All taxes are avoidable? Really?
Maybe you mean if you are a bum living under a bridge and dumpster diving who literally never, ever buys anything then maybe. Or perhaps if you kill yourself.
But they wouldn’t be correct because it wasn’t Obama that raised their taxes. As far as I understand, this is a Senate bill, voted on by elected officials, agreed to by the House, signed into law by the President, and eventually upheld by SCOTUS.
The might be right to say, “The Senate, House, President, SCOTUS, and electorate, raised your taxes.” But it just won’t have the same catchy ring.
I remember an executive order prohibiting federal funds for abortions. Was there also an executive order raising taxes?
That is why “Obama Raised Your Taxes” is a stupid thing to say. It is meaningless. Obama didn’t use his executive privilege to call the IRS and demand that my taxes be higher.
Consider ignorance fought.
He said “you will not see your taxes increased”-- he didn’t only say that he wouldn’t raise them. Besides, all taxes come from the legislature. And if you want to parse this so closely, then we can just say that Obama should’ve vetoed the legislation to avoid the tax increase.
Actually, it is very meaningful. He supported the mandate provision and the fine (read “tax”) that was a necessary part of the mandate. And you don’t really want to go down that road, because that’s another campaign theme that he’s flipped on. He campaigned against such a mandate, as opposed to Hillary and Edwards, who did.
Well, you’re the one making the “avoidable” argument, as if it were meaningful. If Congress raises my tax rate, I can “avoid” the tax increase by making less money. I don’t have to be a bum to do that. And that, btw, is a good analogy.
You’re reaching further than usual, John.
But how do you know what he truly meant? Are you sure you’re not imputing your own set of beliefs onto what he said?
Bricker, help me out here. Maybe what he meant was that you’ll be dead before you see them. Maybe he meant that you’ll be blind. Maybe he meant it will be written with white font or vanishing ink. Or maybe he meant to say, “you will not see your taxes increased during my first term.” Doesn’t this all go into effect in 2014? In which case, it’s either future-Obama’s or Palin’s fault, let that guy worry about it.
Seriously, did you think he meant “You will NEVER see your taxes increased?”
I don’t think there is any other reasonable way to interpret it. I sure HOPE he didn’t mean: “Congress can pass a bazillion new taxes, but I won’t be to blame!” The only reasonable way to interpret that (unless we assume he’s a real slimeball) is that the policies he will push through Congress will not raise taxes for people who make under $250k/year. This is a policy that he pushed through Congress.
It’s pretty common for presidential candidates to make all sorts of promises that can’t be implemented w/o Congress acting, btw. Closing Gitmo, ending DODT, raising/lowering taxes. I mean, we all remember the “read my lips” flap that Bush Sr. suffered. The only reasonable way to interpret those promises is that they will try to push Congress in that direction. Obama is lucky, since his party has both Houses of Congress.
I think it reasonable to assume that he meant “during his term in office”. And I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he gets to “reset” if he is re-elected.
They were discussing this on Fox News while I was at the gym, and the deficit got mentioned.
It occurred to me that it is reasonable to assume Obama meant, “all things being equal, you will not see your taxes increase.”
He could promise to close Gitmo, but if it burned down and all the prisoners died before he takes office, is he breaking his promise?
Given that he went on to increase spending by a trillion dollars, I can’t blame him for needing to make sure the health care bill gets properly funded.
If we suddenly had to go to war with North Korea I’d also expect him to increase taxes to support the war.
Or if the US suddenly found a massive deposit of Unatainium on federal land, the revenues would offset the cost and taxes could even go lower.
He was campaigning a long time ago, things change, seems irresponsible for him to not adjust, and equally irresponsible to hold him to a promise made several years ago.
A good lawyer probably would have made sure he included lots of conditions and riders (void where prohibited, not available to residents of Alaska) to make sure he had wiggle room. I guess I respect the guy more for not needing an asterisk on all of his statements. He could have said things like, “you will not see your taxes increase, because if raising them means we won’t pass HCR I’d rather scrap HCR.”
IF taxes are increased, it’s the result of political reality. He didn’t promise smaller government then pass massive orders to increase the size of government. He promised that taxes wouldn’t be increased and that he’d get HCR. I hardly consider it a moral sin that taxes might go up slightly on a few people because HCR got passed.
That would not be an increase, no. That’s also not analogous, since this is not a tax ON anything, it’s a penalty for fiscal and civic irresponsibility.
Okay. Can you point to any other similar civic “penalties” we are all asked to pay? Mind you, not fines for doing something like littering, nor penalties we might incur for not doing something, e.g., not paying your taxes on time?
But HCR was one of the key things he campaigned on. Nothing changed there. The fact is, you can’t require people to have HCI w/o there being some penalty for not doing so. The tax isn’t there to raise revenue-- it’s there to force people to buy HCI.
Or you could assume he meant that there will be no net tax increase, which is the most sensible reading of Obama (and Bush I’s) words.
Guaranteeing that there will be no new taxes whatsoever is absurd on its face; Congress modifies the tax code more or less on a weekly basis, and unless Obama is willing to veto every proposal which increases a specific tax, the promise is already void.
What is the practical difference between a tax, a fine, or a penalty? All three are money that you must pay to the government or else.
Not really. Go back and look at what he said-- he called out a whole bunch of taxes individually, and then said “no tax”.
Well, yeah, but he does have control over which policies he pushes Congress to act on. It’s only recently that he embraced the mandate cum penalty. During the campaign, he was only pushing full coverage for children.
Missed the edit window…
If he had stopped at that first sentence, I could buy the “no net taxes” interpretation. But not with the all the rest.
The first one you can’t avoid. The latter two you can, by just doing what you are supposed to and not doing what you shouldn’t.
I could avoid taxes on cigarettes and booze by not buying them.
IOW, let’s say that a six pack of beer cost $5 with a 50 cent tax added.
How is this different than saying that we will fine you 50 cents for buying a six pack of beer or will attach a 50 cent penalty for beer purchasing?
Practical difference? Not much. In the case of a tax, you deal with the IRS. If it were a fine or a penalty (which I think are the same thing), you’d probably be dealing with the courts.
I pay a federal gasoline tax all of the time while never dealing with the IRS.
I thought we were talking about this specific tax.