Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.
Here's some food for thought. The anointed one has proven without reservation that he is an outstanding fund raiser. (That makes two things that he is good at; the other is reading from Teleprompters.) It seems fairly clear that the people who are contributing to his campaign are the rich. These are the very people whose taxes he keeps telling us that we need to increase. It has to be them. Who else could afford to attend $35,800 a plate fund raisers?? Surely not the middle class. Our chief community organizer's call for increased taxes on these very folks doesn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm for him. We can only infer that, since they have not abandoned him in droves, they do not quarrel with his proposals to increase their taxes. But, rather than risk their defections perhaps he should be considering raising the money we "need" through contributions instead of increased taxes. If he is able to raise more than $1B just for his next campaign, think of how much more he should be able to raise for a good cause like income redistribution or free (?) health care for all, or whatever else he would like to bankroll. Well?? And just think, if he really worked at it for a few months, we could probably get our AAA credit rating back. And if he really, really worked at it, there might even be a few dollars left over with which to begin to pay down the debt... (Bite your tongue!!)
Speaking of "the rich", how about Warren Buffett and Bill Gates?? We are told that they both support higher taxes on the "rich", a group which surely includes both of them. It isn't a really great leap of faith to believe that those folks who can afford, and are willing to spend $35,800 a plate just to "break bread" with the anointed one should be able to support higher taxes on themselves. You might also wish to include in this group (the rich) all those folks who attended the recent Polo match on Long Island to see Prince William play and who reportedly laid out $10,000 each for access to the VIP area - where hopefully they had some really great hors d'oeuvres and maybe even got to meet the Prince's new bride, the former Kate Middleton.
If you look closely at the Buffett New York Times op-ed piece (of 8/15) he suggests that the uber-rich have been coddled when it comes to the payment of personal income taxes. The investment bankers' income is taxed at capital gains rates rather than at the "earned income" rates (which are higher). It is not the IRS or the government coddling these folks out of the good of their heart.. They are taxed at the capital gains rates because a few years ago their lobbyists were able to get that treatment for them; another loophole. Resolving this inequity should be fairly straightforward (as long as you are able to "tune out" the sure to come wails of the lobbyists.). All that has to be done is to revert to taxing the investment bankers' income (reportedly a ton) the same as everyone else's earned income is taxed rather than at the capital gains rate. The same applies to everyone else whose income falls into the same general category - which surely will include Mr. Buffett (Warren that is, not Jimmy.)
The fact that Gates and Buffett support higher taxes certainly suggests that they believe that the Government knows better than they do what should be done with the additional money and can be trusted to do a good job with that money once they have it. That being the case, why do you suppose that Gates and Buffett seem to be using their own "Foundations" as the vehicle for "doing good" with their vast fortunes?? Surely the government could do a better job. Well, isn't that what we should infer from their pronouncements and actions?? We are left to wonder why they don't simply hand over their vast fortunes to the feds; not just Gates and Buffett, but others like all the movie and TV stars, and other entertainers who seem to perpetually be praising the anointed one and everything he wants to do. Perhaps the "big dollar" pro athletes should be added t the mix also. Hmmm....
Even if the foregoing results in reducing the deficit, there are some other places where we should be able to generate additional revenue. The Prez has already suggested oil company "loopholes", which is a start, but not as good as it could be. If we are going to realize some significant revenue increases we should be talking about taking away all energy subsidies (loopholes all). We should at the same time be looking at all the things that GE did to not only get their taxes down to zero, but to carry forward tax credits which will help reduce next year's taxes so we can "fix" those loopholes. Surely they don't get a "pass" just because they are the community organizer's friend and a big campaign contributor, do they??
The Prez has also suggested we reduce selected tax expenditures. Tax expenditures come in two flavors; tax deductions and tax credits. We use the tax code to reduce taxes (by authorizing tax deductions) or to increase refunds (by authorizing tax credits); two decidedly different things - but both effectuated through the tax code. Deductions include things like a deduction for interest paid on your house loan or the amount of contributions you made to your church or your favorite charity. These things reduce the amount of your income that is taxed and, thus decrease the amount of taxes you will pay. Doing away with these deductions will increase the amount of taxes you pay. So, depending on how you define "tax increases" doing these things will either be or not be a tax increase. We haven't heard too many suggestions from the anointed one that we do away with, or even decrease, any "personal" tax credits, most of which are at the heart of income redistribution - something that the community organizer seems to support You are handed money for having more children (child tax credit), registering to go to college (education tax credit), not having a lot of income (earned income tax credit). This last one is one that, once people figure out how it works, permits a lot of folks to "manage" the amount of their income that gets reported in order to maximize the amount of the credit. Trust me, it happens; a lot.
The Prez has only suggested reducing deductions. He has offered nothing on tax credits in the personal tax arena. As an aside, he did suggest reducing tax credits allowed to his favorite whipping boy (Exxon). His rationale for doing away with those credits was that Exxon made a huge sum of money; apparently a great deal more, in his eyes, than they "deserve". How much income Exxon "deserves" seems rather elusive - but clearly it is not as much as they have been earning for their stockholders. They reportedly earn about four cents per gallon of gas sold. The Feds "make" about fifteen cents (or more) per gallon of gasoline sold. So who is getting over paid?? The four cents per gallon folks, of course. The four cents is unconscionable but the fifteen cents is OK. Yeah, right...
Back to tax expenditures. We could save a bundle if we would do away with all of 'em. So why not?? Short answer: That would do violence with the anointed one's program of income redistribution. People who make our economy what it is, work to support people who don't. Those who "don't"(of their own volition) are little more than a drain on the economy. Let's focus on the so called rich and get them to pay their fair share - another term that the anointed one fails to define, except to imply that whatever it currently is, isn't enough. It's likely as much as the anointed one wants and believes is necessary to turn us into a great utopian society envisioned by Cloward & Piven who taught at the Columbia School of Social Work According to Wikipedia, their strategy was "... to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty". That certainly sounds like a good idea and we certainly seem to be headed in that direction. The only problem seems to be that they failed to identify a dependable and continuing source of funding with which to achieve their promised unending prosperity. Running Treasury Department printing presses is certainly not the solution.
But wait!! Wouldn't taxing the rich too much (however much that is) put us on the road to another unintended consequence?? What happens when there aren't any so called "rich" left to pick up the tab for our profligate government?? There are those who believe that under the aegis of our community organizer, that could happen sooner rather than later. That doesn't mean that there will be no rich left; only that there will be no rich left to pick up the tab. Surely, anyone who can who can produce a ticket stub from one of his $35,000 a plate fund raisers (or for entry into the VIP area of the Polo Match on Long Island), will likely be excused from paying higher taxes. After all, one of the things the anointed one surely learned in Chicago was the importance of "taking care of" his friends.
D'ya think??
