Think Piece: Tax Democrats

RUSH: Folks, what is more dangerous, smoking or living in Baltimore?  No, no, no.  It's a serious question.  Tobacco is taxed.  Why is it taxed?  Tobacco is taxed for a plethora of reasons.  It's taxed to discourage people from using it, because it is said it can lead to an early death.  It can lead to other problems.  It kills.  We also tax tobacco in order to pay for (and in a couple of cases entirely fund) children's health care programs. 

You're aware of that?  The taxes derived from the sale of tobacco, that revenue is used to pay for children's health care programs.  I've always said that smokers deserve a special thanks, despite all the obstacles they face.  I mean, we don't ban the product. We make it available. You can sell it, you can buy it, but you can't use it very many places in America anymore without running the gauntlet. Yet these people continue to buy the product, they continue to use it, and they pay higher and higher prices, just astronomically high prices.

They continue to buy the product, they pay the price, and the taxes go to children's health care programs.  So if tobacco is taxed to discourage from using it because it can lead to an early death and other problems -- and that's the primary reason it's taxed -- let's face it, the prices are designed to dissuade people from using the product.  That would be the primary purpose that nannies in life and the social do-gooders would give you. 

Using that logic, should we not be taxing Democrats?  Their policies, look at Democrat policies.  They ruin families.  Democrat policies spread ignorance in the schools.  Democrat policies make health care unaffordable.  This results in great stress from unemployment and underemployment, and Democrats have created and maintained dangerous cities with horrible crime and death rates. 

It's arguably more dangerous living in Baltimore than it is to smoke cigarettes.  Look at the death rate.  I'm not joking.  It's a way to make a point, and I think it would be a perfect opportunity to say we need to tax registered Democrats the way we tax tobacco, because Democrats are causing illness. Democrats cause strife. Democrat policies are ruining cities. Democrat policies have ruined families.  Just a little think piece.  

Via: Rush Limbaugh

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Opt-Out Obamacare Penalty Can't Be Enforced -- Unless You Get a Tax Refund

RUSH: For those of us who take as long as we can to pay our taxes, October 15th was the extension filing date for 2012, and I dutifully was in there.  My accountant, who is almost afraid to be my accountant because he thinks he's gonna get targeted, too, just 'cause his name's on my return, he said, "Look, you may not know this, but you keep talking about these Obamacare fines if you don't buy a policy.  Do you know that under the law --" and I had to go look it up.  Not that I didn't believe him, but he just never gets political with me.  He stays over there.  (interruption)  No, no.  He's not lib.  It's a professional relationship.

Anyway, he said to me that, according to the law, the only way that the government can collect the fine or penalty for you not buying insurance is if you are owed a tax refund.  If you do not owe a tax refund, they cannot go into your bank account or anywhere else and get that money.  Now, the sad thing is that most people file their taxes to get a refund 'cause they think they're screwing the government, and they're not.  You're giving the government all that money all that year, but, no, look, what it means is that it can't work.  The whole point of this is the individual mandate. The guts of this are the mandate that you buy, that young, healthy people get screwed price-wise by being forced to buy insurance.  You've got to. 

And in three or four years, if things don't change, it's gonna be bad. I'll tell you, by then, if this thing goes forward, and it looks like it may not, but, if it goes forward, these are gonna be the good old days, because right now with the website broken, these kids can't find out how badly they're gonna get screwed, although some people are.  By kids I mean 18-24, 18-30.  (interruption) I know, we're gonna get to the hearings in a minute.  There's nothing wrong, folks.  Did you know the site's working?  Everything's happening as it should.  The only problem is the Republicans.  That's what I meant, we're loaded here.  I'm sorry to be hop-scotching all over the place.  I'm trying to do an hour's worth of content here in five minutes.  I really apologize.  I'm bursting at the seams here. 

Via: Rush Limbaugh

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A Vote to Fund Obamacare Will Fund Deliberate Destruction of Life

At the end of this month, members of Congress will face a binary choice. The House and Senate will pass a bill to fund the government past Sept. 30, the last day of the fiscal year. That bill will either permit or prohibit funding for implementation of Obamacare. Members will need to vote for it or against it.

There will be no middle ground.

