August 2006 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
XP: Obama's 95% Illusion
Interesting OP piece on Obama's meaning of 'tax cuts'...
Re: XP: Obama's 95% Illusion
This is how he is going to "spread the wealth".
This was outlined by the NYT in their "Obamanomics" profile months ago. It's his way of dealing with the stratification of wealth in this society, something McCain doesn't think is problematic at all. I too am surprised McCain hasn't hit him on this.
This is?ingenious?really. There's a huge segment of society that pays no income tax at all so he's going after them as a voting bloc, while at the same time talking about the much larger middle class. So it's populism but it doesn't sound as bad as it really is. I admire it from a political standpoint even though I think it's assbackwards.?
If this keeps up one day candidates will be campaigning on a negative income tax rate. ?
BM* I've been shocked at McCain's campaign for weeks. If he can't turn this "share the wealth" nonsense into a home run he deserves to get his ass kicked in November. ?
I am baffled that the McCain campaign hasn't addressed this. I don't get it!
I agree with the author here when I he refers to this as 'welfare'
Big DITTO
For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:
and then ending with:
Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.
The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.
The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.
How people think that he is going to 'help the middle class' by putting the burden on the rest and not bankrupting the country is beyond me! If McCain does not run with this, and hard, he deserves to lose. If he runs with this--look for those poll numbers to change. I believe once people take that last look at each candidate, the poll numbers could change, and with monetary policies like these, it might not look so good for Obama, imo.
According to this quick explanation, the 'credits' disappear.
Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery -- among many -- of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama's 95% illusion to go unanswered.
LOL! The new Democrat term for welfare is now income transfer.
A few weeks ago I read about all of Obama's tax credits. They sound good to the average taxpayer but I still don't see how we can afford them especially making most of them refundable credits.
I am not too happy with the EIC being refundable but I accept as part of helping the working poor. I don't mind other tax credits but once a taxpayer's liability equals zero that's it for me. I don't think the govt. needs to go beyond that and start as Caden's says a negative tax rate!
The chart illustrates that Obama's tax cuts are centered around the refundable credits, not a simple rate cut. So with each new $1 earned you will effectively pay a lot more in tax than you did previously with your credits, b/c you won't qualify for them anymore, since they phase out with additional income.
A hypothetical: A person making $39,999 qualifies for all Obama's handouts and pays no tax at all, but they get those refundable handouts. Let's say the handout credits are $5,000. That's an effective tax rate of -12.5%. But once you make $40,000 you only qualify for one of the handouts so you only get $1,000. That means you effectively lost $4,000 in handouts, or paid $4,000 more, which means your new rate is only -2.5%, or a 500% increase over your previous rate. Obviously those aren't the right numbers, but that's the concept.
Yay a unity horse sentiment!
I too hate that politicians use the tax code to shape society, giving handouts and bonuses to people who have a certain kind of family (with kids), purchase certain products (green), live in a certain way (in a home)... etc etc etc