The lie continues

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. Treasury on Saturday to implement tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans, fulfilling a campaign pledge he hopes will help jolt the economy out of recession.

The tax cuts are part of a $787 billion economic recovery plan passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress over Republican opposition. The aim is to put more money in the pockets of Americans and stimulate the economy by increasing consumer spending.

"I'm pleased to announce that this morning the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks, meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month," Obama said in his weekly radio address.

"Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hard-working Americans," he said.

I guess someone needs to explain basic math to Barack Obama. He clearly doesn't get it.

This is taking something that already was going to be yours and giving it to you under the pretense of doing you a favor. It's a con, pure and simple.

It's NOT a tax cut.

When President Bush instituted tax rebates, the government simply gave back, in the form of one-time payments, money that middle- and lower-class people had already paid. This isn't even that.

When Bush gave tax CUTS, he eliminated, for example, the marriage penalty tax. Whereas married couples previously had only been able to claim one $2,100 exemption, Bush changed that rule and allowed two. That meant an additional $2,100 reduction in the amount you were taxed. He also raised the exemption amount.

What Obama is doing is reducing by $13 per week (or whatever amount it ends up being) your withholding. That's great. That's an extra $13 per week you can spend now. But at the end of the year when you do your taxes, that will be $13 per week LESS that you'll get as a refund. And for those on the bubble or those paying the IRS, you'll pay $13 per week more. Or $676.

We've heard now for several years Democrats demonizing "predatory lenders" for sucking supposedly unwitting people into adjustable rate mortgages, giving them what seemed like a great deal now but something that after a certain amount of time would bite them in the butt.

This is no different. They're not telling anyone that by doing this, they're going to owe more later.

If Democrats truly were interested in helping the middle class and upper lower class (those who actually pay taxes), they'd reduce the rate at which our earnings are taxed from 25 percent to 15 percent, as a number of Republicans have suggested. That, coupled with a withholdings decrease, would put more money (that's already OURS, by the way) back in our pockets now AND later. And that would truly be stimulative.

But Democrats have never been about tax cuts. And they're lying through their teeth telling you that's what this is.

(Imported from Feb. 21, 2009)