Tag: obama

Taxes, And A Look At Obama’s And Romney’s Budgets

Budgets are wonderful, and I love them. I love all of the charts, the graphs, the tables and appendixes. Budgets are so fantastic because they make us take a hard, serious look at numbers. We are forced to make priorities, and we are challenged to make tradeoffs on what we can do without, and what we truly need. The budget is the proof in the pudding, and it is what forces the government to be brutally honest with itself, and the American people. With people preparing their 2012 taxes, a short look at some of the differences between President Obama’s budget proposals, and those of Mitt Romney are in order.

Comparing the fiscal plans between Obama and Romney is almost like comparing apples to oranges. The reason is that while Obama is on the hot seat and needs to make his numbers add up, Romney is just running a campaign in the primaries. He can make budget promises without having his feet held to the fire over them, whereas Obama is not afforded that luxury.

However you slice it, though, taxes under both the Romney and Obama plans are lower than they would be if we simply allowed the tax cuts put in place by George Bush to expire and tax rates returned to the rates of the Clinton era.  If that happened, tax rates would be almost 20.4% of the GDP. This, despite the reverence that Democrats have for Bill Clinton‘s former economic policies, and the panic that Republicans are in over Obama’s tax ideas. I suppose that is why I just love budgets. They help everybody keep an eye on everybody else.

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President Obama on the Family Tax Credit

On Monday the White House announced a plan designed to help middle class families in a move that would essentially double the tax credit for child care for those families who earn less than $85,000 per year, among other news.

By increasing a family’s rate for tax credit from the existing 20% to 35% for qualifying expenses Obama’s administration intends to basically double the tax credit for child care.  Each family which makes less than $115,000 would also see an increase in their tax credit as well.

President Obama’s task force for the middle class is also calling for a cap of 10% on income over an individual’s standard living allowance for payments for student loans, as well as setting up a system for IRAs that would be automatic in the workplace and which would require all employers to ensure that employees could enroll in a direct-deposit IRA.

Many Americans have struggled with their own difficult recessions which started long before there was a recession declared by economists, Obama commented to the task force.

The president also stated that we need to turn around the complete erosion in any security for the middle-class, so that when the economy does return, working Americans will be able to once again go after their dreams.

The task force suggesting enlarging the available tax credits, such as the family tax credit, to match savings set aside for retirement and put into action new measures to safeguard and protect retirement savings in order to make it less difficult for families to be able to plan for their retirement, and enlarging the support structure designed for families who are trying to balance taking care of elderly relatives with working by helping them manage these various responsibilities and enabling seniors the opportunity to continue to live within the community for as the greatest amount of time that is possible.

In February, the task force’s full recommendations and final report will be released.

Obama has said that he will not rest until we have created more jobs and reduced unemployment because he considers rebuilding the middle class the most important thing that we can now do.

However, John Boehner, House Republican Leader (R-Ohio) has said that the middle class proposals set out by Obama will not do a thing in creating jobs.

None of the current plans that the White House has proposed will create new jobs; meanwhile, Americans continue to ask where these jobs are.  And these plans do nothing to help protect Americans from what is essentially Obama’s agenda to kill more jobs, including the health care takeover by the government, the national energy tax “cap and trade”, irresponsible spending with the creation of additional debt, and even more regulations and taxes which continue to increase the burden for middle-class families as well as small business to be able to hire, invest or save, Boehner said in his recent statement.

Boehner went on to say that American’s do not need any more of Obama’s photo-ops, what they really need are new policies which will establish new jobs.  Republicans have continued to offer some sensible solutions geared towards helping create jobs for small businesses and families who are struggling.  It is well beyond the time when the White House should get rid of its agenda to continue killing jobs and get to work on a bipartisan effort of creating jobs for Americans.