I get the feeling it mightn’t be for Obama. On ACORN:
But the organization’s real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn’s American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an “affordable housing” provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.
All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.
On Obama’s “tax cuts” for 95% of the American electorate:
Moreover, the tax credits would mostly go to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. His trick is to make the tax credits “refundable.” Thus, if the tax credit is for $1,000, but the taxpayer would otherwise only pay $200 in taxes, the government would write a check to the taxpayer for $800. If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would pay him the whole $1,000.
Such credits are not tax cuts. Indeed, they should be called The New Tax Welfare. In effect, Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand a slew of government spending programs that are disguised as tax credits. The spending on these programs is then subtracted from the total tax burden, in order to make the claim that his tax plan is a net tax cut overall.
I call the plan Illiquid Plumber.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 10/14 @ 8:40 am #
Is there anyway either of these two can be implied to be racist?
Comment by cranky-d on 10/14 @ 8:45 am #
Criticizing any of the O’s policies is racist on its face. Racist!
Comment by Dan Collins on 10/14 @ 8:46 am #
Facist!!!
Comment by Mr. Pink on 10/14 @ 8:50 am #
Can anyone tell me offhand how this would affect my salary of 50 grand?
Comment by Dan Collins on 10/14 @ 8:52 am #
How much do you pay in Federal Income Tax, Mr. Pink?
Comment by cranky-d on 10/14 @ 8:52 am #
Seriously, though, when a candidate can lie with such audacity, and most of the media won’t call him on it, is there really much you can do about it? Magic plans are easy to describe, especially if the truth of them is obfuscated, but debunking such plans usually requires some diagrams and shit and people are often too lazy to sit through that kind of thing. I guess the only response can be, “How can you give a tax cut to 95% of Americans when only about 60% pay Federal taxes?” but that’s a question, not a statement, so it lacks force.
I despair.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 10/14 @ 8:58 am #
Do not know offhand. I claim 0 on my form so they take out quite a big chunk altogether. Like 1/3rd of my paycheck.
I could round my salary pretax every two weeks to around a 1900.
Comment by Clint on 10/14 @ 10:18 am #
Mr. Pink - get thee to a W-4 form, stat! That 0 just gives the government an interest free loan. Better to take home more, put some in a high-interest account and deal with paying taxes after the interest has accrued (then use the difference to take a vacation).
Comment by psycho... on 10/14 @ 10:29 am #
Looks like it’s Why I’m Not A Republican Day today. Fun.
Yeah that doesn’t count.
“Well, the law…”
Yes. Funny that.
It’s very important for the anti-free market, WSJ type of Republicans — and the government — to pretend that payroll taxes aren’t taxes, and that non-wage income isn’t income. Why?
Well.
If they don’t pretend like that, conservatives find themselves, as Milton Friedman did, obligated in principle to support something rather like this Obama deal here — or the abolition of the income tax, or a great increase in the “capital gains” tax.
But they’re not for these things. And their motives appear to be approximately as bad as any Obama mouthpiece would say they are.
“But the law…”
The tax code is a tool for social engineering, right? Republicans? You know this, say this, believe this. So–
Why has the tax code engineered you — those of you who aren’t knowingly dissembling, capitalizing “Federal Income Tax” and such — to think and talk like it, uncritically? Why are you this kind of engineerable?
Doesn’t look good.
Comment by Silver Whistle on 10/14 @ 10:30 am #
If the taxpayer pays nothing in federal income taxes, the government would pay him the whole $1,000.
Isn’t this what we, in simpler, gentler times, called “a bribe”?