From the Letters to the Editor section of today’s 
:
Try living with Christie’s budget cut¹
If Rick Santorum is so impressed with New Jersey Gov. Christie and his “taking on the state teachers’ union” (“Christie shows how to cut,” Wednesday), I hope his next move will be to relocate his family to New Jersey and enroll his children in public schools so he can personally experience “this-year action.” It’s easy to agree with tax cuts when you and your family are not personally affected by them.
Joanne Muniz, Drexel Hill
Letters to the Editor are, of course, heavily edited, so Miss Muniz’s letter might have had a lot more in it. But the part of former Senator Rick Santorum’s column to which she objected was:
Speaking of pushing and shoving, blue-state Republicans have a new role model when it comes to fiscal responsibility: the Jersey Juggernaut, Chris Christie.
Gov. Christie has gained YouTube fame with his Jersey straight talk. He’s been taking on the state teachers’ union and the Trenton press corps. And in the face of deficits amounting to more than a third of projected revenues, he has stuck to his guns about not raising taxes, and he actually cut business taxes.
By comparison, the federal budget deficit is almost half of projected revenues. Sounds like Obama has the tougher job – except that he only pledged to cut the deficit in half in two years. Christie put together a plan to eliminate the deficit in one, and it garnered bipartisan support.
Christie has also proposed a constitutional limit on local property-tax increases. If he gets his way, government spending at all levels will go down.
This is an incredible turn of events in a year and a half. Christie has managed to confront the outrageous spending of New Jersey’s former governor, Jon Corzine. And he is doing so not with next-year talk, but with this-year action; not with tax increases, but with real, honest-to-goodness reductions in the size of government.
Who would have thought European leaders — those committed socialists who have set aside their dogma to deal with a real-world debt crisis — have more in common with the hard-charging Republican governor of New Jersey than they do with the procrastinating ideologue occupying the White House?
The part Mr Santorum left out/ had edited out is that Mr Christie campaigned on doing exactly what he is doing, and the voters of the Garden State chose to support Mr Christie over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine by a landslide margin. Governor Christie did radical things like withholding state aid for school districts which were holding on to surplus “rainy day” funds, and actually cutting — as opposed to reducing the size of the projected increase, something that Democrats define as a cut — the state budget.
Now, let’s be honest here: actually cutting government spending is going to hurt some people. Some programs will be eliminated, some will be reduced in size, and the benefits the state provided will be reduced. Some people will lose their jobs. But, you know, that’s the choice, that’s the action, for which the good citizens of New Jersey voted. We are a democratic representative republic, and, in the end, our elected representatives are responsible for doing what the voters want them to do.
As our Independence Day has just passed, it should be noted that our revolution began as a rebellion of the American colonists against taxation by the British government. A hatred of excessive taxation, and a much lower threshold for the definition of “excessive,” is something which sets Americans apart. We know that we want lower taxes, and we know that we want government to spend less; whether that means we know that government services will decline remains to be seen, but in my estimation, we do know that, know exactly that.
For this assessment, I take the rejection of Propositions 1A-E in California fourteen months ago as evidence. Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar and the members of the State Assembly and government officials across the Pyrite State told the people and told the people that, if they didn’t step up to the plate and approve the temporary tax increases called for in the referenda, there would be draconian cuts in state spending and services. This was not an election for some politician promising to cut taxes and/or spending, promises which are second-hand in nature, since, once elected, the representative can do as he pleases. No, this was a direct election over raising taxes, with severe cuts in spending as the well-known result of failure of the referenda. But, despite the Chicken Little rhetoric from the politicians, the public chose, by an almost two-to-one margin, to reject the tax increases and take the spending cuts promised, all in an election just 6½ months after liberal Californians had given 61% of their votes to Barack Obama.
However, Mr Santorum did have one glaring error in his column. Stating that President Obama would probably want tax increases to deal with the growing deficits:
Of course, big Republican wins in the November elections might make big tax increases impossible for the president next year. Either way, it will come down to what “moderate” Republicans from Democratic-leaning states do when push comes to shove.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case: there will be big tax increases come 2011 unless the Congress extends the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. President Obama doesn’t need to do anything to get a huge tax increase, at least not anything but state that he won’t sign an extension of the tax cuts, and be willing to veto an extension if Congress does pass one. The real question is: if the tax cuts expire, and the GOP makes significant gains in the November elections, will Republican lawmakers force, or at least try to force, major spending cuts? They might be leery of that, knowing that President Obama would take the credit for reducing the deficit the way President Clinton did in 1996, but if the GOP wants to regain the confidence of the people in governing, they have to take that risk . . . and just be a lot better in pointing out what they did, and why, and over whose objections. Miss Muniz might not like having to live with government spending cuts in New Jersey, but they are what the voters want. Some people will get hurt with spending cuts, Miss Muniz apparently among them, but we will all get hurt if we don’t rein in our outlandish government spending and taxes.
