Thursday, December 9, 2010

Higher Taxes For Low-Income Workers? That's Obama's Plan

Chris Adams of McClatchy:

Obama's deal will raise taxes for some low-income workers

WASHINGTON — The tax deal struck this week between the White House and congressional leaders has a little bit for most taxpayers in the country. But some of the nation's poorest workers will actually end up worse off.

...

The break-even point is $20,000 for an individual and $40,000 for a couple. All other things being equal, make less than those figures in a year, and your taxes will go up come Jan. 1, 2011. Make more and they'll go down.

...
There it is, Obama's campaign slogan in action: the oh-dash-it-all of hope.

I don't know yet whether this affects me. But it certainly offends me.

7 comments:

  1. It does effect me directly. In addition to an early Social Security and a minimum wage part-time job that amounts to near poverty level I will be paying more taxes. However, I can't accuse Obama of leaving me out of the goody bag. After all, he considers middle class people to be rentiers, not the working poor. In another six months I'll qualify for Medicare and hope to get my knees fixed. Maybe then I can get a field job and bring dignity to my declining years (snark)

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  2. Something that is happening elsewhere too, Ireland has raised taxes and dropped the minimum wage so that the poorest get screwed the most. I can see similar happening here in the next year or two

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  3. mandt, jams...

    To say that's a damned shame is not nearly strong enough. No citizen of a civilized nation should ever suffer poverty, and worse, have that poverty exacerbated by highly discriminatory taxation. But the world is increasingly run by people whose ethics would be put to shame by any mobster. In America, they're known as Republicans.

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  4. Next up: The votes of the poor will count only 3/5ths of what the votes of the upper two quintiles count as. There's precedent, after all.

    - Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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  5. BadTux, that possibility has occurred to me a couple of times recently... "some are more equal than others" is more than just an Orwell quote these days, and we are rapidly being made into slaves by the very wealthy through their wholly owned subsidiary, the Republican Party.

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  6. "Voters must own property" is also making a come back among the Tea Party crowd. No doubt that will be interpreted as the more property you own, the more votes you get.

    Looking at the US median income figures about 40% of households would have seen an increase under the Obama/Repub plan.

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  7. "No doubt that will be interpreted as the more property you own, the more votes you get."

    Bryan - well, in a manner of speaking, ever since the Citizens United ruling, that has been precisely the case.

    Forty percent? well, no one will accuse Obama of being a liberal. Oh, wait... they accuse him of being a socialist. Feh. They should look at me. By now, I am a socialist, not Obama.

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