Friday, October 7, 2011

When all else fails, manipulate the data...

Ok, so I have been getting a little frustrated with the talk about President’s Obama/The Democratic plan to increase taxes FOR THE UPPER/HIGHEST earners in our county. A lot of the back lash is not coming from the people in the upper bracket, which is currently $379,150, but instead from the people, I assume are in the 1-5 lower brackets $0-$300,000.

My issue with this is…why? Why take this position? Why are those who are not getting taxed more under the new proposal so concerned with the increase? The increase, which in my opinion is EXTREMELY FAIR AND OVERDUE. Increase the taxes of the people who are making the most money in the country.

Please see the current tax brackets below.

Tax Brackets 2011      Single                      Married Filing Jointly     Head of Household10% Bracket                $0 – $8,500               $0 – $17,000                    $0 – $12,150
15% Bracket                $8,500 – $34,500       $17,000 – $69,000            $12,150 – $46,250
25% Bracket                $34,500 – $83,600     $69,000 – $139,350          $46,250 – $119,400
28% Bracket                $83,600 – $174,400   $139,350 – $212,300        $119,400 – $193,350
33% Bracket                $174,400 – $379,150 $212,300 – $379,150        $193,350 – $379,150
35% Bracket                $379,150+                 $379,150+                       $379,150+

As you see, once you make at least $379K your taxes are no longer increased. This means the person making $379K is taxed just as much as the person making $30 Million! Does this make since? Especially when taxes go up a whopping 25% for the people making $8,000 -$379K. How is it cool that if there is a $370,000 increase you are taxed 25% more. No ones saying nothing about that, however, there is extreme backlash when Democrats and our President suggest adding a new tax bracket only adding a 5% increase (although this is a $700,000 increase in wealth) to those who are making $1,000,000 and above.

How can one call this unfair, or even unconstitutional? It is unsound and makes no mathematical since. Here is the breakdown:
25%  tax increase for making $300,000 additional
5% tax increase for making $700,000 through infinity additional!

The new tax increases would help the middle class who you can see from the chart above SUFFERS the most under the tax brackets as they are currently structured. Taking 30% in taxes of  a family who makes $200,000 hurts SIGNIFICANTLY more than taking 40% from someone who makes $5,000,000.

Let's go further and take a look at the history of tax increases and decreases over the past 40 years:


As you can see from the chart above, who's taxes are going down and whose are going up? The lowest earners in the countries taxes have steadily increased from 1960. And who's have had the biggest drop...the highest earners! Back in the 60's these people were paying over 40-70% in taxes! And when did the big drop happen, during the Reganomics error oops, I mean era. Now do the math on that! You can see the drop right around 1982 when Reagan and his crew approved historic low tax cuts for the richest in the county! Come on son. A mere 5% increase under the Obama presidency is no where near catching our country up to where it had been with equal distribution of taxes from previous years.

How is it that one cannot see this? We are not taking about the actual amount of money you receive from each person, but the financial impact, percentages. Who decided that at the point you reached $379,000 you should no longer be impacted by tax increases? Is this a perk for making more money?  And those of us who make our way up the middle class ladder are stuck paying more and more and more taxes every year?

Let’s keep it real. Most of us will never make it over $379,000 per year. However, I do know people who are making over this amount of money and they are behind the tax increases! They believe it is only fair to redistribute the wealth. Taking an additional 5% from millionaires can benefit our county A LOT more than taking 5% from me! You can’t do nothing with that!

I cram to understand why the rich Republicans who hold their wallets so tight and have been allowed to go unscathed by taxes, big breaks for major companies, hiding their wealth under business expenses, have so many champions who will never know that wealth. These people need to fight for the middle class and lower classes who actually need and cannot afford the champions. I have not heard the richees campaigning for you. They are trying to screw you with medicare, social security, increased taxes, jobs, housing market, gas...I could go on.

People, please don’t be fooled by Headliners like “Obama wants to increase your taxes”. Or “Obama’s tax plan is unconstitutional”. Tell me where in the constitution does it mention giving a pass to every Millionaire for the next 500 years. We are smarter than that. Before we make assumptions on things, we need to stop being "glamoured" by fast talking car salesmen who want to portray the Democratic political party as big bad wolves targeting the poor helpless defenceless rich folks. As we can see from history, many Presidents before Barack Obama campaigned for themselves, its fine time we have a President who is finally campaigning for us.

Obama 2012, Stop Playing and Let's Go!

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