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Obama Tax Hike Hits the Poor Hardest

TexasBred

Well-known member
Obama Tax Hike Hits the Poor Hardest
By Mark Impomeni
Apr 2nd 2009 9:55AM
Filed Under:eBarack Obama, Taxes, Obama Administration


An increase in the federal tax on cigarettes went into effect yesterday, raising the levy to $1.01 per pack. The increase was sought by President Obama and Congressional Democrats to help finance an expansion in SCHIP, the federally funded children's health care program. Leaving aside the obvious irony in relying on smokers – on whom the government spends money on programs designed to help them break their habit – to finace a health care program, the tax increase violates an oft-stated pledge made by both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

As candidates, Obama and Biden vowed that their tax plans would not increase taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year. Sometimes, that pledge was stated in reference to any kind of tax. Appearing on September 12, 2008, in New Hampshire, Obama said, "Under my plan no family making under $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." Biden made a similarly unequivocal tax pledge during the vice presidential debate. But the cigarette tax the Obama Administration enacted will disproportionally impact the poor and the middle class, according to a Gallup survey done just last year. That survey found that 34 percent of people making under 12,000 a year were smokers, with smoking incidence rates declining as income level increased.

The White House contends that President Obama was referring only to income and payroll taxes on the campaign trail when he made his "no tax increases for the middle class" pledge. "The president's consistent position throughout the campaign was that he would not raise income or payroll taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year, and that's a promise he has kept," a White House spokesman said. Kathleen Hall Jameson, of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center debunks that claim, noting that the Obama campaign used then Senator Obama's tax pledges to refute Republican charges that he woild raise taxes on energy.

"[The Obama campaign] rebutted both of those with the $250,000 claim. So they did extend the rebuttal beyond income and payroll taxes.

I think a reasonable person would have concluded that Senator Obama was making a 'no new taxes' pledge to every couple or family making less than $250,000."

Supporters of the cigarette tax will argue that increased prices for tobacco products will help discourage smoking. That may be so, but is a wholly different argument. Whatever the Administration's and its supporters' spin, the bottom line is that the president's cigarette tax increase will hit the poor and the middle class hardest, in direct contradiction of the statements candidate Obama made.

Now...how many people in the tobacco industry will be effected in the long run???
 

Steve

Well-known member
it's a small tax to get them used to the cap and trade (tax), that will raise their heating cost so high, that a cig tax won't matter.. :roll: :roll: :wink:
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
He'll just keep on and he'll have EVERYONE ticked off at him--even the ignorant voters that voted for him.
He's really working on it. Let's see who he taxes next and how he does it.
DUM-DA-DUM-DUM!! :shock:
 

Tam

Well-known member
They said this morning economists figure that the Cap and Trade Tax is going to result in $3,100 increase in tax per household per year . :wink: And they have taken out the tax cut for 95% of tax payers.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
WHATTTTTTTTT? That's gonna tick off those that didn't pay any taxes
in the first place, cuz they planned on getting money out of the deal.
I told you, he's gonna keep on til nobody likes him. Just give him enough time, he'll hang himself. Can't happen soon enough for me!!!

LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR :shock:

I think the man is so full of himself, that he thinks he is TOO BIG TO FAIL. (Now where have I heard that before?) :p
 

Tam

Well-known member
Faster horses said:
WHATTTTTTTTT? That's gonna tick off those that didn't pay any taxes
in the first place, cuz they planned on getting money out of the deal.
I told you, he's gonna keep on til nobody likes him. Just give him enough time, he'll hang himself. Can't happen soon enough for me!!!

LIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR :shock:

I think the man is so full of himself, that he thinks he is TOO BIG TO FAIL. (Now where have I heard that before?) :p

He is so high on himself he gives the Queen of the UK an iPod loaded with his own speechs. :wink:

President Obama says he's still committed to his middle-class tax cuts and will fight Congress to get them passed and made permanent.

"I'm going to be pushing as hard as I can to get it done in this budget. If it's not done in this budget, then I'm going to keep on pushing for it next year and the year afterward," Mr. Obama said on CBS' "Face the Nation" program.

The first two years of the refundable tax credit is already in place, having passed in the stimulus spending bill Mr. Obama signed in February. But Democrats' budget plans in the House and the Senate do not include a permanent extension of the credit, which can be as much as $400 for an individual or $800 for a married couple.

But the Cap and Trade is estimated to be $3,100 per year per household. I also heard the money from Cap and Trade that Obama planned to use to pay for his so called Tax cut is according to the Dems in the House is going to have to go to the health care budget. SO where will the money come from to pay the first two years of so called tax cuts? :?
 
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