Largest tax hikes in history, coming January 2011

Posted By Steve Adcock On July 2, 2010 (12:00 pm) In Voices and Choices

Some weeks ago we warned there was an avalanche of taxes headed our way. Now come a breakdown of what American families will be facing on January 1^st, of 2011 courtesy of Americans for Tax Reform at www.atr.org/.

The article is tiled: “Six Months to Go Until The Largest Tax Hikes in History.”  You will find it (HERE.).

The article by Ryan Ellis explains that the massive tax increase will strike more as a tsunami – in waves.  Mr. Ellis says: “In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect.  They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011.”The first great wave will be: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief.  The second great wave will be: Obamacare, and the third great wave will be: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes.

Mr. Ellis goes on to say, in his excellent article, the following: “In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families.  These will all expire on January 1, 2011.

So what will happen?  Mr. Ellis explains: “Personal income tax rates will rise.  The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).  The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent.  All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates.  The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

– The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
– The 25% bracket rises to 28%
– The 28% bracket rises to 31%
– The 33% bracket rises to 36%
– The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

According to Mr. Ellis article married Americans and American families will not escape, either. He explains there will be higher taxes on marriage and American families.  He states: “The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.  The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.  The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.  The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.”

 

And guess what – the DEATH TAX will return! Mr. Ellis explains; “This year, there is no death tax.  For those dying on or after January 1, 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million.  A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

If you have made an effort to be frugal and save, you are in trouble from the tax man, as well:  Ellis says there will be: “Higher tax rates on savers and investors.  The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011.  The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011.  These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Then comes the second wave.  It will come as no surprise to those of us who tried to warn our fellow Americans that socialized medicine in America would cost the living daylights out of Americans.  So here it comes.  We now know, thanks to Mr. Ellis’ article there are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare.

Several of these taxes will first go into effect on January 1, 2011.  They include:  “The “Medicine Cabinet Tax,”  “The “Special Needs Kids Tax,” and “The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike.”

(You REALLY need to read Mr. Ellis’ article (HERE.) for the startling details of these taxes.

 

Then comes the Third wave of taxes:  “The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes.”  Mr. Ellis explains: “When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired.  The major items include:”

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses.

 

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced.

 

Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed.

Again we urge you to read this article by Ryan Ellis (HERE.)

 

With the US economy literally teetering on the edge of collapse – what do you suppose will happen when this shake down of American citizens begins next year and they find they must face the fact that what many conservative commentators told them was going to happen has happened, and, too, they find themselves facing financial ruin.  Desperation time will certainly be upon us. The reaction of a P.O’ed American citizenry will make the reaction of the people of Greece look like a Sunday school picnic!

 

America, we are in dangerous times.  Desperate people are completely unpredictable.  There is yet a short time to prepare for the coming anarchy in America.

 

First, we must get to the polls, in droves; this coming November and try to break the grasp the socialist/democrats have on our national and state governments.  Even if we are successful — we can still only hope to blunt the effects of the on rushing tsunami of governmental demands for your money to fuel an ever growing, entirely too powerful, central government that is sucking the life out of America.

Article taken from SmallGovTimes.com – http://www.smallgovtimes.com
URL to article: http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/07/largest-tax-hikes-in-history-coming-january-2011/

 

Obamacare Blowback dumbfounds disbelieving Democrats – Garry Reed

News & Commentary from the liberterrain…

The Democrats, like the Neocons before them, seem genuinely baffled that people despise them.

They can’t comprehend that millions of Americans, forced to bend over for an unwanted Obamacare colonoscopy without so much as a dollop of petroleum jelly, might be a mite PO-ed.

The Broken Window Fallacy Reapplied: Democrats impose
   their economic “policies” on their subjects but cry, “Not in
   my back window!” (courtesy Ludwig von Mises Institute)

---

More economic idiocy:

• Retelling the Tale of the Broken Window
  
• The middleclass czar
  
• The Great Depression comes to Cowtown
  
• Libertarianism 101: What’s the libertarian position on Economics?

A CBS News article reports people responding in kind, with an eye for an eye reply that implies, “What’s good for the unassuming citizen ought to be good for the elitist lawmaker.”

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO), found a coffin in front of his house meant to symbolize Obamacare-aborted babies (but according to many Republicans may symbolize Carnahan’s political future.)

This is nothing compared to the millions who believe they live in a land of property rights finding bulldozers in front of their homes with slick-talking politicians and their rich developer buddies shoving eminent domain documents in their faces.

What’s good for the law-abiding is good for the lawmaker.

Others who voted for Obamacare decry the threats filling their voicemail, mailboxes and inboxes.

But that’s nothing compared to the monumental mound of laws that threaten all citizens with fines, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment and even death by trigger-happy law enforcers for failing to conform to every whim of the law creators.

What’s good for the law-abiding is good for the lawmaker.

Yet the most ironic, and perhaps poetic, responses are the bricks thrown through Democrats’ windows.

This is the “Broken Window Fallacy” come to life.

