You just got fucked (over) again.

Ishmael

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Congress and the president playing you for the fools most of you are. After congress passed the tax hike bill the president trotted out this rhetoric, "In praising Congress's huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that "millionaires and billionaires" will finally "pay their fair share.""

Well, no they won't. Nothing has changed for the truly wealthy, nothing at all. True wealth is asset wealth, not wage wealth. And it was wage earners that got it socked with the tax increases, not the asset wealthy. Poor ole Warren Buffets secretary is still going to be paying at a higher tax rate than he is, considerably higher now.

All of the mink holes in the federal tax code that are there for the truly wealthy to run down and use for tax avoidance are still in place. Adjustments in how the assets are managed and how the money is shuffled around will be made and in the end they'll be paying no more of their "fair share" than they did before and in some cases even less.

There are over 72,000 pages in the US Tax Code and of those less than 1000 are devoted to the actual statement of taxes. All of the rest of that code is nothing more than exceptions, deductions, set-asides, deferments, etc. And not only were those sections not touched, they were added to.

In the meantime John and Mary Lunchbucket are going to see an immediate 2% less in take home pay. And while I personally thought that that 2% relief of the payroll tax was a really bad idea to begin with, the fact remains that many low income wage earners are going to see the restoration of that tax as a tax increase, an increase in the most regressive of all the taxes in the code. Throw in all the new taxes associated with Obamacare and it is the mid to lower middle class that is going to take it in the shorts.

But millions of Americans are going to be taking the presidents words to the bank and rejoice in the notion that while their life just got meaner, those damned rich folks are being punished even more. And I've got some beach front property for sale in Nevada too.

I feel sorry for the young in this nation who are making the attempt to live the dream. This tax act just made it considerably more difficult for them to ever achieve any sort of asset wealth. They will have considerably less discretionary income to invest in trying to make that dream come true, and the saddest part of the whole scenario is that they bought into the "hose the rich" rhetoric, hook, line, and sinker. Listen to their words and pay no attention to what they're doing with their hands behind their back.

Ishmael
 
The list of winners is impressive!

Friends of Obama:

There's plenty to lament about the capital and income tax hikes, but the bill's seedier underside is the $40 billion or so in tax payoffs to every crony capitalist and special pleader with a lobbyist worth his million-dollar salary. Congress and the White House want everyone to ignore this corporate-welfare blowout, so allow us to shine a light on the merriment.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus got the party started this summer when he said he would subject 75 special-interest tax breaks to a "tax reform" review. That was pretty funny. Nearly every attempt by Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and others to pare back the list was defeated in a bipartisan rout.

The Senators even voted down, 14-10, an amendment to list the corporate interests that receive tax perks on a government website. This "tax extenders" bill passed Mr. Baucus's committee, 19-5 (see the table nearby), and then sat waiting until Harry Reid and the White House stuffed it wholesale into the "fiscal cliff" bill.

Thus Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow was able to retain an accelerated tax write-off for owners of Nascar tracks (cost: $78 million) to benefit the paupers who control the Michigan International Speedway. New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman saved a tax credit for companies operating in American Samoa ($62 million), including a StarKist factory.

Distillers are able to drink to a $222 million rum tax rebate. Perhaps this will help to finance more of those fabulous Bacardi TV ads with all those beautiful rich people. Businesses located on Indian reservations will receive $222 million in accelerated depreciation. And there are breaks for railroads, "New York Liberty Zone" bonds and so much more.

But a special award goes to Chris Dodd, the former Senator who now roams Gucci Gulch lobbying for Hollywood's movie studios. The Senate summary of his tax victory is worth quoting in full: "The bill extends for two years, through 2013, the provision that allows film and television producers to expense the first $15 million of production costs incurred in the United States ($20 million if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas in the United States)."

You gotta love that "depressed areas" bit. The impoverished impresarios of Brentwood get an extra writeoff if they take their film crews into, say, deepest Flatbush. Is that because they have to pay extra to the caterers from Dean & DeLuca to make the trip? It sure can't be because they hire the jobless locals for the production crew. Those are union jobs, mate, and don't you forget it.

The Joint Tax Committee says this Hollywood special will cost the Treasury a mere $248 million over 10 years, but over fiscal years 2013 and 2014 the cost is really $430 million because it is supposed to expire at the end of this year. In reality Mr. Dodd will wrangle another extension next year, and the year after that, and . . . . Investing a couple million in Mr. Dodd in return for $430 million in tax breaks sure beats trying to make better movies.

Then there are the green-energy giveaways that are also quickly becoming entitlements. The wind production tax credit got another one-year reprieve, thanks to Mr. Obama and GOP Senators John Thune (South Dakota) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa). This freebie for the likes of the neediest at General Electric GE -1.12% and Siemens SIE.XE -0.19% —which benefit indirectly by making wind turbine gear—is now 20 years old. Cost to taxpayers: $12 billion.

Cellulosic biofuels—the great white whale of renewable energy—also had their tax credit continued, and the definition of what qualifies was expanded to include producers of "algae-based fuel" ($59 million.) Speaking of sludge, biodiesel and "renewable diesel" will continue receiving their $1 per gallon tax credit ($2.2 billion). The U.S. is experiencing a natural gas and oil drilling boom, but Congress still thinks algae and wind will power the future.

Meanwhile, consumers will get tax credits for buying plug-in motorcycles ($7 million), while the manufacturers of energy-efficient appliances ($650 million) and builders of energy-efficient homes ($154 million) also retain tax credits. Manufacturers like Whirlpool love these subsidies, and they are one reason that company paid no net taxes in recent years.

The great joke here is that Washington pretends to want to pass "comprehensive tax reform," even as each year it adds more tax giveaways that distort the tax code and keep tax rates higher than they have to be. Even as he praised the bill full of this stuff, Mr. Obama called Tuesday night for "further reforms to our tax code so that the wealthiest corporations and individuals can't take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans."

One of Mr. Obama's political gifts is that he can sound so plausible describing the opposite of his real intentions.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...8216583921471560.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The costs of all this are far greater than the estimates conjured by the Joint Tax Committee. They include slower economic growth from misallocated capital, lower revenues for the Treasury and thus more pressure to raise rates on everyone, and greater public cynicism that government mainly serves the powerful.
 
How much does Matt Damon get paid for his political offerings?


Now we know why all the stars were backing their guy!


The rich get richer! We pay more...
 
Plenty of people kissed Stalin's ring and hugged him before he shot them in the head. The average Russian thought the murders were good, mostly because Stalin told them that the dead were 1 percenters.

Its simply human nature to be stupid.
 
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