_____________________
¹ – The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday, 6 July 2010, p. A-10
this was a great article and the embedded interview was enlightening.
christie is form WITH substance. for all the stupid economic solutions some phd’s have tried to come up with it doesn’t get any more plain than this:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/07/026685.php
it is pure baloney to think we can spend our way out of this one. naturally, some of you are fond of baloney… sandwich anyone?
Prediction: Dana won’t be advertising what happens to New Jersey over the remainder of Christie’s tenure.
The Phoenician predicted:
Given that I censor no one, I’m sure that I can count on Perry and you to take up any of my failings in that regard.
However, given that my newspaper of choice,
, loves Democrats, it’s pretty obvious that any failings on the part of the Christie Administration will be made public. There are days I miss the Inquirer — tomorrow will be one of those days, since I have to be at work at 0500, before the Inquirer is delivered to the Turkey Hill store at which I stop in the morning — but I’d say we can also count on the Democratic Party to make known each and every problem encountered by Governor Christie.
After all, if Governor Christie succeeds, there will be a lot of calls for him to run for President in 2012.
I’ve gotten behind on my e-mail, thanks to my ‘puter being at the computer doctor’s! Gretchen sent me this a few days ago:
Of course, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts do expire, rather than being continued, as President Obama promised for everyone earning under $200,000/$250,000, I’ll point out that I told you so:
And:
And:
And:
It will be cold comfort to say that I told you so, but it’ll be some comfort nevertheless. Congress goes on its annual August recess in a month, and if they are ever going to pass an extension of the tax cuts, they’ll want to do it before the November elections.
Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%
Higher taxes on marriage and family. The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.
The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.
Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.
Second Wave: Obamacare
There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:
The “Medicine Cabinet Tax” Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).
The “Special Needs Kids Tax” This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education.
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes
When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. The major items include:
The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be “depreciated.”
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability will no longer be there.
And if all this happens, trade in the recession for a depression because there will be NO disposable income, and business will not hire.
Of course, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts do expire, rather than being continued, as President Obama promised for everyone earning under $200,000/$250,000,
Cite please.
The Phoenician asked for a citation on something he already knew to be true. From Barack Obama’s campaign website, which is still available:
Emphasis mine.
pick out a typo and make a faux-case. true liberal debate form. weak.
bitter envy. the root.
Of course, there’s also this:
I’m especially amused by the last sentence, emphasis mine.
in the same way blu dictates the conversation so it goes with ideologues.
i try to stay at the trunk of the tree. they dont play fair and getting tangled up out in the branches with them is dangerous. too many false floors for themselves and we loose our footing the farther away from the solid trunk.
“…it should be noted that our revolution began as a rebellion of the American colonists against taxation by the British government…”
Sigh. The colonists didn’t mind taxes, per se. You’re missing the rest of the phrase. The Constitution had tax collecting in it! (The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes…) Why would they revolt against taxes only to institute them again immediately?
Nit: The American Revolution is as poorly named as the American Indians. Our own governments remained in place. The British government remained in place. It was more of a war of secession.
I’ll second Phoenician’s prediction, and add that any crowing about successes in New Jersey should be accompanied by an accounting of how much Federal money has been poured into it, and how it compares to states without draconian spending cuts.
[...] Sense Political Thought – Real, honest-to-God, spending cuts! submitted by The Colossus of [...]
Dana: “Of course, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts do expire, rather than being continued, as President Obama promised for everyone earning under $200,000/$250,000, I’ll point out that I told you so:”
PiaToR is correct in asking for a citation, because I do not recall any statement by Obama or his team that the Bush tax cuts would or would not be rescinded.
Moreover, it is time to correct your rhetoric, Dana. Rescinding the Bush tax cuts, that is, letting them expire, is not a tax increase as you are wont to label them.
However, I will label them as unwarranted tax cuts favoring the wealthy, as is quite apparent in the list of tax cut items which you posted.
So now at least we will be back to the pre-Bush-43 tax rates.
And with all your grumbling about US personal taxes, it is worth noting that we are still about the lowest taxed people on the globe, with the exception of Ireland, which is bound to change given their current debt situation. This is rather remarkable, considering the gargantuan DoD expenses we have, where we are spending over 6 times the next nation on the list, China, about 4.3% of our GDP.
