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Democrats agree to raise taxes $550 billion to fund so-called health care reform

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  July 11th, 2009 at 08:11 AM  | 

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House Democrats agreed Friday to raise taxes by about $550 billion to pay
for their sweeping expansion of the nation’s health care system.

The huge tax increase will only pay for about half the cost of the Democrats’ health spending plans, so according to the New York Times, the Democrats will also cut Medicare spending, the government health plan for the elderly, and other health care savings to pay for the rest of the $trillion-plus health care spending spree.

The top federal tax rate is now 35 percent, but Democrats have vowed to raise it to 39.6 percent next year. The Washington Post quotes Robert Carroll, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Tax Foundation, as saying that combined with other federal tax adjustments, the Democrats’ new health care spending tax increase could leave some taxpayers facing top federal rates of at least 45 percent.

The Democrats’ new health care spending tax increase agreement enables House Democrat leaders to unveil health legislation Monday and bring it to a vote before the Congress takes an August vacation.

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  • reddog53

    The estimate of $550B for health care reform is about one third the size of the estimate reported by the CBO just weeks ago. How have they suddenly reduced the program by two thirds? What has been dropped? They can’t seriously think that we’re going to believe that we’ll get the same result for a third of the cost….

    The experience in Massachusetts is more to the point. Costs are running about double what they originally thought, and they’re looking for a bailout from the federal government of over $1.5B.

    Where does the federal government go for more $$? With all the other spending we’ve done, that well is dry.

    We need to stop this before it starts. There will be no turning back.

    • marshmom

      This is a direct quote from the referenced article:
      “The surtax percentages could rise two years later, they added, if lawmakers think additional cash is needed to cover the cost of health-care reform. ”
      So, technically speaking, they could raise taxes on the “wealthy” to almost 50%, because any thinking person can already see the price tag will be WAY more than estimated.
      What an absolute tragedy.

  • janis

    talking with my brother-in-law and his wife about the election in Nov. They are Dems in their 70′s. When I mentioned some facts about Obama that the MSM refused to report, both of them refused to believe me. When I told them that Medicare benefits would be likely on the chopping block, they scoffed at my ignorance. They insisted that the country needed a change from the disastrous policies of the previous 8 years and Obama represented the best hope for putting America on the right course.

    Guess which one of us is suffering from a hive-inducing case of buyer’s remorse at this point. Being a merciful woman, I don’t intend to mention this more than once or twice a week to them.

    • penguin2

      I’m sorry, I love when I can get a laugh. But , it is no laughing matter. I was just sitting here wondering about the elderly population that is dependent on Medicare, they already have constraints on their coverage and access. Here, in the Tidewater area(Va.), many doctors do not take Tricare (military insurance). When it had been CHAMPUS years ago, it was no problem. This past decade, more and more docs have closed their practices to accepting both Tricare and Medicare patients.

      I wonder how all those retirees in Florida who voted for Mr. Deception himself, are feeling now.

      • janis

        husband are two of them, although they voted for Sarah Palin and that old guy. My aunt is a vigorous 81 year old who just elected to go ahead and have knee replacement surgery while she still could. My dad is 84 and was fortunate enough to get a replacement for his internal pacemaker/defibrillator this past May. His doctor told him that it would have to done within the year and I was concerned that it would end up being put off until Obama managed to screw him out of it.

        As fate would have it, my dad’s ICD did what the doctor said it would do when it reached the point that it had to be replaced—it started playing music one morning before he got out of bed. Good thing he had been warned that that would happen! Can you imagine how it would have been if you were a heart patient and the device in your chest just started playing music one day without any warning? :-)

        • penguin2

          That would have taken me off the insurance rolls!

  • susanb55

    It seems that raising taxes to pay for something more than 70% of the American population wants only makes sense. We simply can’t borrow any more money from Communist China the way Bush did. We have to pay for what we get. It seems like, well, personal responsibility.

    • Repair_Man_Jack

      Always want an economic good that someone else gets made to pay for. The real test of healthcare’s value is how many people would actually want this monstrosity if they were even partially on the hook.

    • janis

      and misinformation that it wins the Saturday morning “Best of the Worst” award. Congratulations! Be proud of your accomplishment because this award is usually only given late in the day, but due to your stupendously stupid comment, we’ve taken a vote and decided to confer it on you early.

      Go ahead, make our day and say something even dumber. Be forewarned though, no matter how low you go in trying to outdo yourself in idiocy, you can’t win twice in one day, so pace yourself. We give them away on Sundays, too.

      • http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

        I’ll send you the bill — and if the coffee damages the hard drive, you’ll get a bill for that too!

        • janis

          in another thread. Had someone draw me up a release form exonerating me from all liability concerning keyboard destruction and hard drive desecration. ( He wasn’t an attorney but he used lots of mysterious words so the thing looks official enough.)

          You are welcome to send me the bill however. Just use the address below.

