The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: 09/23/2012 - 09/30/2012

Saturday, September 29, 2012

21 Ways Obama Has Hiked Your Taxes



1. A 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco: On February 4, 2009, just 16 days into his administration, Obama signed into law a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, a hike of 61 cents per pack. The median income of smokers is just over $36,000 per year.

2. Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (takes effect in Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance — as defined by Obama-appointed HHS bureaucrats — must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following:


1 Adult 2 Adults 3+ Adults
2014 1% AGI/$95 1% AGI/$190 1% AGI/$285
2015 2% AGI/$325 2% AGI/$650 2% AGI/$975
2016+ 2.5% AGI/$695 2.5% AGI/$1390 2.5% AGI/$2085

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 317-337).

3. Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax (takes effect Jan. 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3,000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346.

Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years.

4. Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income (Tax hike of $123 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013): Creation of a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income: Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93


Capital Gains Dividends Other*
2011-2012 15% 15% 35%
2013+ (current law) 23.8% 43.4% 43.4%
2013+ (Obama budget) 23.8% 23.8% 43.4%


*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8 percent surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens.

5. Obamacare Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Tax hike of $32 billion/takes effect Jan. 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956

6. Obamacare Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Tax hike of $86.8 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013): Current law and changes:


First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/Employee
All Remaining Wages
Employer/Employee
Current Law 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
Obamacare Tax Hike 1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed
1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employed


Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2000-2003; 87-93

7. Obamacare Medicine Cabinet Tax (Tax hike of $5 billion/took effect Jan. 2011): Americans are no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957-1,959.

8. Obamacare HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Tax hike of $1.4 billion/took effect Jan. 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,959.

9. Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Cap – aka “Special Needs Kids Tax” (Tax hike of $13 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (currently unlimited). Indexed to inflation after 2013. There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389.

10. Obamacare Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Tax hike of $20 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013): Medical device manufacturers 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on total sales, even if the respective company does not earn a profit. Exempts items retailing for <$100. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986.

11. Obamacare "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of AGI (Tax hike of $15.2 billion /takes effect Jan. 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995

12. Obamacare Tax on Indoor Tanning Services (Tax hike of $2.7 billion/took effect July 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Making matters worse: According to a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report, the Obama IRS didn’t bother to issue compliance guidelines until three quarterly filing deadlines had passed: “By the time [IRS] notices were issued, tanning excise tax returns had been due for three quarters." Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399.

13. Obamacare elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D (Tax hike of $4.5 billion/takes effect Jan. 2013) Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994

14. Obamacare Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike (Tax hike of $0.4 billion /took effect Jan. 1 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004

15. Obamacare Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Min$/took effect immediately): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by Obama-appointed HHS bureaucrats. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971

16. Obamacare Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Tax hike of $22.2 billion\/took effect Jan. 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980.

17. Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers (Tax hike of $60.1 billion/takes effect Jan. 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. Phases in gradually until 2018. Fully imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993.

18. Obamacare $500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives (Tax hike of $0.6 billion/takes effect Jan 2013). Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,995-2,000.

19. Obamacare Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 ($min/takes effect Jan. 2012): Preamble to taxing health benefits on individual tax returns. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,957

20. Obamacare “Black liquor” tax hike (Tax hike of $23.6 billion/took effect immediately). This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105.

21. Obamacare Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Tax hike of $4.5 billion/took effect immediately). This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113.


Read more on Newsmax.com: Comprehensive List of Obama Tax Hikes

Friday, September 28, 2012

IOWANS START VOTING FOR PRESIDENT


Iowa became the first swing state to allow voters to cast ballots in person this week, a provision of state election law that the Obama campaign has seized upon. In the opening hours of voting on Thursday, supporters of the president dominated the line here in the state’s biggest city. They were easily identifiable by their blue Obama 2012 stickers that declared, “Be the First!”

 A steady stream of voters walked into election offices across the state to cast their ballots. They will be joined by voters in Ohio next week, along with 30 states where some type of voting is already under way.

In Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Nevada, both campaigns believe that as much as 70 percent of the ballots will be cast before Election Day. And in Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, advisers to both campaigns said at least 30 percent of people are expected to vote early.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office said Democrats had a 5-to-1 advantage over Republicans in the numbers of absentee ballots requested statewide. Republicans said the numbers would level out over the next 40 days.

“We are going to close that gap in Iowa,” said Rick Wiley, political director of the Republican National Committee. “Democrats in Iowa have a propensity to cannibalize their Election Day voters. What they’ve done is find people who would vote on Election Day anyway.”

 At the election office, as Nancy Bobo, 60 stood with other Obama supporters on the first day of early voting, she said she wondered where Mr. Romney’s supporters were.

“I don’t see them,” she said with a smile. “But we’re not taking anything for granted. We still have 40 days to go. You never know, things can change on a dime.”
 