Just think, if we could halve our DoD budget: In ten years we would reduce our national debt by over 20% of GDP. Moreover, we could focus DoD technology onto peaceful purposes that would likely have a positive impact on our GDP as well.
Come on, Conservatives/Libertarians, step up to this challenge!
How about this, deficit hawks. Pull all U.S. troops back within the borders. Somebody still wants our troops in their country? Let them pay for it, otherwise, they stay here.
You have a problem with that plan? Why do you hate capitalism? Why do you hate our troops?
Uh-huh.
So Bush writes a temporary tax cat, set to expire. The reason why this is set to expire is because continuing iot would really break teh bank.
Obama seems set to decline to push for a legislative change that would make it permanent, probably for the same reason it was temporary to start with – because it would really break the bank.
Obama isn’t doing anything. This is, however, billed as a tax increase by wingnuts – who are the same people who scream about the deficit.
So, Dana, why weren’t you screaming when Bush originally wrote the tax cut with an expiry date? Obama isn’t putting forward a tax increase – your problem is that Bush wrote his tax cuts with a time limit.
nice lefty construct perry. you guys are masters of baiting.
what?
As you know, Perry, Obama is responsible for everything Bush did.
Perry wrote:
So, when a family of four making $60,000 sees their income taxes rise, President Obama will send you out to explain to them how they didn’t see a tax increase, right?
Good luck selling that one, Perry!
The Phoenician wrote:
No. President Bush didn’t want an expiration date, and the Republicans didn’t want an expiration date, but agreeing to it was the only way to pass the tax cuts over Democratic objections. President Bush asked Congress several times to make the cuts permanent, and didn’t get his way.
Dana, no fair using facts to expose fraudulent claims. Where’s your sense of appropriate subservience to the infallible pronouncements of the cheerleaders of deception?
Dana: “Good luck selling that one, Perry!”
It would never sell to a person like you, Dana, who has a narrow, self-centered view that says that government’s prime responsibility is to wage wars of choice and to maintain/build infrastructure, and, that taxes for other governmental functions like SS, Medicare, and Corporate oversight are the equivalent of a mortal sin.
But to those of us who try to see the big picture, it is obvious that the Bush tax cuts were a gift to the wealthy, so that to rescind them is definitely the right thing to do for the middle American citizens.
Have you figured out how much the tax rescission will affect the family of four with $60k income? I suspect it is a very small number, but rather than dealing in numbers, you prefer to deal in ideological rhetoric, like calling this planned rescission a ‘tax increase’. No! It is the rescission of a tax cut which had a built in rescission date. If you must call it a tax increase, please at least label it more accurately as: **A Bush tax increase**. This is completely in your court, not Obama’s and the Dems!
No. President Bush didn’t want an expiration date, and the Republicans didn’t want an expiration date, but agreeing to it was the only way to pass the tax cuts over Democratic objections. President Bush asked Congress several times to make the cuts permanent, and didn’t get his way.
Uh-huh. These were the tax cuts he sold as a necessary stimulus for the 2003 downturn, right? I wasn’t aware that a stimulus was a permanent thing – I suppose he was just lying, and you knew he was lying.
I wonder, Dana, if you’re aware that the CBO estimated that the cost of extending those tax cuts was in the region of $1.8 trillion? I mean, if not, then you’re remarkably ignorant about the effects of what you’re proposing. And if so, then you’re remarkably hypocritical given your complaints about Obama and the deficit – especially since we’ve shown you the figures proving that Obama’s policies play only a minor part in that.
But you can’t cut spending in PA – Arlen’s gotta have his library!
Jeff:
But you can’t cut spending in PA – Arlen’s gotta have his library!
Smiling Ed Rendell tried a tax increase last year and failed. He submitted his last budget this year and want a lttle more, and didn’t get it. So, we stayed steady for a while now.
Spending Cuts??? No, no, not that, anything but that. Say it ain’t so! Why, it’s the end of the world, the death of civilization, the greatest disaster to befall the nation since the TEA Party made the nightly news.
It’s worse than John Edwards getting caught with his pants down. It’s even worse than videos of Reverend Wright spewing racist bilge on national TV.
Well, it’s bad, really bad to cut spending, which is worse than cutting taxes. It’s almost a bad as pictures of that damn oil well gushing in the Gulf, or gooey pelicans and oily dead dolphins belly up and rotting in the marsh grass.
It’s even worse than right-wingers using contrived video clips of those two peaceful poll watchers in Philly volunteering to make sure no violent white seniors infiltrate the polls or disrupt the sanctity of the voting booths. (Those guys deserve their own reality show.)