          ;-)

          • http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

            you are neglecting the “Before Saturday Noon” clause, written on the back in invisible ink.

          • janis

            my copy seems to read “Before Saturday Noon” but only on even numbered Saturdays in months ending in “ber.”

            So if I am to blame for killing your keyboard or other computer elements on Saturday, September 12th before noon, then you’ve got me dead to rights.

          • penguin2

            My memory is fuzzy for numbers right now, but I do believe the Chinese are balking at buying anymore of our debt. And Zero gets the prize for current deficit numbers. At least when Bush left office, I believe we were still using the term billions, now I’m looking up for what comes after trillions.

          • janis

            We’re back to bartering with chickens and produce. Let the Dems propose programs costing 3 million frying hens and 8 tons of cabbage and see how long they last in power.

          • mbecker908
          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
          • mom2oneson
          • mbecker908
          • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
    • http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

      Repair Man and Janis said…

      …what little round puckered orifice did you pull that 70% out of… and it smells like it.

      80% of Americans say they are content with their health coverage…

      …but then again, 70% of those who have no health insurance DO want someone else to pay for it!

    • http://fairfaxgardener.blogspot.com ddstrain

      and he is an out of his head, hard-core liberal … with a public access TV show. The American people might want qauliy health care, better coverage and cheaper costs … but they sure as hell DO NOT WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO DO IT.

      We have already started an austerity program at home focused on lowering household income by about 10%, lower productivity, refusing stock grants and generally lowering success so we don’t get slapped with another 5 figure bill at tax time … despite our payroll tax. The new American Dream is to make less that Obama’s (constantly lowering) bullseye on the middleclass.

      I don’t want it and I won’t pay for it … and we’re contracting the economy to save ourselves from paying for it.

      Whatever happened to rewarding sucess, striving for excellence and competing to get ahead. All we get now is “I’m owed”, “I want” and “I need”. Oh for the days of “I earned”.

      Hopping in the next handbasket as we’re all heading to hell via the Obama Expresspay Expresssway.

    • bk

      $nbsp;

  • DerKrieger

    …of health care “reform” was to SAVE money because the ever escalating health care costs. So how the HE!! are we saving money by spending a TRILLION dollars? Is no one in DC asking this question? WTH?

    These people MUST be run out of town. I’m sick and tired of this non-stop spending. They are totally out of control.

    • http://theminorityreportblog.com David Hinz

      ITS A RIGHT!

      like air, or breath mints!

      It’s a flippin’ right!

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        For the same reason that the election of dems to the majority in 2006 caused the recession even before the credit/housing crisis:

        The prospect of liberal policies hostile to business profits causes producers to go on strike. And now, after Obama/Dem poll number declines; senate dem cap and trade scepticism; etc and some hope the dems were going to stop the overreach, this vote in the house shows the business community that the dems have learned no lesson and likely won’t.

        Why would anyone invest or start a business or expand one in this environment?

        they won’t

        • http://fairfaxgardener.blogspot.com ddstrain

          The producers will go on strike …

          Maryland tried a millionaire tax … and poof … 1/3 of Maryland’s millionaires disappeared, resulting in a revenue decrease for that new class-warfare based tax bracket.

          It’ll be harder to move from the jurisdiction, but I’m sure a good corporate lawyer teamed with a good trusts lawyer can find a way to help America’s “rich” do what happened in Maryland.

    • janis

      had nothing at all to do with health care. It is solely about one thing:

      The destruction of the United States of America as a free-market capitalist country. No one in D.C. is asking the question you posted because the whole purpose of this is to kill freedom in this country forever. Face it, destroying a country like America from within was never going to be cheap.

      • DerKrieger

        but you would think that someone in the GOP at least would be asking the obvious question, “how do we save by spending?”

        I know full well this, and C&T, is about crushing individual liberty and ushering in a socialist state where we ‘proles’ are ruled by a self-selected class of elites.

        I am ready for secession. And I’m not a member of the kooky right either. I have an MBA and work for a Fortune 10 company as a Sr. Manager. I will NOT be a slave to this or any government.

    • Menlo

      With the exception of themselves and a few “props” for touting their “accomplishment,” they will simply kill off and/or let die most of those who may need costly care or treatment.

    • bk

      Obama and Biden repeatedly promised people with coverage through their employer that nothing would change – except that their premiums would drop $2,500/year per family. We had better hear reminders of that about 5 billion times from the GOP in 2010 and 2012.

  • bobojake

    The party of NO-NO-ACCOUNTIBILITY LED BY obama, schummmmerr,reid peloski, dodd, frank, waxman, leafy, boxer and don’t forget the $25 million dollar man from freddie-fannie scandal: rambo the vulgar.. May they forever go down in defeat and eat their own, like pigs on the farm do.

  • nessa

    That could only makes sense to a politician…

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    More than once today, there has been talk in the news of using TARP to help small businesses while simultaneously working to gouge them with taxes… which makes all money flow toward Washington then out again minus bureaucry costs.