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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is filling in the blanks in his proposal to eliminate taxes on interest and dividends for families earning less than $200,000 a year.
Some taxes? It would eliminate ALL my taxes. Why is it that all the relief keeps coming my way? Dividend cuts. Capital gain cuts. And now this? Where will it end? I'm retired. All my money is in savings. I have a decent nest egg. As much as I would like relief coming my way, I'm not the one who actually needs it. At today's interest rates this plan would mean a retired family with $5 million in savings would pay NO income tax. Meanwhile, the poor who live paycheck to paycheck would see absolutely no benefit at all. Does that sound even remotely fair?
Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, said the proposal would cost $32 billion, to be paid for through economic growth, and by holding non-defense discretionary spending to inflation minus 1 percentage point.
This plan would personally save me more than $10,000 a year in taxes. Yet, the average American saves a mere $100 in taxes ($32 billion divided by 300 million Americans). Once again I ask, does that sound even remotely fair?
I would like to see people save more. I'm in favor of incentives to allow them to save more. However, I'm not buying his claim that it would be "paid for through economic growth". I'm saving before the plan. I'll be saving after the plan. Nothing changed for me except that I'll be growing wealthier faster.
This really bothers me. Enough already. I used to think I was a Republican. Then I thought maybe I'm a Democrat. A few years later I thought I was a Libertarian. Now I'm just thinking I'd rather be left alone. The world's gone mad.
The lower and middle classes just keep getting shafted while Nero plays the fiddle.
Income Inequality Index
By the way, we're not orange any longer. We're 0.47 and rising. I've felt for the past three years we had a banana republic level trade deficit. Soon the picture will be complete.
The following information was recently released by our government. It is a bit long but is also a worthy (and disturbing) read.
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006
4 comments:
I'm one of the officially poor. Year before last, my husband and I both worked as hard as we could. I put in lots of overtime and we managed to save $1000. When I did the taxes, they hadn't witheld enough, even though we filed the correct amount of deductions. We owed $945. So now, in a new job with lower pay and my husband not working due to injuries, I get to pay them back with interest PLUS I have to have my tax rate at the single rate to make sure it doesn't happen again. Yes, I am still bitter about it. If we each withold a single exemption, the IRS should withold the correct amount.
Teri,
I am so sorry. You deserve better than that and I can certainly understand why you are bitter.
It is clear from this article that politicians are completely out of touch with the difficulties at the lower end of the income scale.
My girlfriend is forced to live paycheck to paycheck because of a very expensive ongoing medical condition. She couldn't possibly pay for it on her own. It isn't about willpower or working harder. It just wouldn't be possible (and that's WITH insurance).
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is toast.
Mark,
I would say that Rommey is DOA, the republicans are going to get their ass kicked so bad in the next election from what I can tell that this guy will just be a faded memory before we even get to the election.
I see a shift to the left with higher taxes, and increased entitlement spending and possibly a withdraw of our troops in Iraq.
One of the problems with this country and the 2 party system is that the republicans have never seen a tax cut they didn't like and the democrats have never seen an entitlement program they didn't like and neither one cares about anything past the next election.
Kevin
Kevin,
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up alright.
What I'd really like to know is if he honestly believes what he said.
"There may be some tax policies which tend to favor the highest tax payers. This is certainly not one of them," he said. "It is entirely targeted at middle-income and modest-income Americans, allowing the great bulk of our citizens — 95 percent of our citizens — to be able to save their income, tax free," he said.
While it is true that his plan would not help him much (which is at least somewhat refreshing these days), it most certainly isn't targeting the modest-income Americans (unless by "modest" you mean someone who has just 1% of Romney's weatlh, which might include someone like myself).
I'm surprised the Republicans weren't DOA back in 2004. As a former Republican (naively thinking I was on the side of a smaller more fiscally responsible government, hahaha!), I certainly remember voting the "anyone but Bush" option.
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