I’m fed up, and I’m not going to take it anymore, I’m headed for Canada, and this time I really, really, mean it!
Dana Pico writes:
Yes, I think that with time we forget how big a victory Christie’s win was. Corzine, had been for years insulated from repercussions by his virtually bottomless war chest and the Collaborationist Media. It’s doubly satisfying to see these characters (Soros reputedly spent 10 million minimum trying to defeat Bush) waste their personal money.
“As a candidate, Corzine dipped into the personal fortune he accumulated on Wall Street, repeating the pattern that won him a U.S. Senate seat in 2000 and the governor’s office four years ago. Most of the $23 million he had spent through late October bought attack ads that drew attention to Christie’s record of support for President George W. Bush, his record as U.S. attorney and even his weight.”
“In ousting Corzine after just one term, the 47-year-old Christie overcame a $12 million spending advantage by Corzine - much of it poured into ads mocking the GOPer’s girth – and the full weight of the Obama White House.”
Perry writes:
Apart from the freedom from excessive or matching taxation, Americans also lay claim to all kinds of other rights, say of speech or action, that many of the countries you refer to do not allow, either.
It’s a matter of basic political principles and assumptions.
Not that you might not also be happy to see the United States impose restrictions on those kinds of freedom too …
” …like calling this planned rescission a ‘tax increase’. No!”
Will taxes be going up?
lol @ rope
Perry challenged me:
Using tax years 2000 and 2004 Forms 1040 (picked because 2000 was the last year under the pre-tax cut numbers, and 2004, because it had all of the 2003 tax cuts figured in) and an adjusted gross income of $60,000 for a family of four, with two children under 17 at the end of the tax year, and using the standard deduction, that $60,000 AGI in 2000 would have paid $5,214 in federal income taxes, while in 2004, only $2,974 in federal income taxes, for a savings of $2,240. Perhaps that’s just chump change to you, but it works out to $186.66 a month.
Now, what’s $186.66 a month to a family of four? Well, it might be a whole week’s worth of groceries, or perhaps it’s their electric and water bills for the month. Maybe it’s a car payment, so they can get to work. If we assume that the $60,000 is jointly and evenly earned by two people, working full-time jobs, you’re looking at an hourly wage of $14.42 an hour; $2,240 = 155.34 hours of work for them, or just shy of four weeks of full time work! Under the 2000 tax rates, each of those two people would be working two more weeks out of the year for the federal government . . . and two weeks less for themselves.
Perhaps if “those of (you) who try to see the big picture, (and think) it is obvious that the Bush tax cuts were a gift to the wealthy” were to actually look at what those tax cuts really meant to working class people — you know: actually looking at the facts! — perhaps you’d see that they were a big boon to working Americans.
Perhaps if “those of (you) who try to see the big picture, (and think) it is obvious that the Bush tax cuts were a gift to the wealthy” were to actually look at what those tax cuts really meant to working class people — you know: actually looking at the facts! — perhaps you’d see that they were a big boon to working Americans.
They see only what they are told.
Apart from the freedom from excessive or matching taxation, Americans also lay claim to all kinds of other rights, say of speech or action, that many of the countries you refer to do not allow, either.
The Soviet Union also laid claims to all sorts of rights. Their Constitution was very high minded in that regard. The reality was somewhat different. “People’s Republic”, my ass.
The US Constitution is also full of high minded principles. The US has also recently asserted that the President has the right to order the murder of American citizens based just on his say-so. “Land of the Free”, my ass.
asserted that the President has the right to order the murder of American citizens based just on his say-so.
[...] It seems that our good friend Perry is getting memos from the Democratic Party: Moreover, it is time to correct your rhetoric, Dana. Rescinding the Bush tax cuts, that is, letting them expire, is not a tax increase as you are wont to label them. [...]
[...] Sense Political Thought – Real, honest-to-God, spending cuts! submitted by The Colossus of [...]
[...] place *t* with 1 vote – Common Sense Political Thought – Real, honest-to-God, spending cuts! submitted by The Colossus of [...]
[...] place *t* with 1 vote – Common Sense Political Thought – Real, honest-to-God, spending cuts! submitted by The Colossus of [...]
[...] cuts for the rich,” they actually know what the impact would be on just regular Joes. I calculated it out earlier, using tax years 2000 and 2004 Forms 1040 (picked because 2000 was the last year under the pre-tax [...]
[...] taxes are allowed to increase on everybody, then you can kiss that increased savings rate goodbye. As I calculated before, the tax difference between the post-2001/2003 tax cuts and the rates which prevailed in 2000 is [...]