This is the heart of Keynesian economic theory much embraced by modern collectivists such as the Obama brigades.

When a window is broken it puts a glass repairman to work. He can then afford a faux Rolex from a pawnbroker who buys a bassoon from a musician who buys a moose head from a taxidermist and so on, benefiting the entire community.

(Libertarians know it’s a fallacy but the left calls it a “policy.” Recommended reading: Retelling the Tale of the Broken Window.)

So Democrats should relish their busted windows. This is a grassroots jobs creation bill, a populist stimulus package, a spontaneous redistribution of wealth so beloved by Comrade Obama during his Hope and Change campaign.

As the folks at Broken Window Watch put it, “Almost every economic policy proposed by Congress is some variant of the Broken Window Fallacy.”

What’s good for the law-abiding is good for the lawmaker.

 

“Nullification Laws” passed by the states to fight ObamaCare

“Nullification Laws” passed by the states to fight ObamaCare
Posted By J. D. Longstreet On February 23, 2010 (8:44 pm) In Voices and Choices

In the upcoming “summit” between Obama and the Republicans on his ObamaCare proposal… you know, the one the American people have flatly rejected… you can forget the democrats tossing out anything in the current proposal. Ain’t gonna happen. The dems, with the added weight of Obama, hope to overwhelm the Republicans and force them into folding and agreeing to reluctantly support ObamaCare so they, the democrats, can save face for Obama and themselves.

WE appeal to the GOP to hold fast. Don’t give an inch. This sorry piece of legislation deserves to be flatly, and completely, defeated, with a stake driven through its heart, and committed to the trash bin of history for all time.

It is nothing more than a power grab by the Progressives in the Congress. It is power they will use to ram their remaining socialist agenda through the Congress and into law. It is a sure and certain formula for the utter destruction of our constitutional republic. And that, dear reader is exactly what they want and what they are working tirelessly to accomplish.

If they win, it will spell the doom of the United States of America — at least, what is left of the US today.

They must be stopped at the ballot box!

We warned they would try this. They have — and they are.

Already, the White House is admitting that the “NEW” ObamaCare Proposal is only a “Starting Point” for healthcare legislation. We have warned many, many, times that the current Congress believes the American people are basically stupid. We have warned, just as many times, that they will pass ObamaCare by “Incrementalism,” one small piece of the plan, at a time, until they get the whole “hell spawned plan” in place and the government will have total control of the lives of every American.

It now appears the Obama Regime is readying itself to use the reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes instead of the usual 60 votes for passage of a budget bill, to pass their abomination of a healthcare bill through the Senate. It appears to this scribe the democrats are still pressing to gain at least one republican vote for political cover in case their plan fails. Woe be unto any republican dumb enough to side with the dems in favor of what is now being referred to as ObamaCare 2.0.

Many conservatives, including “yours truly,” have been fighting ObamaCare for over two years. We began alerting our readers and listeners in the early days of the Presidential campaign and as far back, in some cases, as 2007. Why are we so dead set against government run healthcare? To put is as clearly and concisely, yes, as bluntly as I know h — ObamaCare is socialized medicine, it is socialism, and socialism is the final step a nation takes before becoming a communist nation.

The American people HATE ObamaCare. The American people have told the government we do not want ObamaCare in any form. As evidence of this, look at the number of states that have already amended their state constitutions to ban any kind of government healthcare mandates handed down by the federal government. If you know your American history then you already know this has happened before in the US. Just before the American Civil War broke out into a shooting war, the southern states began passing “nullification” laws, within the states, which nullified federal laws and mandates placed on those states by the federal government of that day. Simply put a nullification law means those states will NOT adhere to, or abide by, those federal laws and mandates. Need I remind you of the next step taken by those states?

The American Civil War did not have to happen. It DID happen because the arrogant US Congress of that day refused to listen to the people of the southern states telling them, flat out, they would leave the Union if the Congress continued to govern against the will of the southern people.

Today the current US Congress is making the exact same mistake the Congresses of the 1840s and 1850s made — and this time, it is not just the southern states warning Congress to take heed. This time, states all over the nation are frantically attempting to get the attention of the federal government by passing modern day nullification laws.

The signs are all there. A blind fool can read them. And yet, the federal government cannot hear them or, worse, it is ignoring them.

This way lies destruction. The peoples of the states have issued the clarion call. Just as the election of 1860 was the turning point, the day the nation split into two nations, the election of 2010 will decide if the US remains one country or shatters into two or more separate nations or confederations of states. One thing is certain: America cannot continue as a single entity of 50 states ruled over by a socialist government.

The 2010 election is the safety valve. If the pressure is released by a purge of the incumbents in the Congress then the US will survive. It the valve remains closed, and no pressure is released, the explosion of the US tearing itself apart will be heard, and felt, around the globe and will spell the end of the Great American Experiment.

 

America: Resist Communism, Socialism and Marxism

Posted By J. D. Longstreet On March 9, 2010 (6:27 am) In Voices and Choices

Well, the BIG Push is on to ram ObamaCare through the Congress and down the throats of the American people.

