To Tax, or not to Tax...

President Obama has proposed a tax increase to all couples, individuals, and small businesses earning $250,000 or more per year. This tax increase isn't just a rate hike on the top, but also lurking within is a reduction on the amount of deduction these folks can take on all of their charitable giving. So, let's just soak that in. One can only assume, from this, that the federal government is now trying to discourage the wealthy from giving to charities.

According to the speech that Obama gave to Congress last week, the tax hikes are to fund a plethora of long-standing Democratic goodies, but none more at the forefront than...UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!!! I just heard that Psycho music playing in my head. Did you hear it? The cool thing is, the president is using this tax hike as a "Down Payment" on the health care plan. Guess what the plan is. Oops! There's no plan yet! President Obama is taking money from the top layer of American earners to pay for something that he's all but admitted doesn't exist! Is this reprehensible to anyone else?

So, if you're not one of the people making $250K per year, you're probably thinking...I'm good. Wrong. Something else that President Obama has planned on for some time now is letting the "Bush Tax Cuts" expire in 2010. This means, of course, that if you pay taxes, you'll be suddenly paying a lot more when they expire. Even though the president knows this, he chooses to not call this a tax increase because it's just a policy change, an expiration of old tax policies.

Don't you see the difference? I sure don't.

To make it clearer, here's a tax rate table I picked up, for a nice average salary of $50K/year. Before you read it, keep in mind, President Bush had two tax cuts, and both will expire this year.

Tax Rates - and the Obama Increase - $50,000/year Taxable Income

	2000 Tax Tables	2003 Tax Tables	2004 Tax Tables	2010 Tax Tables - (Bush Tax Cuts have Expired)	Increase with Obama Tax Increase*
Taxable Income	$50,000	$50,000	$50,000	$50,000	$50,000
Tax: Single	$10,581	$9,304	$9,231	$10,581	$1,350
Tax: Married - Filing Joint	$8,293	$6,796	$6,781	$8,293	$1,512
Tax: Married - Filing Separate	$11,143	$9,304	$9,231	$11,143	$1,912
Tax: Head of Household	$9,424	$8,189	$8,094	$9,424	$1,330

So, looks like President Obama is being straight with the American people about wanting to tax the rich, but totally lying about not taxing anyone else.

I understand that Taxation is necessary, to a certain extent, but this is out of hand. The American people are good people, working hard to feed their families and make ends meet. $1,000 would feed a family of 6 for two months. It could fund a couple months of college tuition (undergrad of course) for someone seeking further education. For the President of the United States to so flippantly take this money to further liberal agendas is immoral.