No New Taxes on $250,000 or less Pomise May Bite the Dust

Besides the taxes that may be imposed on the middle class we are calling "Cap and Trade" a new report suggests Obama may truly renege on his promise to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year to fund the healthcare bill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02408.html

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," David Axelrod declined to repeat Obama's "firm pledge" during the campaign that families making under $250,000 would not see "any form of tax increase, not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

Instead, Axelrod said the president has no interest in "drawing lines in the sand" on the issue of how to pay for the costly health reform plan making its way through Congres

Aha.... but it gets better In a related story those in Unions may be exempt:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... vu77pZr7k4

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

On side note should make for a very interesting presidential campaign, I forsee similarities to the "Read my Lips" attack ads when GHB was running.

The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

I'm in a union. My negotiated health care involves a $130/week payment by me. In addition to multiple co pays and deductibles.

If that's "gold plated", then I'd have to say it's going a little green around the edges.

The only "gold plated" benefits I see are for the members of Congress.

Jpete I don't know exactly what they plan to tax but if Joe Schmoe has identical plan as yours and his is taxed so should yours. Not that I'm agreeing with taxing it at all....

Richard S. wrote:Jpete I don't know exactly what they plan to tax but if Joe Schmoe has identical plan as yours and his is taxed so should yours. Not that I'm agreeing with taxing it at all....

No one has their employer provided health care taxed right now unless it's for a "domestic partner". An before anyone gets all homophobic on me, that applies to heterosexual people as well.

The proposal now is that if your health plan costs the company $15,000, you will be taxed on that value as income. The kicker is, if I don't take the health plan, I don't realize any of that income now do I?

If you look at the health care tax proposal it just levels the playing field with retirees. I pay my health care premiums with after tax retirement income, both Medicare part B and my private medical coverage. My private insurance is somewhat lower than I could get on the market as an individual because I'm part of a much larger group, the employer I retired from.

How does that level the playing field? I pay with pre tax dollars now and we'll all be paying with after tax dollars when the bill goes through?

I guess that levels the playing field but I'm still not rooting for it.

Read my lips.

The Obamites are going to get what they wished for. "Change" is all they'll be left with.

Here's another interesting read. Should we start calling him McBama?

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_ ... 29497.html
At the time, his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was proposing a tax on health benefits similar to the plan Obama is now considering. Just a year ago, Obama spent millions on campaign commercials attacking the idea.

One ad accused McCain of favoring "taxing health benefits for the first time ever ... taxing health care instead of fixing it. We can't afford John McCain."

A second Obama ad called McCain's approach "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." Driving the point home, it contended the "McCain tax could cost your family thousands. Can you afford it?"

How many times have I said there is no difference between R's and D's?

Are we starting to understand why I say this?

jpete wrote:How many times have I said there is no difference between R's and D's?

Are we starting to understand why I say this?

I agree to soem extent but I really think McCain has a lot of integrity and there's a significant difference in this set of circumstances. While Obama is preaching no new taxes McCain is telling you he's going to tax it. ...only to get hit over the head with it by Obama who when elected is considering the same thing.

Richard S. wrote:I agree to soem extent but I really think McCain has a lot of integrity and there's a significant difference in this set of circumstances. While Obama is preaching no new taxes McCain is telling you he's going to tax it. ...only to get hit over the head with it by Obama who when elected is considering the same thing.

So integrity is telling you "you are about to get screwed" before he screws you?

No thanks. You can keep John McAmnesty.

That BHO was going to fake right and go left shouldn't have been a secret to anyone who wanted to look.

I'd be perfectly happy with taxable health insurance benefits, if and only if I as the employee have full control over the benefits. This is what McCain was pushing for, decoupling health insurance from ones employer. Get back to the days when people either paid their medical bills out of pocket or paid for their own insurance.

So taxing the benefit is fine, so long as the benefit actually belongs to me, I'm able to select the plan I want, and it travels with me when I go to a new job or a new state. That last bit was another important part of McCain's plan, get rid of regulations many states have that require health insurance providers to be located in state. States argue that this is necessary to make sure insurance provides for their regulated minimum levels of service and protections for the insured, but this can be accomplished without the hamfisted approach states have taken which create an unreasonable barrier to citizen mobility. Up to this point, the mobility crunch this regulatory regime has imposed hasn't gotten much attention since the employer provider model has been a more immediate barrier, but if we do away with the employer controlled insurance model then the state level regs will become an almost as important barrier to bring down.

Obama and crew are willing to provide the employer decoupling and nationwide mobility of insurance with the individual or family, but he and the dems only seem willing to do this through a government provider system. And they add insult to injury by very probably taxing private benefits without making those private benefits just as mobile and employer disconnected as the government provider "option", all in the transparent yet unacknowledged (except by a few who screwed up in various public speaking engagements the past couple years) effort to eventually have everyone covered by the government "option". Unless, of course, you're a labor union member, in which case they don't want to tax the health benefits. Amazing.