WSJ baselessly claimed health care surtax would "hit small business especially hard"
The Wall Street Journal editorial board claimed that the House Democrats' health care reform bill is "a jobs killer," citing as evidence the bill's "5.4-percentage point income surtax," which it baselessly asserted "would hit small business especially hard." In fact, according to House Democrats, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has concluded that only 4.1 percent of small businesses would be affected at all by the surtax -- which, as currently drafted, affects household income exceeding $350,000 -- while an even smaller number would presumably be affected at the surtax's 5.4 percent level, which applies only to income exceeding $1 million.
From the Journal's August 8 editorial:
This natural revival should continue if policy mistakes and uncertainty don't get in the way. On that score, the Fed will have to get off its easy-money autopilot and consider tightening earlier than it thought. A signal at its meeting next week that it won't repeat the mistakes of 2003 and 2004 would be welcome, and salutary for rising commodity prices and bond rates.
Washington could also help by stopping the most dangerous parts of the Obama agenda. The health-care bill is a jobs killer, with its 5.4-percentage point income surtax that would hit small business especially hard, and its employer mandate to provide insurance or add an eight-percentage point payroll tax on top of the usual 15%.
Surtax on wealthy would affect 4.1 percent of small businesses, according to JCT
Surtax in House bill applies only to income exceeding $350,000 per year for joint filers, with the 5.4 rate applied to income exceeding $1 million. The legislation would establish a 1 percent tax on joint income exceeding $350,000 but not greater than $500,000 per year; a 1.5 percent tax on joint income exceeding $500,000 but not greater than $1 million per year; and a 5.4 percent tax on joint income exceeding $1 million per year. Single filers would be subject to the surtax starting at income exceeding $280,000 per year.
Ways and Means committee stated that according to JCT, 4.1 percent of small-business owners would be affected. The committee stated in a summary document, "Using the broadest definition of a small business owner (i.e., any individual with as little as $1 of small business income), the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that only 4.1% of all small business owners would be affected by the health care surcharge."
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) also stated that, according to JCT, surtax would affect "only 4.1 percent of all small business owners." Miller stated of attacks on the proposal by "Republicans and right wing commentators":
Before you adopt their rhetoric, remember that nearly half of the cost of the House Democrats' health plan would be paid by tight cost controls and forcing down the expense of the health care system. That's a top priority. And as for who will pay higher taxes and who won't under our plan, here are the cold facts.
Only the highest earning 1.2 percent of American households will pay a surcharge for health care reform. That leaves 98.8 percent of American households who will not pay any surcharge at all.
As for small businesses, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, only 4.1 percent of all small business owners will be affected by the health care surcharge. The remaining 95.9 percent of small business owners will be completely unaffected by the surcharge.
Under our bill, a family making up to $350,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) will not owe any surcharge at all, as President Obama has promised. A family making $500,000 in AGI will contribute $1,500 to help reduce costs and provide access to affordable health care for all Americans -- 0.3 percent of their annual income. And a family making $1 million in AGI will contribute $9,000, or 0.9 percent of their annual income.
Who are the highest earning 1.2 percent of all households? They are the same households who over the past 20 years have seen a massive shift in wealth in their favor and who over the last 8 years received the lion's share of President Bush's tax cuts.
Liberal eutopia.
You act like this is a new concept, yet, it's been around since the founding of our country. Its only unfair when rich people have to pay taxes...but when its me making 20k a year it's fair-and square.
people get laid off when those "rich" starting trimming expenses
That should say something about the business practices of the companies/"rich people"
As for what anyone makes via an annual salary, it isn't about what's fair or not fair. What I make isn't fair alot of times to me either, but that's my issue.
and as for this:
As for what anyone makes via an annual salary, it isn't about what's fair or not fair. What I make isn't fair alot of times to me either, but that's my issue.
yes you did:
You will never convince liberals that raising taxes has any negative consequences or ramifications on anyone except for those they want to punish, the rich. Anything and everything can be funded endlessly and the ATM for any and all government spending is the rich.
He posted that a half an hour ago, and I can't help noticing that you still haven't responded to him.
For anyone to say, as you did in your "supposition" that someone making 20k a year, that their tax burden is unfair in contrast to a rich person is flat out idiocy. And then when asked what that is you said "I don't know". Which just proves your post is worthless drivel and only meant to incite an argument.
And the thrill of making you like like an idiot has long passed, it's not even a challenge anymore.
