Obama-GOP deal raises taxes on poorest earners

[Ruperto31]

Source: Raw Story

Quarter of tax savings will go to richest one percent

The plan to extend Bush-era tax cuts that President Barack Obama struck with the Senate Republican leadership will result in lower taxes for wealthy and middle-class Americans but will mean a tax hike for the very poorest earners.

According to an analysis in the New York Times, the Obama-GOP deal will mean that individuals earning less than $20,000 and families earning less than $40,000 will see a small tax hike.

"It will come to a few dollars a week," Roberton Williams, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center told the Times. "But it is an increase."

As part of the deal, Obama agreed to drop the Making Work Pay credit that was created as part of the stimulus package, and replace it with a lower payroll tax. That lost credit -- of $400 or $800 -- is greater than the amount low-income earners will save from the lower payroll tax, meaning, in total, they will pay more.

Of the estimated $900 billion in new and continued tax breaks in the deal, about one-quarter -- $225 billion -- is expected to go to the top one percent of earners.



Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/deal-raises-taxes-poorest-earners/

[laconicsax]

1. This deal just keeps getting better and better.

I should write the President and thank him for trying to raise my taxes in order to give the Koch brothers a continued tax break.

[Ruperto31]

3. Well, we can't have them living in a tent, now can we?

Same for the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the DuPonts, the Mellons and the Pews. Gotta keep up appearances.

[laconicsax]

8. Certainly not!

Such talk is un-American. Those people worked hard to inherit their fortunes.

[somone]

2. Meanwhile: House Republicans blocked legislation on school meals for thousands more hungry children

[laconicsax]

4. And legislation to help seniors on social security.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/08/retirement/social_security_payment/index.htm

Apparently $14 billion is way to much money to spend on giving seniors a one-time check to compensate for another year with no COLA.

[phasma ex machina]

5. Forget taxes, inflation continuously steals purchasing power from the poor.

The powers-that-be conveniently leave fuel and food out of their official inflation number. The poor spend a far greater percentage of their meager income on fuel and food.

[defendandprotect]

6. How does Obama sleep at night?

[laconicsax]

9. Quite comfortably, I suspect. n/t

[jeanpalmer]

28. Because he has bought into

the supply-side free-market trickle-down ideology. He would not understand why anyone would be upset. He's living in a world of Reaganomics and is surrounded by like-minded people. They truly don't grasp it.

[Amonester]

7. .

.

[aquart]

10. Sunset.

[JDPriestly]

11. This is the ultimate double-cross. I thought Obama's past deals were bad.

But this one tops them all. What horror will be next.

[phleshdef]

13. A tax credit that expires with or without this bill is the "utlimate double cross"?

God damn DU is turning into a bunch of low information tea baggers. This is a tax credit that never would have existed without Obama and its not a very significant one at that.

[JDPriestly]

22. Which tax credit are you talking about -- the one for low-income

folks? That is a good idea. But if we have to continue a gigantic tax giveaway for the rich in order to get it, it is simply not worth the trade. That's like trading marbles for gold.

If a tax cut must be, it should be a cut for businesses that actually hire or continue to employ Americans (including legal immigrants) in America. There should be no cut for people who make their money hiring people outside America.

[phleshdef]

12. How many times does this pathetic spin have to be posted here?

The Making Work Pay credit expires WITH or WITHOUT this bill. No bill at all will means expiration of a lot tax relief for ALL middle class and lower middle class tax payers. Raising hell over a few bucks a week makes one look incredibly desperate.

[bigtree]

14. maddening

latching onto anything . . .

[lamp_shade]

15. ... without even a second rational thought.

[WinkyDink]

19. Why don't you read Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" and get back to us on these "few bucks a week."

[sendero]

21. The tax cuts for the rich...

.. expire without this bill. What is your fucking point?

[readmoreoften]

24. When you make $200 a week, $5 a week is 2.5% of your salary.

That's the equivalent of $25K a year for a millionaire, except for the poor it means bus fare, not three less trips to Spain.
That's the equivalent of $250K a year for someone who makes 10 million a year, except it means having coffee for the week or not, instead of buying that third boat.
That's the equivalent of $2.5 million a year for someone who makes 100 million a year, except it means not going hungry during lunch hour, instead of buying your fifth oceanfront mansion at a discount.

[WinkyDink]

16. Okay, THAT? Is where it starts getting into "evil" territory for me. THESE CITIZENS CANNOT AFFORD

TO LOSE "a few dollars a week", FGS!!!!!!!!!!! MORE to the point: THEY SHOULD BE RECEIVING MORE!!

Yes, he got UI extensions---but at literally what cost? AT WHAT COST?

WHO WILL STAND UP AND DECLAIM ABOUT RAISING TAXES ON THE POOR?

[SpiralHawk]

17. Thanks a pantload, RepubliBama

Sheesh.

[Karmadillo]

18. The weight of financial responsibility will build character in the poor and allow to rise to the

middle class. All hail our duly elected leaders!

[SmileyRose]

20. Unrecommended

because rawstory is lying by fact and omission both.

1. Making work pay credit was one of the first things Obama got passed. He championed it in the first place along with the higher minimum wage.

2. Nearly everyone in that earning group ends up getting all tax withdrawals refunded AND the making work pay credit amount.

3. there are other credits targets to low income earners that will fill in the gap. Earned income credit is already scheduled to go up for one.


Anyone who actually believes that Barack Obama spent his lifetime championing the poorest Americans only to throw them under the bus now is just not thinking clearly IMHO. I have a lot of disagreements with Barack Obama on a great many things, and this move in particular, but to say he's crapping on the poor is just wrong.

[readmoreoften]

27. Bullshit. As someone whose partner is in that bracket, they pay taxes.

One bullshit two month stint as an "independent contractor" if you're a maid or a carpet cleaner (KIWI carpet cleaning does this, for example) will put you into owing money. My partner was illegally gouged by this company, earned almost no money, but they claimed that he made $3000 (much of it he had to pay back to them) which made him lose the tax return he earned working at Starbucks the rest of the year. Even though he only earned a little over $9000 that year, he ended up having to PAY $300.

There are plenty of ways to fall through the cracks. Anyone who thinks that Barack Obama is considering poor Americans at all isn't thinking clearly IMHO. I don't care if he worked as a "community organizer" when he was younger. Half of the neoconservatives were communists before they turned free market. You are what you do in this world. And what Barack Obama does now is stand up for Goldman Sachs.

[Fearless]

23. Looks like someone was reading the charts upsidedown Mr. Obama...

I wonder who that could be...

[mdmc]

25. No wonder the DLC supports it

r

[joe_sixpack]

26. The making work pay credit

was only temporary itself, was it not? I've always heard, especially on this site, that the payroll tax was the more regressive, especially for the working class.