Poor Billo, he's so uncomfortable with the thought that his gazillion dollar salary could be taxed normally. He's so frightened that he says he'll shun the stock market. More zombie lies since under Obama they've seen excellent returns, but truth never enters into conservative thought. And when your side are made up of tea party whackos, just conjure up the ghost of Ronald Reagan to make them feel better.
Mr. Obama opened up a new front in his battle against Mitt Romney today by going back to the "tax the rich" mantra. The President trying to force Romney into defending wealthy Americans by opposing tax increases on them.
So, say hello once again to our little friend, class warfare. But here is an interesting side bar. The ghost of Ronald Reagan may be haunting President Obama. Thirty-two years ago, America was also in bad economic times. The incumbent President Jimmy Carter had expanded the federal government and lost control of the private sector. Unemployment and inflation were very big problems.The challenger, Ronald Reagan, took full advantage of that portraying Carter as incompetent; and of course, Reagan won the election. On January 20th, 1981, Ronald Reagan said this in his inaugural address. [..]
Look at this tax chart put together by the ISI group which invests money for institutions. It shows President Obama wants to raise the income tax rate for wealthiest Americans to 39.6 percent. Governor Romney wants the rate to drop to 28 percent like Ronald Reagan. Mr. Obama would tax dividends, stuff you get from savings, at 43.4 percent in the top bracket. Governor Romney would tax them at 15 percent.
President Obama would double the capital gains tax rate to 30 percent for everybody. Mr. Romney would keep it at 15 percent. Now, if you double capital gains that would prevent me, a private investor, from aggressively putting any money in the market. The risk reward is simply too great. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thinking.
So let me ask you, if Ronald Reagan was successful in reviving the American economy by dropping the tax rates for everybody, why would anyone think President Obama can revive the economy by doing the exact opposite? By raising rates for investors and the affluent? It doesn't make any sense. But still the President is betting big on that vision.
The idea that today equals the era of Reagan is preposterous. He didn't have to dig out of a financial global meltdown fostered in by a name Bill never seems to mention: George Bush. Bush, Bush, Bush. There. If a conservative says it three times and clicks their heels they get transported to a jail cell in Gitmo; never to be heard from again. You can look up the Reagan record. Since he raised taxes almost ten times and put in the social security payroll tax to save the program, he'd never ever make it out of the GOP primaries in 2012 and beyond. So much hypocrisy and so many zombie lies. Oh and let's not forget about this.
Funny how Billo doesn't mention that after lowering taxes, Reagan had to raise taxes eleven times. Reagan's behavior might not pass muster with those voters today who insist their congressmen treat every proposed tax increase as poisonous to the republic.
"By today's standards, the Gipper would easily qualify for status as a back-stabbing, treacherous RINO [Republican in Name Only]," wrote Tax Analysts contributing editor Martin Sullivan, in an article for Tax Notes in May.
Thanks in part to the increases in defense spending during his administration, Reagan also didn't really reduce the size of government. Annual spending averaged 22.4% of GDP on his watch, which is above today's 40-year average of 20.7%, and above the 20.8% average under Carter.
And of course he became the linchpin for creating government debt:
After Reagan's first year in office, the annual deficit was 2.6% of Gross Domestic Product. But it hit a high of 6% in 1983, stayed in the 5% range for the next three years, and fell to 3.1% by 1988.
Read the NY Times article on Reagan called: The Great Taxer.
