The sad truth about the goings on in Washington over the fiscal cliff is that everything everybody has told you is a big lie. Every network, every pundit, every government official – they are all obfuscating the truth and in a very big way.
Mr. Obama’s “solution” is not a $60 billion tax on people earning over $400,000. If anything it’s a tax on people earning over $250,000 because it puts a cap on allowable deductions on everybody earning over that amount.
Overall, you must look at this in the context of Obamacare, which increased taxes on dividend income to 40%. This bill caps them at 20%. Since most of the income for top income brackets is from investment income, this represents a massive tax cut.
Now you have to consider that this is a net loss in revenues to Obamacare. This will have to be made up out of the general treasury. Obama loves to count things twice, especially when what you’re counting is actually a cost and not a savings to the taxpayers.
This is another one of those laws like Obamacare. Originally everybody said it would save $1 trillion over ten years. Six months later the general consensus was that it would cost $1 trillion over ten years. The cost is rising every day.
In this instance, Obamacare has already increased taxes on the wealthy more than this new bill proposed by the Democrats, and the net effect of this is to lower their taxes.
Fox News reports the deal includes $60 billion in tax hikes (which is debunked above) and $15 billion in savings.
The devil is in the details. Extending the alternative minimum tax costs $100 billion a year; extending the doc fix $10 billion; extending jobless benefits $30 billion – then you add $60 billion in lower taxes to the wealthy and this bill is a net increase of $200 billion, or a $2 trillion “stimulus” plan.
That’s Washington for you.
