Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression.
Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a
manner that benefits the middle class.
In laying his predicate, Obama wastes our time with what we already know. In 1954, a loaf of bread cost five-cents. In fifty-five years, prices have increased; but I also know that back then, my father earned $60 a month; when he retired in 1972, he earned over $3,000 a month. Next, Obama typically engages in Marxist class-warfare, a classic saw within the Democratic platform. The facts tell us something else. According to U. S. Treasury Department, taxpayers in the top half of income paid 96% of the total income tax revenues. In future years, the percentage of income tax paid by middle class citizens who fall into the bottom half of income earnings will be less than 4% of the total. That presumes, of course, that Barack Obama is defeated in this election. So it would seem that Mr. Obama is being dishonest. If the American people elect Barack Obama to the presidency, taxes will increase across the board. And the proof of this is that Barack Obama cannot increase government spending AND provide meaningful tax cuts to “95% of the American workers.”
Barack Obama claims that he has a plan to jumpstart the economy — and he plans to do this by giving “something back” to Americans. At the very outset, he wants to tax oil company profits to give American families a $1,000 rebate. Now if you lack critical thinking skills, this sounds great. History tells us that government does not exist to give us money; in fact, the opposite is true. Every “benefit” costs the American worker money. But now consider, if these funds come from the “greedy oil companies,” what is the likely consequence to the cost of gasoline and heating oil? By the end of the first year, Obama’s rebate checks might offer consumers with a “break even” scenario.
He also wants to give $50 billion to state and local governments so that each of us can have access to health, education, housing, heating fuels, as an offset to property taxes. Forget that federal grants do not offset state, county, or municipal taxes, but do think about this: his allocation of one-billion dollars to each state, if distributed on a per-capita basis, is a laughable benefit. In California , the per-capita share of one-billion dollars is $27.35, and in Pennsylvania , it comes to $80.43. Once again, Barack Obama is following the example of Bill Clinton in 1991 — promises made, promises broken.
Obama wants to provide “a tax cut” to middle class Americans. This is what he wrote:
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
Mr. Obama is not going to cut taxes. It is impossible to cut taxes for 150 million Americans — half of our entire population, when he in fact intends to increase spending by $3 Trillion. Our grandfather might have noted, “This dog won’t hunt.” Additionally, ten million Americans is roughly three percent of our population, so at this point we must ask, “Who benefits most from the Obama plan?” The answer is, “Not the average American.”
Barack Obama and Joe Bide believe that foreign trade should strengthen the American economy; it should create more jobs for Americans. Obama vows to “fight for fair trade,” which means that he will erect trade barriers that will make imported goods more expensive, and domestic made goods less appealing to foreign consumers. How does this help “jump-start” the economy? The answer is it doesn’t. Two issues come to mind. The first is, think about an increase in the retail cost of Chinese-made “junk” you find on the shelves at Wal-Mart. Second, what will happen to American jobs when foreign buyers no longer purchase domestic-made goods? Does Obama have a realistic goal for our economy? No, he does not.
Several years ago, a thoughtful schoolteacher noted the following: when her school district gave teachers a raise, there was a direct and immediate increase in the cost of food, utilities, clothing, fuel, and medical and dental costs. She noted that if her new salary was a modest increase of four percent, the cumulative weight of increased costs across the board resulted in an income loss. Now, Barack Obama wants to “reward” companies with tax breaks when they pay their workers a “decent wage.” We don’t know what “decent wage” means, but we do understand Barack Obama’s very first statement: “Wages are stagnant as prices rise.” We also understand that Obama does not have a solution to a problem he identified as a national problem.
To bolster manufacturing, Barack Obama will create an “Advanced Manufacturing Fund.” The first intelligent question is, “What is that?” The next question should be, “Where will the money come from?” The answer to the first question is it is another costly government bureaucracy. Another government program, another layer of inefficiency added to the federal government. The answer to the second question is simple: it will come from the pockets of the American worker. Is this what Americans want? Does anyone honestly trust Obama with a flagging American economy?
To simplify the process of investigating the Obama Economic Plan, we’ve compiled the following chart. It will take just a few minutes to review it, and the reader can investigate further at the Obama website. But the sheer weight of this information demonstrates that Barack Obama’s Economic “break for Americans” is a fraud.
As we count down to the remaining hours of this election, I urge all readers who have not yet voted to continue listening to what the candidates are saying; feel free to question their rhetoric.
