Just a few weeks ago, President Obama said he would listen to any Republican tax proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff and was willing to compromise. Republicans in the interest of compromise said they would put revenue on the table. Obama's latest response was let's do it my way with no compromise, and we'll discuss spending cuts next year. That's political speak for once I get what I want I have no intent to discussing spending cuts.
What happened to compromise? As usual, don't listen to his words, watch his actions. Ironically, just implementing tax increases to the wealthy will result in only around $60 billion a year in revenue on a yearly deficit of $1.2 trillion, thereby having virtually no impact on the ever-increasing deficit and $16 trillion debt. If spending cuts do not happen our national debt will balloon to over $20 trillion by the end of Obama's second term. We may never recover from that.
And his suggestion that a small business earning over $250,000 is wealthy is ridiculous. A small-business owner in New York, for example, who earns $300,000, is likely paying around 60 percent of his earnings after paying federal, state, city and payroll taxes. In Obama's proposal that same owner will pay closer to 70 percent in taxes due to income tax increases and the taxes built into Obamacare. Is that fair share? Does that owner have any incentive to hire and grow his/her business?
And Obama's other proposal to dramatically increase taxes on dividends income hurts the middle class and especially seniors who depend on that income to live on.
Hank D'Ambrosio
Buffalo Grove
