Posted by
grad_1986 on Thursday, April 15, 2010 12:58:19 PM
I have learned one thing about President Obama. He is a man of his WORD! Now to some of you out there, that seems like a ludicrous idea as he has delivered very little on what he has promised. So how can I say he is a man of his WORD? Well let me clarify a little here.
Obama is a man of his WORD in that you have to take what he says very LITERALLY! Throughout the campaign in speech afer speech he gave he said "If you are making less than 250K a year you won't SEE your (federal) takes go up one single DIME". The key here is the word: SEE. Looking at the tax increases that have occured thus far in his presidency, Obama has added several taxes that most people either would not recognize as a tax increase or would not see at all.
First, for example, take the increased taxes on cigarettes. Most of us when looking to see if the Federal government is taxing us more only look at our pay-stub and not our store receipts. Given that people making less than 50K make up more than half of all smokers, I think its pretty certain that a very large percentage of people in America are paying more to the Federal government (FG), they just don't know it yet.
Another thing we won't see is the tax put on those of us with "cadillac" healthcare policies (how they determine this ... its hard to say). Will I see an added tax? Probably not. Or at least it won't be labelled in any discernable way on my pay-stub. Infact, many in Congress believe that their is a difference between a penalty paid to the Federal government and a tax. Playing with words, they can look at you with a straight face and say "See? We haven't raised your taxes at all!".
Finally, Obama is "considering" a Value-Added-Tax. This tax will be completely INVISIBLE to the consumer as it is paid by the producer before the product leaves the factory. The only change you will see is that many of your products will go up overnight (but knowing how sneaky the Feds are, they will SLOWLY raise the VAT over time so that you the consumer never really "see" it happen). And speaking of the VAT, can you say "Job Killer"?? The VAT will ONLY be paid by American companies (yeah! Try collecting the VAT from companies in China or Inda! The checks in the mail! Ha Ha Ha). So we will be penalizing American companies and make it HARDER for them to compete on the global-market. Good job Obama!
Those are just a few instances of where you can take Obama at his word and I am sure there will be many more to follow