Michael Ramirez
The power to tax is the power to destroy and ObamaCrats need to tear down America to rebuild it in their image. Hence:
The U.S. Senate recently released its long-awaited proposal for a government-run hostile takeover of the entire U.S. health care system. Predictably, it includes a barrage of higher taxes to pay for the bill’s immense price tag. [...]All these increases, combined with state and local income taxes, would raise the average top marginal rate in the U.S. to over 52 percent. This would be higher than traditionally high-tax countries such as Italy, Spain, and even France. [...]
Below is a list of the tax increases Congress and the Administration have proposed to finance health care reform. This list includes taxes in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the bill the Senate is currently debating, and other taxes mentioned as a possible way to pay for health care reform.
•An income surtax on taxpayers earning more than $500,000 a year,[1]
•An excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance plans that cost more than $8,500 a year for individuals or $21,000 for families,[2]
•An excise tax on medical devices such as wheelchairs, breast pumps, and syringes used by diabetics for insulin injections,[3]
•A cap on the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance without offsetting tax cuts,[4]
•A limit on itemized deductions for taxpayers with a top income tax rate greater than 28 percent,[5]
•A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,[6]
•A value-added tax, which would tax the value added to a product at each stage of production,[7]
•An increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax to 3.4 percent for incomes great than $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married filers),[8]
•An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,[9]
•Higher taxes on alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits,[10]
•A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage of up to 2.5 percent of their adjusted gross income,[11]
•A limit on contributions to health savings accounts,[12]
•An 8 percent tax on all wages paid by employers that do not provide their employees health insurance that satisfies the requirements defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,[13]
•A limit on contributions to flexible spending arrangements,[14]
•Elimination of the deduction for expenses associated with Medicare Part D subsidies,[15]
•An increase in taxes on international businesses,[16]
•Elimination of the tax credits paper companies take for biofuels they create in their production process–the so-called “Black Liquor credit,”[17]
•Fees on insured and self-insured health plans,[18]
•A limit or repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses,[19]
•A limit on the Qualified Medical Expense definition,[20]
•An increase in the payroll taxes on students,[21]
•An extension of the Medicare payroll tax to all state and local government employees,[22]
•An increase in taxes on hospitals,[23]
•An increase in the estate tax,[24]
•Increased efforts to close the mythical “tax gap,”[25]
•A 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures such as Botox treatments, tummy tucks, and face lifts,[26]
•A tax on drug companies,[27]
•An increase in the corporate tax on providers of health insurance,[28] and
•A $500,000 deduction limitation for the compensation paid by health insurance companies to their officers, employees, and directors.[29]
On top of our income tax, surtaxes and fees, note above (bolded) a VAT tax, a marriage penalty and increasing the death tax.
This is not stupidity, this is the kind of maliciousness borne of a radical commitment to an un-American ideology that sees Liberty as a problem to be crushed on the way to Utopia.
Comment by Joe on 11/21 @ 9:11 am #
I think it was SBP who suggested the title “Dr. Utopia”
Beware of those who think they know what is best for you…
Comment by Salt Lick on 11/21 @ 9:31 am #
Crap, Darleen, that’s a long list. Snowcone’s gonna be at HuffPo all morning before he memorizes a response.
Comment by SBP on 11/21 @ 9:43 am #
“Doctor Utopia” is actually due to the guys at HillBuzz, or at least that’s where I first saw it.
Comment by newrouter on 11/21 @ 9:52 am #
“WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) — Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Sunday the U.S. economy was “fragile” and he would press for middle-class tax cuts if elected.”
Comment by Darleen on 11/21 @ 9:55 am #
Obama and ilk are not so stupid that they cannot realize that the American economy will never fully recover with huge portions nationalized, a permanent unemployment rate of at least 7% and confiscatory taxes.
They’re about consolidating power and running the media line of how secure from greedy, running-dog capitalists every one will be.
Comment by Salt Lick on 11/21 @ 9:55 am #
You know this is a powergrab when even David Broder says it’s not really reform, but a new, huge, budget-busting entitlement.
Comment by geoffb on 11/21 @ 9:56 am #
I didn’t know that they were exempt from this. I expect this to be one of the negotiation throwaways.
At one time our political class talked of things like “the missile gap”, it shows where they now see their priorities and enemies.
Because taxing something has always made it more affordable and increased the supply and quality, every time, everywhere, forever and ever, right?
Comment by SarahW on 11/21 @ 10:02 am #
That came out of the US senate. The United States. I can’t believe my own eyes.
Comment by Carin on 11/21 @ 10:04 am #
Fuck Harry Reid.