Obama is jetting around the country holding pep rallies to try to gin up support for the “Bill from Hell” — Socialized Medicine. You should know these rallies include ONLY Obama supporters and ObamaCare supporters. The wild enthusiasm is staged for your benefit to, hopefully, give you the impression that ObamaCare is supported by the majority of Americans. The truth is – it is NOT.

These rallies are all propaganda. It’s “The BIG LIE” told over and over again just as the Nazis in Germany did to convince the people of an entire country they truly desired the socialism of the Nazi Party. I must tell you Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, would be proud of the Democratic Party in America today. The Obama Regime has taken a page from the leftist Nazis of the last century on how to brainwash an entire nation into believing a lie. A lie that, once accepted, will spell the absolute doom of America.

The Democratic Party, by itself, simply does not give a damn! They are interested in two things and two things only — and that is to maintain their hold on the government of the US and to ensure their reelection. They simply have no sympathy for what the American people truly want. Plus, THEY DON’T CARE WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT! All that counts is what they, the Democrats, want.

It is called “Command and Control.” A strong central government in charge of a “command and control economy” is their dream — and it is their goal. They intend to reach that goal no matter what — even if it means shredding the US Constitution.

Those of us on the right vowing to throw the Socialists and Marxists, masquerading as Democrats, out of the Congress this November had better watch our backs. The dems are quietly lining up the resistance to our movement and between now and November the right will come under attack, intensifying each day as the election draws nearer and nearer.

They are quietly conspiring with the less literate democrat voters and those who, for generations, have depended on the government welfare dole for their existence. Their intention is to flood the polls in November of 2010 to offset and overwhelm the anti-ObamaCare. These “wards of the federal government” will be flooding the polling places, everywhere in America, to dilute the opposition to ObamaCare and defeat the efforts to save the constitutional republic we know as America. Their intent is to create, once and for all, a Socialist/Communist America. And they may very well succeed!

For years those of us who have had the foresight to see the Socialized Medicine Bill for what it is, even though it is wrapped in the pretty package of ObamaCare, have worked tirelessly to expose it as a true Socialized Medicine Bill anchored in Marxism and Communism.

There are times when this scribe feels as though I am standing in front of a wall shouting the warning at the top of my lungs only to have it bounce back onto myself with little, if any, effect on the people whom the Bible describes as a people who have “stopped their ears.”

I must admit to weariness and fatigue and frustration, as the realization sets in that the masses of ObamaCare advocates, like lemmings, have chosen to follow their own Pied Piper — this time straight over a cliff and into a Marxist/Communist hell-like oblivion.

During this fight, I have gained a better insight into Noah’s dilemma. He preached over and over the warning that a deadly flood was coming and would wipe out every man, woman, and child – but to no avail. As the story goes every one was killed except for the handful aboard Noah’s Ark.

America is on the verge of collapse. The final step ensuring that collapse is the passage of ObamaCare.

 

Who Owns Your Body? Under Obamacare, not you.

BY William Anderson

August 31, 2009, Vol. 14, No. 46

We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.

All right, let’s do that. Let’s look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?

When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.

America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.

Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe’s nobility. Our soi-disant elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen’s continuing preference for self-rule.

Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one’s body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.

Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. It necessarily follows that government must have the power to approve or withhold care. This concept collides destructively with the founding principles of individual responsibility and autonomy upon which popular sovereignty depends.

This is the reason that the debate never ends. It is also the reason that any resolution of the question will necessarily either confirm or deny the original intent of the Founders.

So let’s make up our minds. Does the government, in the last analysis, own your body, or do you? If your answer is the former, be aware that you have opted for veterinary medicine, for you are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal. If your answer is the latter, you must accept responsibility to make mortal decisions for yourself, and pay for the care that you want with money that you have reason to see as your own.

Such money is not out of reach. Medical savings accounts, amalgamated with catastrophic insurance, could take the place of the ad hoc hodgepodge of plans, schemes, dissimulations, and promises under which we are now burdened and threatened.

And there would be greater efficiency and encouragement of individual choice. We all have an enhanced interest in thriftiness and fair value when we, and not third parties, are the payers.

The wisdom expressed in the Federalist Papers began with the insight that men are not angels. The system that the authors designed placed liberty at the head of other considerations. The Founders were determined that concentrations of power should be confounded.

The system now congealing in Congress for health care is not informed by such principles. Access to the most intimate personal information, direct interaction with bank accounts, and mandated Procrustean protocols remain features of the various schemes under consideration. Such programs would be managed by impenetrable, impersonal, and unaccountable bureaucracies. Do we wish to place such profound coercive powers in the hands of anyone, much less those who now stand expectant and eager to receive them?

The view of human nature recognized by the Founders is now in grave peril. Whither goes America? Was liberty merely an 18th-century fad, or is there still something exceptional about our country?

William Anderson, a retired physician, teaches at Harvard University and consults to the intelligence community.

 

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

By JOHN MACKEY

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”

  —Margaret Thatcher

 

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

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Chad Crowe

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.