But in the northwest corner of Iowa, more than 200 miles away in the town of Orange City, Gert Kooi, 76, was among those voting for Mr. Romney on Thursday.

“I voted today because we might not be here on Election Day, and my mind is long made up,” Ms. Kooi said in an interview. She added, “We just don’t care for Obama here.”
 

Tom Zawistowski, president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, a group affiliated with the Tea Party, sent a message to encourage members to consider voting early. He wrote:

 “I know we do not like absentee voting or early voting at all, but it is a key part of our election equation now and we need to understand how to use it to our advantage just like the other side does.” 


Read More Here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/with-start-of-early-voting-election-day-becomes-election-month/?hp





Thursday, September 27, 2012

Study: Bush Presidency More Successful Than Obama's

Newsmax reports that in 14 out of 16 areas, Bush was a more successful president than is Obama, according to a study conducted by the Alabama Policy Institute. Some of the side by side figures for the first terms of both presidents are startling:

Food stamp recipients numbered 19.2 million under Bush, but 39.5 million under Obama.

The national debt increased 28.6 percent under Bush, but 50.6 percent under Obama.

Health insurance cost an average family $8,000 under Bush, but $14,000 under Obama.

The national debt as a percentage of GDP was 61.6 percent under Bush but 98.7 percent under Obama.

440,000 net jobs were created under Bush, but 2,760,000 jobs were lost under Obama.

The average length of unemployment was 5.3 weeks under Bush, but 9.6 weeks under Obama.

Per capita income was $31,644 under Bush but $26,727 under Obama.

Obama was ahead in two areas over Bush. Obama has created 11,017 regulations compared to 13,615 for Bush. The S&P 500 has risen 74.3 percent under Obama but fell 32.6 percent under Bush.



The study by its nature does not delve into Bush's second-term record.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

WaPo Gives Obama 4 Pinnochios For Claim That Current Deficit Due To Bush's Policies


“Over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but 90 percent of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren’t paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren’t paid for, a prescription drug plan that was not paid for, and then the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now we took some emergency actions, but that accounts for about 10 percent of this increase in the deficit and we have actually seen the federal government grow at a slower pace than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower."

— President Obama, interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” recorded on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired on Sept. 23

There are a lot of numbers and assertions in these statements by the president. We will primarily focus on the first statement, since it raises interesting questions of presidential responsibility.

Let’s examine more closely Obama’s two key assertions during 60 Minutes — that only 10 percent of the current deficit comes from his policies and that the federal government has grown under his watch at a “a slower pace than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower.” Are those claims correct?

The Facts



In support of the first statement, the Obama campaign pointed us to a chart made by the Treasury Department.


This chart looks backward, to the reasons why the projected $5.6 trillion surplus from 2001 disappeared. It is based on these CBO data, which the Fact Checker column first brought to public view in early 2011. So we are quite familiar with it. This is how we broke down the numbers then in explaining the reasons for the disappearance of the surplus and the rise of monster deficits:

Increased spending (discretionary and mandatory): $4.3 trillion (36.5 percent)

Incorrect CBO estimates (economic/technical reasons): $3.3 trillion (28 percent)

Tax cuts: $2.8 trillion (24 percent)

Higher interest costs: $1.4 trillion (12 percent)

Obama, in his remarks, doesn’t really say he is talking about the disappearance of the surplus. In fact, he prefaces his statement with a misleading phrase — “over the last four years” — which suggests he is only talking about the period in which he was president.

Because of compounding, however, the Treasury Department chart overemphasizes the impact of the events that happened early in the process (such as the Bush tax cuts) and minimizes more recent events (such as Obama’s policies.)

Under this theory, one could go back to the Lyndon Johnson administration and blame him for a huge chunk of the deficit, since he signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. In other words, every “old” policy will almost by definition appear to contribute much more to current deficits than recent policies.

Using the same CBO data, former Bush administration official Charles Blahous portrayed it another way, which gives an entirely different picture. This chart, drawn from a much longer study by Blahous, tries to place the tax cuts into context. (He also does not break down the spending into categories, such as the wars.)
 
As can be seen above, CBO’s errors in forecasting played a large role in the demise of the projected surpluses. CBO had kept counting on a gusher of capital gains revenue — and then obviously failed to predict the recession of 2008.
But Obama’s policies also played a big role during his presidency. Using the CBO data for the years 2009-2011, here’s a very rough calculation of the contribution to the deficit. To keep things simple, we did not try to allocate interest expense, and we did not include categories of spending or taxes that were difficult to allocate.