Comment by Carin on 11/21 @ 10:05 am #
And still Pandagon has no comment about the boobies. Or PAPs.
Comment by newrouter on 11/21 @ 10:07 am #
“•A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,[6]”
because a 3% profit margin is just too much
here
Comment by Carin on 11/21 @ 10:07 am #
But, you know they are feminists, because they can’t go a day w/o mentioning abortion or rape. And that Palin’s a cunt.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/21 @ 10:12 am #
I still don’t see why Tax Day isn’t also Election Day. Who do they arrest first when nobody files their taxes? The beautiful idea is for everyone to change their exemptions so that no taxes are withheld. Then on tax day, pull the trigger.
Comment by geoffb on 11/21 @ 10:25 am #
Except that if you owe more than a certain amount, $1000 I believe at the Federal level, $500 at my State level, they start penalizing you for having too little withheld. That $13 per week of “Obama money” that comes from the change in withholding will have a similar effect. April 15th will be a surprise to many this time around.
Comment by William Teach on 11/21 @ 10:26 am #
An interesting point to make, how will the government consider the cost? Companies are switching employees to health savings account type plans because the old style cost the company anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 a year (companies, from small to mega-large, want to be in the $6,000 range.) Will this monstrosity of a bill nail the company, or the employee, for the tax?
Comment by J."Trashman" Peden on 11/21 @ 10:26 am #
Buy weapons.
Comment by John Bibb on 11/21 @ 10:30 am #
***
And the cuts in Medicare payments to doctors and labs will result in many more of them refusing to accept old retired guys like me who now depend on this Ponzi Scheme. After 40 years of taking my money by tax power force to pay for these systems. And what is the answer to fixing Social Security and Medicare / Medicaid? Set up some more Ponzi Schemes! Steal the money from the earlier Ponzi Schemes!
***
Rocketman
***
Comment by Darleen on 11/21 @ 10:38 am #
Companies are switching employees to health savings account
Not for long… Congress and Barry want to close that loophole of you actually being in charge of any of your own money — they are cutting (and will eventually ban) HSAs and FSAs.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 10:41 am #
My Mom sent me this little funny but true short story:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.
Comment by Darleen on 11/21 @ 10:57 am #
ghost707
have you read Atlas Shrugged?
One of the stories in it is why the banker “Midas” Mulligan quits. His bank refuses a loan to a person who has nothing but a record of business failures and the person sues Mulligan for discriminating against him because he needs the money…and that person wins.
Comment by geoffb on 11/21 @ 11:08 am #
#19,
That’s so Detroit.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 11:12 am #
Darleen,
To this day I still have not read Atlas Shrugged, although I have gleaned the meaning and direction of the book from multiple comments over the years referring to it; common sense being the order of the day. The left are running away from common sense and sprinting towards soft tyranny.
Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, the CRA, HUD, HHS, IRS, BIG GOVERNMENT in collusion with BIG WALL STREET, freaking cancers that are killing the country.
If the citizens thought our sorry version of rigged capitalism was bad, wait until they get a load of rigged socialism.
Comment by Kresh on 11/21 @ 11:13 am #
Well, it’s not like this shows anything but their malice for free markets and responsible adults.
That’s a whole lot of punishment for being successful right there. Good to know they hate everyone.
So, where is the reform of the medical system again? Just asking ’cause it looks more like a reform of the “Successful American” system. As in “Ain’t No Such Thing.”
Is it too early in the morning to start drinking?
Comment by Darleen on 11/21 @ 11:15 am #
Carin
argh… I had to go look at Pandagonitwitts and Mandy is still flaying the “conservatives hate female sexuality” meme – weirdly she has a pic of Palin and Oprah as an illustration. Mandy hates Palin but if anyone looks perfectly happy with sex and sexuality it is Sarah, next to marriageless and childless Oprah.
Comment by Cranky-d & Associates on 11/21 @ 11:27 am #
What pisses of the feministas is that conservatives advocate saving sexuality for committed partnerships, not just as something to do when you’re bored or as a way of saying “hello” to a stranger you just met. They’re also pissed because these conservative women seem so darned happy, when they are most likely miserable people.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 11:42 am #
With regards to Palin, not sure if it was Laura Ingrham, Mary Katherine Ham or someone else who I think hit the nail on the head; the feminist left are in such a deranged state because it should be a lefty pro choice woman that should be having all the star power and huge groups of people in lines waiting for a signed book.
How can this conservative woman outshine us smart smart lefty elites!? We elected a clean, articulate black man to the White House for Gaia’s sake! How can she steal our thunder!?
