Comrade Obama's Tax Shell Game

Barack Obama is fond of implying that his tax proposal(pdf) will variously lower, not raise, or not affect 95% of Americans.

But only 70% of Americans pay any Federal tax at all, and many of those who do pay taxes don't pay much. So I decided to do the math. Luckily for me, Ace and the Wall Street Journal beat me to it.

Obama wants to give every "worker" $500 ($1000 for "working couples"). His web site says "workers" and "working families" are who get the cuts.

Don't call me a "worker". I'm a citizen, comrade Obama.

So clearly, the 95% figure refers to those "workers" who do pay taxes. He's going to hand out a check to everyone, but raise the rates enough that the top 5% get a tax increase. Or more properly, the government gets the increase. He has the nerve to say that even then it's not an increase, just a way to get back to the way things were when Reagan was President, 18.2% of GDP.

But he lies with the numbers: if he's going to give a cut to 95% of "workers" and everyone is going to get a cut, the money has to come from somewhere. He calls it "closing loopholes", when a loophole closes and you pay more, you get a tax increase.

And who pays more? Business, especially small businesses and oil companies. At a time when businesses are struggling to meet their short-term obligations because they can't borrow for them, Obama wants to raise their taxes.

Small businesses will obviously bear the brunt of Obama's tax increases. Busineses large and small will be forced to raise prices. And the relative trickle of companies leaving the United States, and taking their jobs with them, will become a flood as the last one out gets to turn off the compact fluorescent light.

As Fred Thompson said, under Obama's plan as long as you don't have to buy anything from a business, you'll be fine.

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