Do I need to explain this any further, or are you back on board now?
"He was talking about the relative fairness between taxing the rich and taxing his 20k a year", you a few minutes ago.
How many times are you going to let your runaway rhetoric make you look like a fool? This is like what, the third time in as many days.
Like I said, it's not even fun anymore.
And "runaway rhetoric"? Are you just writing words that you think sound cool?
$20,000 is my total income for last year.
I am taxed 15% on that income making my total roughly $3,000 (if I do all the calculations as per the web page it's really $2.599)
So really I made roughly $17,000 - $17,401
Rent in most areas are roughly between $800 - $1,500 a month. Middle of the road is $1,150 so:
$1,150 times 12 months = $13,800 a year in rent alone.
Again taking the middle of the road approach, my income after taxes is $17,200.50:
$17,200.50 minus $13,800 = $3,400.50
$3,400.50 is left over for Car insurance, Health Insurance, Utilities and Misc. purchases
$3,400.50 for all 12 months of these expenses
That's all I am saying about the tax burden on a $20,000 a year
Given the real world dollar amounts that we're talking about here, explain why it is "flat out idiocy" to question the contrast between what Ubermensch is left with for food, insurance, utilities, etc. and what someone making, say, $350k a year is left with?
So in essence taxing the rich = bad, taxing everyone who is not rich = good.
For the record, I didn't bring up morality, but rather business practices...which are judgment calls. Morality has nothing specifically to do with how to run a business or make business decisions. Morality in business would cheating through tax evasion and not paying employees market value for labor...those are morality issues
This made me LOL. You people whi think that the top 1-2% actualy EARN there salaries. That's hilarious. I take it you aren't there yet. You actually WORK for a living, but yet you somehoiw buy into the failed notion of supply-side economics. Did you ever think that if they actually PAID the people below them a decent wage, consumption would be more steady and consistant and they'd never HAVE to "trim expenses"? No, of course not, god forbid we think about DEMMAND SIDE economics. It's called SUSTAINABILITY. And supply econ is simply not sustainable because it guts the demmand side. It makes it impossible for wages to keep up with inflation and the cost of living, and that inevitably leads to decreases in consumption, which kills the economy. The only reason it took this long was because your lot had bankers find news excuses to keep extending credit to people to keep the impossible dream alive. But it's been 30 years, and it finally all came craching down. All the harder because you tried to keep it going a good 10 years or so longer than should have been possible. The evidence is all around you that YOU. ARE. WRONG. Look around you. You might be surpised at what you see. I'm surprised I'm still hearing ANYONE defend this nonsense.
We have seen the folly of supply-side economics laid bare for anyone who is willing to look without partisan blinders. It is time to try something else. There was a time in this country when the employees who worked on the front line made enough on one income to pay their bills and survive while their loved one was able to stay home and raise the family. This was not just good for the individual - it was good for all of society. The CEOs were still filthy rich, just not AS filthy rich. Somewhere along the way the "greed is good" mantra became a part of our society and we have been ruining ourselves financially ever since. I blame the baby boomers. If they call the generation that preceded you the "greatest generation" - I'm just saying...
But as Barack Obama pointed out to Joe the Plumber, those are often the same people at different stages in their lives.
Your view is that earners are a social class. Most people don't earn money all their lives{ children, for example.
Entrepreneurs often have their failures as well as their successes. Hard working people suddenly find themselves unemployed. Like now.
These days, you can be a solid success, and find yourself bankrupt because someone in your family gets sick.
Let's phrase it this way: when you are earning money, the government takes some of it. When you are not, the government gives you supporting services.
This is only outrageous if you believe in earners as a social class. They aren't. They're anybody who is profiting by the system. Some do it by virtue, some don't. Too often folks invoke the 'virtue' of 'earning', and immediately spread the blanket to include wastrels with trust funds. Conjure up long nights with sleeves rolled up and circles under the eyes--and immediately say that return on Daddy's stocks is the same thing.
Businesses especially are in one category at one point and the other at another. There are all sorts of advantages, implicit and explicit, for starting a business. And benefits are given, not just to the sleeve-rolled-up guy, but to the guy who lends some of Daddy's money. And anybody who has actually started business knows what they are.
The only people who always make money are the people who don't earn it, at least not in the morally venerable sense. So let's not have any Galtist fantasies of a 'creator class.'
Taxes simply tax a process, not a person. It taxes making money, and for various reasons. There's nothing personal about it.