Comment by William Teach on 11/21 @ 11:53 am #
Excellent point. Which leaves companies in a position of either keeping the expensive old style plans, or dumping health insurance offerings altogether, and telling their employees to have fun in the exchange. Anyhow, it is cheaper for companies to pay the fines then provide health insurance. It’s all about single payer.
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 11:57 am #
I still can’t help but wonder that the Democrats don’t realize that they are writing their own political obituaries. Simple prudential thinking is all it takes, nothing special really.
Comment by SDN on 11/21 @ 12:23 pm #
sdferr, it makes perfect sense if you factor in the fact that between ACORN and amnesty there will be no more honest elections. Ever. 2008 proved that even if you catch the winning candidate in massive donor fraud (Obama) the FEC won’t investigate, no one will prosecute, “because that would disrupt the system.”
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 12:29 pm #
See, I don’t believe that SDN. I could be wrong of course and you right. But for now, I think Americans won’t stand still for the sort of tyranny you’re positing. I just don’t.
Comment by geoffb on 11/21 @ 12:31 pm #
The nub of the conundrum. They must believe either that they are not doing so, or that they are on a holy suicide mission from “god”, or there is something they fear more than their political death.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/21 @ 12:44 pm #
Oprah’s not a bad person except for the wanton and cheap dirty socialist whore part. This is why she’s heading to California I think. To be with her own kind more better.
Comment by Hvy Mtl Hntr on 11/21 @ 12:45 pm #
Democrats don’t realize that they are writing their own political obituaries.
They don’t care if they get voted out- they’ll be rewarded with a job-for-life somewhere in this bureaucratic monster- a la Tom Daschle.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/21 @ 12:45 pm #
Billionaires what want to tax tax tax the mother-loving shit out of their white trash tv audience are kind of evil I think.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/21 @ 12:46 pm #
So I guess I misspoke at #32 there.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 12:48 pm #
See, I don’t believe that SDN. I could be wrong of course and you right. But for now, I think Americans won’t stand still for the sort of tyranny you’re positing. I just don’t.
You have no idea how much I am hoping you are right about this.
Comment by newrouter on 11/21 @ 12:53 pm #
•An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,[9]
since most soft drinks use high-fructose corn syrup what the point other than a subsidy for adm
Comment by JHo on 11/21 @ 1:12 pm #
Al Franken is currently on CSpan2. Al Franken may be a strange man, but he makes up for it by lying profusely.
Comment by JHo on 11/21 @ 1:13 pm #
“Less expensive…and better coverage.” That Al Franken.
Comment by JHo on 11/21 @ 1:15 pm #
“To spread the risk over the greatest number of people”…because, you know, insurance policies can’t possibly do that.
That Al Franken.
Maybe Minnesota is populated by unprincipled collectivists. Kinda like the US.
Comment by Hvy Mtl Hntr on 11/21 @ 1:19 pm #
“Less expensive…and better coverage.”
Meanwhile…. ignore these giant ovens we’re warming up.
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 1:20 pm #
JHo, ESPN.360 is carrying the Gators-FIU game online (35-3 at half), much better on the blood pressure.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 1:23 pm #
“Look at all those ballots we found in the trunk of this car – and they are all votes for Al Franken!”
You mean that Al Franken, JHo?
Comment by newrouter on 11/21 @ 1:28 pm #
“Meanwhile…. ignore these giant ovens we’re warming up.”
hope they have the proper carbon credits
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 1:35 pm #
Reid just got the votes to move deathcare forward to a debate.
Comment by Carin on 11/21 @ 1:36 pm #
ALREADY? What’s going on Ghost.
Comment by geoffb on 11/21 @ 1:39 pm #
Drew at Ace of Spades says it’s a done deal as long as they can wheel Byrd in somehow. Lincoln looks likely to vote yes.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 1:42 pm #
Just reported on Fox, looks like the next procedural vote is going to be this evening – not sure where this will put it, but the socialists HAVE to get this passed, even if they have to start shooting people on the steps of the Capitol building.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/21 @ 1:47 pm #
I am thinking the stock market may be crashing on Monday.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/21 @ 1:55 pm #
diet soda is so good for you everyone should drink the diet soda congress is wise
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/21 @ 2:26 pm #
See, I don’t believe that SDN. I could be wrong of course and you right. But for now, I think Americans won’t stand still for the sort of tyranny you’re positing. I just don’t.
I think you’re optimistic, sdferr. Bill Clinton was right about this: It’s more dangerous for Democrats to not pass this now than pass it. They might take a short-term hit, but the long-term effects will essentially turn today’s Republicans into today’s Democrats and free up the Left wing of the DNC to even more lunacy. Once passed, Stalinized health care will quickly develop a dependent constituecy that cannot and will not be defied. And, as my namesake once observed, dependency breeds subservience. We will all be serfs to the Central State. Count on it.
