Richardson lowers Obama's definition of rich
10/31/2008 - 9:16am
This morning, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama, continued the downward ratchet of the level of income at which Barack Obama intends to confiscate income.
Obama started at $250,000, then said $200,000.
Joe Biden then dropped the bar to $150,000 three days ago.
And now, Bill Richardson says that "there is a tax cut for those" making $120,000 and under, implying that anyone making over $120,000 will be penalized by an Obama administration.
I realize that liberals will argue with that conclusion. But what alternative is there other than a weak argument that Obama might lower taxes below $X of income, raise taxes above $Y of income, and do nothing in between. I believe that outcome is unlikely, and if he tries it, he'll blow a huge hole in the budget.
Since Obama is planning one of the largest expansions of government spending in history it will not be possible to cut taxes for people below $X without having to either raise taxes on people above $X or create a budget deficit which dwarfs even the worst of recent government profligacy. And, as the repeated lowering of that bar shows, the Obama campaign is realizing that their budgetary sleight of hand during the campaign is simply too large to be believed, even by gullible Americans.
Maybe anticipation of record-breaking deficits is the reason that Barney Frank has been out talking about why we should ignore the deficit for a while, but I don't believe the American public will stand for government spending citizens' money freely while we all have to cut back...indeed causing us to have to cut back more because the dead hand of government is that much deeper in our pockets.
Of course, the only people who would be surprised by this are people who have a "willing suspension of disbelief" about Obama's impossible promises.
As I mentioned yesterday, you know Obama's claims are truly outrageous when even the AP and CBS News all but call him a liar.
In case it's not clear enough from those articles, however, I'll say it: Obama is a liar. His claims about how much he plans to spend are directly contradicted by his own web site. And his suggestion that he can pay for his planned massive increase in the size of government by just taxing the rich is also a lie. To get even close, he'd have to define rich somewhere around where we now have the poverty line, and even that would probably not cover it.
As Obama gets closer to winning, he's lowering the expectations bar so that it will be hard for others to call him a liar later. But if you believe that even $120,000 is where the confiscation will start, you're fooling yourself. The only people who may do better under Obama are those currently at or below the poverty line. Unfortunately, the benefit to those will be more than offset by the increasing number of people who are moved from the middle class to poverty by his misguided "soak the rich" mentality.
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Tax Breaks/Cuts
This was posted from the Barack Obama website:
"Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s. Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility. But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s. In fact, dividend rates would be 39 percent lower than what President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut."
Perhaps those of you jumping on the "no tax for those under $250,000" band wagon should actually read what Sen. Obama's website says. The statement says "the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s." The tax rates were lowered for everyone after 9/11. Those tax cuts will expire in 2010 or 2011 if the Congress at the time does not extend them. So everyone will revert to paying the same rate as they did in the 1990s. For most people that will be a significant increase.
Guess what? In this country we still have free speech (although for how long that remains to be seen)so the writer of this article can call Sen. Obama a liar. Sen. McCain has been called worse as has Gov. Palin. Do the free speech rules only apply to some of the population? I have to wonder especially since Sen. Obama removed reporters from his plane when the newspapers they worked for came out in support of Sen. McCain.
Do the math on the programs that Sen. Obama is promising - it doesn't add up. It will if you only read his website but go out there and read about economics - taxing business (we already have the 3rd or 4th highest business taxes in the world - making us less competitive on the global market)- socialism (share the wealth - redistribute) and figure it out.
And guess what - Gov. Richardson does speak for the Obama campaign. He has been with Sen. Obama as a very close supporter - many times campaigns use someone else to start their lower expectation work - they deny and then a few months later it happens just the way the original speaker said it would.
Oh, by the way, I live in Illinois so I know about Sen. Obama and the Chicago politicians so I can say whatever I want about him. Respectfully - but whatever I want.
Richardson doesn't speak for Obama
One of the great things about being the President is that you are the President. Neither Biden nor Bill Richardson is running for President; and, come 20 January 2008, neither willhave the authority of the President.
Here is what the man who will be President, says:
http://www.barackobama.com/taxes/
"Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in the 1990s. Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal responsibility. But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s. In fact, dividend rates would be 39 percent lower than what President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut."
Ross you have scored another point in the "patently absurd" column with this post. Your leap from a misquote or misunderstanding or both by Bill Richardson to a result that "Obama is a liar" ranks you below Sarah Palin on the IQ scale.
If you want to call Bill Richardson a liar, that's fine. Tell it to the people of New Mexico who elected him their governor. But, the facts are the facts as stated on the Obama website or until the man himself changes his own plans--which he's entitled to do, by the way. Goodness knows your man in the White House, George W. Bush, never told us he was going to take us into two outrageous wars when he was running for President. Nor did he campaign on the promise of costing us $10 billion and the priceless lives of 100 American soldiers per month, the largest trade deficit in our nation's history practically surrendering our sovereignty to China, or the necessity for a $700 billion bailout of his pals on Wall Street. Now did he?
I hope the people that read your posts, take the time to read the comments to, so they can find out the truth. You must not be a journalist. No self-respecting journalist would call Barack Obama a liar. Calling him a liar is a lie, and it is also disrespectful. "Liar" is a strong word that characterizes a person. A "liar" is a person that lies all the time about everything. If a person tells a lie, they are not a liar. You have to tell a lot of lies to earn that label. Meanwhile, I think most would agree that to be a liar your lies must be malicious and intentional. In other words, if I tell my Aunt Harriet she's never looked so thin, well, that's what we call a little lie. Second, we have the malicious intent. A person that misstates the facts on purpose has malicious intent--I would argue that your entire blog falls into this category because you obviously have the intent to mislead people you believe are not sufficiently intelligent to see through your misstatements and false accusations.
Hopefully, that connects the dots for you and your readers.
Kaminsky's malicious intent.
I agree with Thompson. Self respecting journalists do not call others liars. Kaminsky unforetunately is neither a journalist or self respecting.
He recently accused me of lying in a comment I posted concerning Bush dropping 50 billion to pay for Blackwater the security thugs in Iraq. Obviously I exagerated the amount of money for effect. I did not lie however. The latest CBO report estimates private contractors in Iraq have received 100 billion of our tax dollars to support Bush's fiasco in Iraq. Security contractors including Blackwater received between 6 and 10 billion of those funds.
Even if you connected the dots Kaminsky could not figure it out.
Another strawman from Rossimpleton
Bill Richardson merely stated that he considers $120,000 the line between middle class and upper class. He didn't imply anything about any change in Obama's tax plan. But even this simple fact was apparently beyond the comprehension of Ross Kaminsky. Which again leads to the quetion of why The Denver Post continues to post columns which consist of nothing but strawman arguments, out-of-context quotes, and outright lies.
Miss-Characterization of Bill Richardson's comment
He is saying that there can be TAX CUTS for people making less than 120000. OBAMA has alsways maintained that there will be no 'tax increase' on people making less than 250000. These 2 statements do not contradict each other!
Can you not understand ENGLISH?