I had several blog topics in mind, but after hearing a report of Biden’s spending plans (as well as how he seeks to impoverish us), I had to get this out there.
Biden Plans to “Soak the Rich”
His latest tax plans in his annual budget request are pitched to “soak the rich,” but apparently, he and his minions flunked economics. Raising the top personal income tax rate to $39.6% further impacts farmers and other small businesses and leads to greater unemployment. These are mostly the people who keep the economy running, already paying significant taxes. Except for those who have loads of tax dodges to employ or who fail to file (like many government workers).
Biden also wants to increase the Obamacare tax from 3.8% to 5% for those earning $400,000+ because this ill-considered plan has only raised costs for many and not really improved anything at all.
But even Janet Yellen says that the 86,000 new IRS employees will be focused on people reporting less than $400,000, which means harassing poor and middle class taxpayers who mostly don’t cheat AND can’t afford a tax attorney. The gain, if any, would be small but the cost in time and money to taxpayers is large. In reality, he plans to soak everyone but himself and his favored Dems.
For those who’ve worked hard to earn more than $1MM a year, he wants to raise capital gains from 20% to 39.6%. Keep in mind that capital gains only come from people taking the serious risk of investing in companies. If no one invests money, we lose our innovation edge. If companies can’t get investors to buy their stock, we will find that, in the future, there will be no new iPhones, home automation, security enhancements, all of which grow our economy, create jobs and make everyone more prosperous.
Biden seeks to quadruple the 1% levy on corporate stock buybacks that was added to the tax code last year by Democrats as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The proposal would increase the tax from 1% to 4%, which would discourage companies from using stock repurchases and dividends to help their businesses grow.
He also wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, rolling back a key part of Trump's tax law. The measure also calls to increase taxes U.S. companies owe on their foreign earnings to 21% – nearly double the current 10.5% rate.
He also would love to tax unrealized gains. In case you don’t understand the concept, here is an example. Joe Smith bought Apple stock at $400 a share. At the end of the year, the value has risen to $800. He would now owe taxes as a result of those phantom gains, even as he doesn’t have $400 more per share in his pocket. When the stock goes down in price, he doesn’t get any money back.
Who would invest in those circumstances? Taxation of unrealized gains is a tax dead-end. As mentioned, we invest in the stock market in the hopes of making some money. If we have to pay for virtual gains—money we never received—who would take the risk?
Other People’s Money
Having so many secret, untaxable sources of income has allowed the Bidens to live very well. He probably has no idea what inflation has done to people. But he’s happy to spend wildly and then claim to solve his spending problem by overtaxing hard-working Americans. Biden is thrilled to spend more money we don’t have, (the money we have to borrow), on unpopular ideas such as showering illegals with largesse we don’t even offer our own poor.
We probably have no choice but to help Ukraine because of the message our failure sends to Putin and Xi. But we can easily cut in many other areas. The Republicans must hold out on increasing the debt limit until cost-cutting is locked in stone. At one point in the not-too-distant past, we had an across-the-board spending cut. It’s time for another one, as soon as possible.
Write or call your Senators and Congressmen to vote against Biden’s budget and on raising the debt ceiling unless he agrees to pretty serious cuts. And cuts in the budget need to be concurrent with the debt ceiling increase, not planned off in the future. We’ve seen Democrats play this game too often. Call them even if you know they agree with Biden; numbers matter to them and if enough people call, we can make a difference. And get your friends and family to call too. Remind them that this budget plan may not only impact their ability to retire; it will definitely impact their children and grandchildren.
STOP THE STEAL!
“Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” - Sen. Eric Schmitt, MO
Totally agree. Nothing but negative results can come from this.