Comment by Hvy Mtl Hntr on 11/21 @ 2:26 pm #
The Senate has just informed me: I now exist only to serve Teh One.
Comment by newrouter on 11/21 @ 2:35 pm #
i dunno they start taxing right away but the program doesn’t start until 2013. so 2010 and 2012 are important years in the cause of liberty
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 2:42 pm #
Jeez, Jeffersonian, you’ve just replaced the scenario I responded to — “no more honest elections. Ever.” — with another entirely. And told me I’m wrong or too optomistic about something I hadn’t imagined I’d be held to. Though maybe, as I said to SDN, he’s right and I’m wrong: maybe so too with your grim vision of the future things will turn further toward the soft tyranny posited by de Tocqueville? Who knows? But someone will find out eventually.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/21 @ 2:59 pm #
We’ll find out within our lifetimes, I’m sure (I just turned 50). For evidence, just look at the Republicans out there deploring any potential cuts to Medicare with the ferociousness of a rabid animal. It reminds one ob the Mencken bon mot that if a politician found himself with a significant constituency of cannibals, he’d be promising them fattened missionaries.
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 3:04 pm #
Bob Higgs makes one hell of a strong ratchet and pawl theory of government argument, I’ll readily grant. There’s a tidal wave of evidence already accumulated to that effect. However, the arrow of time points that-a-way and so far as I know, no one has succeeded in predicting the acts of men in detail. Things may change for the better as well as the worse.
Comment by jgreene on 11/21 @ 3:15 pm #
Do the Incompetent CRIMINALS in the Democrat Congress and Obama Administration believe that the American people will NOT at some point DRAG THEM kicking and screaming down the steps of the Capitol Building and HANG THEM from the street lamps?
When Incompetent Criminal Politiskunks are INTENTIONALLY ignoring our Declaration of Independence and Constitution it is the RIGHT of the People to again REVOLT against these stinking TYRANTS and REMOVE THEM.. if not politically in 2010 and 2012 then in an insurrection and NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION that sweeps across the country and does whatever is necessary to return to Constitutional Government.
Read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, assholes (Marxist/Socialist Politiskunks). These documents are the only justification the American People need to ultimately remove your sorry criminal asses from political power.
Comment by cranky-d on 11/21 @ 3:16 pm #
One big problem I have with medicare is that you HAVE to take it if you collect social security. You have NO CHOICE. If the government is going to force people into something like that they have an obligation to make sure it actually covers people. And Medicare is already not paying enough out, and the privately insured help to pay for other’s coverage. So I would look at any Medicare cuts with a jaundiced eye.
Now, if you want to start phasing it out, and put in a cutoff somewhere so that no one who is younger than X will get it, fine. But that’s different (and is not going to happen).
Comment by Mikey NTH on 11/21 @ 3:18 pm #
The aristocracy will have their serfs.
Comment by sdferr on 11/21 @ 3:20 pm #
Mr. jgreene, have you noticed that when you read the voluminous writings of the men of the revolution, the men who read deeply in political philosophy and thought long and hard about it, the men who then fashioned the very instruments of government you so delight in, that their rhetoric sounds just as your does? It’s uncanny, really.
Comment by SporkLift Driver on 11/21 @ 10:20 pm #
I think you’re all too optimistic about the American people. Yes everyone will realize their health care sucks. But everyone will think it’s “fair” also “free”. Also everyone will be afraid of losing what they have because even lousy coverage that costs more than you can afford and won’t be there when you need it is more important than such trivialities as food, water and shelter.
True story I know a guy that’s never been ill in his life, hasn’t been to a doctor since he got his last immunization as a kid, hasn’t missed a day of work in 25 years. Everyone in his family going back 4 or 5 generations is or was quite healthy though many died young – a fall, a fire, a murder, a couple in combat, a cop shot by a criminal and a few car accidents. None of them lived until the paramedics etc arrived. You wanna guess what his number one worry that he obsesses about constantly is? There’s nothing unusual about him as far as I can see, he’s just like everyone else in this country.
Until you can get Americans to see health care as being only slightly more important than such luxuries as food, water and shelter there is no hope of getting people to fight back and say no to the insanity of pouring everything we have into the health care black hole.
Comment by SporkLift Driver on 11/21 @ 10:29 pm #
Whoa that’s a hella V**gra ad below the comments. Looks like more than a hundred lines with the word appearing about 10 times each and maybe three links per line.