[Toshi]

this is a thread in which to discuss obama's budget proposal.

the whitehouse.gov page on the budget proposal: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/ , from which the full text is available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/A_New_Era_of_Responsibility2.pdf

a nytimes video with some shallow analysis: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/26/us/politics/1194838192133/president-obama-releases-budget.html

the effect on a hypothetical NY family (ie, no penalty even at a household income of $300k)

 

[Toshi]

my take is that it's about time that someone let loose that the emperor has no clothes on, and obama is the only one so far who has had the courage to put forth a plan that addresses the key issues that cloud the u.s.'s future:

to pay for already promised entitlements taxes must be raised.
health care costs must be reigned in. see http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9911/02-25_HealthIns.htm for a discussion.

oh, and before anyone whines about "redistribution", have a look at the income distribution of the u.s. over time. are things getting more concentrated at the top? are things getting better for the middle class? who exactly did bush's economic policies help?

 

[Toshi]

with regard to taxes vs. income, two data points:

may 1, 2008 freakonomics blog post: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/taxes-warren-buffett-and-paying-my-fair-share/

Do the well-off pay their fair share, or do they also deserve a tax break?

Well, let’s start with the ultra-rich. Bajillionaire Warren Buffett has argued that he isn’t being asked to pay his share. He went around his office, asking people what share of their income they pay in income taxes. Buffett’s 17.7 percent tax rate compared a bit too favorably with the 30 percent tax rate paid by his secretary.

So it appears that the tax system favors the super-rich over working stiffs.

And Buffett went a step further, putting his money where his mouth is. Last November he issued a challenge to his fellow billionaires:

I’ll bet a million dollars against any member of the Forbes 400 who challenges me that the average (federal tax rate including income and payroll taxes) for the Forbes 400 will be less than the average of their receptionists.

So far, no-one has taken him up on this bet.

for those who perhaps are more dependent on actual earnings from a salaried job (vs. capital gains) in the less-stratospheric income range here are the CBO's figures: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/98xx/doc9884/12-23-EffectiveTaxRates_Letter.pdf

 

[dante]

I'm in favor of it since it puts everything on the table, and at the very least makes a lot of very, very good points. No more funding of wars off-balance sheet, cutting back on farm subsidies for farms making more than $500k/year profit, and taxing hedge-fund managers income as income, not as capital gains... I'm disappointed to see military spending *still* going up higher than inflation, but at least it's not going up as fast as under GWB.

I'm just floored that the Republicans are trying desperately to regain the mantle of "fiscal responsibility" when they completely failed to do ANYTHING the last 8 years. Ok, it's fine at CPAC to decry GWB as not a "real conservative", but there were a whole lot of congressional Republicans who either supported his tax-cut and spend policies, or promoted their own.