The 2009 fiscal year is especially hard because that budget year is so much of an amalgam of Bush and Obama policies; we essentially split the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program between the two of them. Since this is not intended to be exact, but illustrative, we have rounded numbers and percentages:
2009:
Economic/technical differences: $570 billion (46 percent)
Bush policies: $330 billion (27 percent)
Obama policies: $325 billion (27 percent)
2010:
Economic/technical: $815 billion (51 percent)
Bush: $225 billion (14 percent)
Obama: $565 billion (35 percent)
2011:
Economic/technical: $720 billion (46 percent)
Bush: $160 billion (10 percent)
Obama: $685 billion (44 percent)

Obama claims that “we have actually seen the federal government grow at a slower pace than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower.” We regret to say that the president is repeating a widely debunked column that appeared on MarketWatch earlier this year. We devoted three columns to the column’s faulty logic, and FactCheck.org and the Associated Press also said it was bunk. (PolitiFact said it was “half true.”)

We are not trying to make excuses for the fiscal excesses of the Bush administration — and Congress — in the last decade. But at some point, a president has to take ownership of his own actions.

Obama pushed for spending increases and tax cuts that also have contributed in important ways to the nation’s fiscal deterioration. He certainly could argue that these were necessary and important steps to take, but he can’t blithely suggest that 90 percent of the current deficit “is as a consequence” of his predecessor’s policies — and not his own.

As for the citing of the discredited MarketWatch column, we have repeatedly urged the administration to rely on estimates from official government agencies, such as the White House budget office. It is astonishing to see the president repeat this faulty claim once again, as if it were an established fact.

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-claim-that-90-percent-of-the-current-deficit-is-due-to-bush-policies/2012/09/26/e9bfbcd0-077e-11e2-a10c-fa5a255a9258_blog.html

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Veterans Supporting Romney / Retreating from Obama

President Barack Obama is trying hard to win veterans, but it looks like they’d prefer a new commander in chief.

Recent polls make clear that the president’s campaign is losing the battle. Even as Obama leads in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, Mitt Romney is up by double digits among veterans in those states. Nationwide, he’s got a commanding 20-percentage-point lead over Obama and has even overtaken the president with younger veterans.

Even as Obama has been gaining in the overall polls, several NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls conducted from Sept. 9-11 had Romney well ahead of Obama among veterans in Florida, Ohio and Virginia. And in Colorado, a poll released Sept. 16 by SurveyUSA and the Denver Post found both veterans and military families supporting Romney over Obama 53 percent to 39 percent in a survey that included third-party candidates.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81616.html#ixzz27Url8lSd

Monday, September 24, 2012

UnSkewed Polls Have Romney Up By 3 -11 Percent



Rasmussen Reports has long been the most credible of polling agencies- the record speaks for itself. Part of this famed accuracy springs from the fact that as they are not a part of the liberal media establishment in this country, and also because Rasmussen extrapolates polling data from only those intending to vote in November... not merely 'registered voters' or 'adults' as so many others do, a technique that consistently distorts results to the political left.

Obviously, this means talking to only people likely to affect the upcoming election, producing accurate predictions that skewing MSM spinmeisters can never hope to match... because they're not even trying to do so.

So, now a new website has popped up that re-injects survey data from the major (biased) polls into the more-reality-bound Rasmussen model, and lo-and-behold Mitt Romney comes out as much as 11 points up in major nationwide polls:

UnSkewed Polling Data
Monday, September 24, 2012 4:59:25 PM
Poll Date Sample MoE Obama(D) Romney(R) Spread
UnSkewed Avg. 9/4 - 9/20 -- -- 44.0 51.8 Romney +7.8
Reason/Rupe 9/13 - 9/17 787 LV 4.3 45.0 52.0 Romney +7
Reuters/Ipsos 9/12 - 9/20 1437 LV 2.9 44.0 54.0 Romney +10
NBC News/WSJ 9/12 - 9/16 736 LV 3.6 44.0 51.0 Romney +7
Monmouth Univ. 9/13 - 9/16 1344 LV 2.5 45.0 50.0 Romney +5
QStarNews 9/10 - 9/15 2075 3.0 44.0 55.0 Romney +11
NY Times/CBS News 9/8 - 9/12 1162 LV 3.0 44.0 51.0 Romney +7
Democracy Corps 9/8 - 9/12 1000 LV 3.1 43.0 52.0 Romney +8
Fox News 9/9 - 9/11 1056 LV 3.0 45.0 48.0 Romney +3
Wash. Post/ABC News 9/7 - 9/9 826 LV 4.0 45.0 52.0 Romney +7
CNN/ORC 9/7 - 9/9 875 RV 3.5 45.0 53.0 Romney +8
IBD/CSM/TIPP 9/4 - 9/9 808 RV 3.5 41.0 50.0 Romney +9
ARG 9/4 - 9/6 1200 LV 3.0 43.0 53.0 Romney +10