthy people and, if the government clamps down on increased premiums, destroy private insurance companies. Those Republicans who say they favor legislated guaranteed-issue and community-rating requirements but oppose the mandate will be forced to acknowledge that all three must go.

So, for those who are concerned about repealing Obamacare, this is the way forward. We have a tough battle to get it it done, but it is possible.

Filed under: News, House, Obamacare, Presidency, Reconciliation, Repeal, Replace, Senate, Tax

In 2013, taxpayers will be paying more of their incomes to government

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

The tax increases scheduled to take effect in January 2013 – dubbed Taxmageddon – could have the American people spending more days than ever working to pay for federal and state government, areport from the Tax Foundation shows.

A host of tax rates are scheduled to rise in January 2013 – when George W. Bush-era tax rates and the annual patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax expire – leading to a tax increase of approximately $500 billion in 2013, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The Congressional Budget Office reported in January that taxes would increase by $4.6 trillion over ten years, if Congress allows the rates to rise as scheduled at the end of this year.

Tax Foundation economist William McBride estimated that this historic tax increase would push Tax Freedom Day to its latest point ever.

Tax Freedom Day is the day when – theoretically – Americans begin working for themselves and can stop paying for government. It assumes that 100 percent of a person’s wages go to paying for federal and state tax burdens. The day when government operations are fully paid for is Tax Freedom Day.

In 2012, Tax Freedom Day was April 17. However, Taxmageddon may push it until the end of April or beyond, McBride reported in a blog post on the foundation’s website. At the federal level, the 2012 tax increases would add 11 days to the Tax Freedom Day calculation, pushing it to April 28.

Adding in rising state and local tax revenues could push Tax Freedom Day beyond its May 1 record.

The Taxmageddon provisions adding to the cost of government – measured in the days that Americans will spend paying for it – are as follows:

• Bush tax rates – 2.6 days
• Alternative Minimum Tax – 2.2 days
• Small business tax cuts – 0.4 days
• Corporate income tax – 3.4 days
• Payroll tax cut – 2.5 days
• Estate tax – 0.2 days

One of the problems with all of this voting for bigger government is that there is less money for people to make their marriages and families work. The more we vote for bigger government, the less we haves as individuals for our own plans, including our marriage and family plans.

Filed under: News, 2013, Bush, Debt, Deficit, Expire, Government, Income Tax, Obama, Tax, Tax Cuts, Tax Freedom Day, Tax Hike, Tax Increase, Taxes, Taxpayer