If the bill permits funding for implementation of Obamacare and a member votes for it, that member will be voting to allow the administration to send tax dollars to health care providers who perform abortions.

That member will also be voting to allow the administration to use tax dollars to force Catholics and others who share the view that abortion is murder — or that artificial contraception and sterilization are intrinsically immoral — to act against their consciences.

Members who knowingly vote for legislation that provides the administration with the money to carry out these attacks on the right to life, the freedom of conscience and the free exercise of religion will be complicit in those attacks.

It will not be as if these members just turned the other way and did not look as the Obama administration facilitated the destruction of innocent life and crushed the freedom of conscience; these members will have knowingly handed the administration the tools it needed to do these evil things.

How do we know that?

Via: CNS News

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Princeton Economist: Obama Campaign Is Misrepresenting My Study on Romney's Tax Plan

Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney's tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. "Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes," said the Obama campaign press release. "In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000."

But that's not true. Princeton professor Harvey Rosen tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney's tax plan:

I can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work.  It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal.  The main conclusion of my study is that  under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same.  That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral. 

You can check the math that shows Romney's plan is mathematically possible here.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Once More: Taxes, Obamacare, and the End of the Constitution

Earlier this week, Mike Rappaport  replied  to Mike Paulsen’s  defense  of Chief Justice Robert’s opinion upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate as an exercise of the taxing power. It’s taken me a bit to weigh in because NFIB v. Sebelius continues to grow on me: the more I think about it, the angrier I get. But on a Saturday after a round of golf, I can manage. I think.

Between right-wing originalists called Mike: I believe that the Chief got it almost right; that Mike P.’s defense gets it almost right; and that Mike R.’s objection misses the mark. But the “almosts” matter: they contain all the tragedy and horror of the decision.

To be clear: I have no design to join the conspiracy theorists and “Roberts is a traitor” contingents. Mike Paulsen’s piece contains an eloquent defense of the Chief’s personal and judicial integrity, to which I subscribe wholeheartedly and which will hopefully help to put distance between the grown-ups and the fever swamps. It so happens, though, that honorable people can make mistakes that have very fateful consequences—not on account of a lapse but for respectable and even, and precisely, for honorable reasons. Here goes.

 The Power to Tax. For purposes of deciding whether the payment attached to the “individual responsibility mandate” is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to tax, does it matter that Congress call the payment a “penalty” rather than a “tax”? The answer, Mike Paulsen writes in defense of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, has to be “no”: the constitutional question isn’t whether Congress was invoking a particular power but whether it had the power.

Via: Liberty Law Blog

Mooch: “Building Our Economy Starts With The Restaurants”…

(CNSNews.com) - Striking a similar theme to one her husband also struck last week, First Lady Michelle Obama said on Friday that President Barack Obama’s tax plan will help build the economy by building up restaurants.

“So I want you to remind folks that Barack has cut taxes for working families by $3,600, and he has cut taxes for small businesses 18 times--18 times,” Mrs. Obama said in Springfield, Mass. “Because what your president understands is that building our economy starts with the restaurants and the stores and the startups that create two-thirds of all new jobs in this economy. That’s what we need you to do.”

On Thursday at Loudon County High School in Leesburg, Va., President Obama had said that hiring new teachers will help the economy because those new teachers will go out and eat at restaurants.

Via: CNS News

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More Tips to Avoid Obamacare’s 3.8% Surtax

“It’s a tax that punishes people that have been diligent over the years and did the right thing,” says Certified Public Accountant Bob Keebler on the Medicare surtax that kicks in on Jan.1. 

As I wrote last week, the additional 3.8% tax is part of the president's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ak.a. “Obamacare,” and affects individuals Congress has decided are “wealthy:” single taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) of $200,000 or more and married couples with a MAGI of at least $250,000.

If you fall into one of these categories, you’ll pay 3.8% more in federal income tax on the lesser of your investment income or your “excess” MAGI- the amount that exceeds the $200,000 or $250,000 threshold.

“Congress has introduced a third dimension- this surtax- that will affect every investment decision and transaction you make,” warns Keebler, who holds a Master of Science degree in taxation and addresses tax professionals around the country.

Via: Fox Business

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