If enacted, the Obama budget would levy a whole host of new and higher taxes to fund policies aimed at “remaking” the American economy, like nationalized healthcare, a cap-and-trade energy system, and “tax breaks” for low-income families, most of whom don’t pay federal income taxes to begin with.
The budget would raise income taxes on individuals and small businesses by $636 billion over 10 years. It creates a $634 billion “reserve fund” for nationalizing healthcare that would be paid for with a combination of tax increases and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
President Obama’s budget would also impose a “light bulb tax” on all Americans in order to implement a cap-and-trade energy policy, where companies would have to pay the federal government to use oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels. That tax alone could cost American families as much as $3,100 per year in higher prices for electricity, gasoline, and other products and services. Not only would these tax increases further drain American families and businesses of income during the recession, they will stifle economic growth, just when our elected leaders should be enacting policies to promote it!
This massive $3.6 trillion budget comes on top of the:
- $787 billion “economic stimulus” package
- 410 billion fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill
- $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, Detroit automakers, and homeowners who took out mortgages they can’t afford
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Friday predicted that the Obama budget will push the federal deficit to a mind-numbing $1.85 trillion this year and pile up $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, on top of the existing $11 trillion national debt! CBO called these deficits, which would never fall below 4 percent of our economy’s gross domestic product, “unsustainable.”
Both the House and Senate Budget Committees will begin marking up their versions of the Obama budget on Wednesday, March 25, 2009.
Both the House and Senate Budget Committees will begin marking up their versions of the Obama budget on Wednesday, March 25, 2009.
As if this disastrous $3.6 trillion spending plan weren’t bad enough, the Obama Administration is pushing Democratic lawmakers to use a parliamentary maneuver called “budget reconciliation,” which would allow the Senate to pass the Obama budget’s tax increases, nationalized healthcare plan, and cap-and-trade energy policy with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
- - Winston Churchill
