And I’ll go one further. They’ll start with incomes lower than that. Democrats never met a tax they didn’t like. I think Biden probably was laying the groundwork for taking more with his fright speech. Taxes are too complicated for most of us to even gauge the impact. For those filing a short form it may be easier to figure.

I for one am very tired of these arguments about at what income level the tax increases start. It’s all just a smokescreen to cover the fact that he wants the government to be doing things it shouldn’t be doing.

If Obama thinks that his programs are a good idea for ANY taxpayer to be funding, then they should be a good enough idea that EVERY taxpayer should be willing to accept an increase.

And by the way, am I the only one who’s incensed that there are people voting who don’t pay federal income taxes? If taxation without representation is enough to cause a revolution, what about representation without taxation? Shouldn’t the people who are paying the bills get a larger say in how it’s spent? How is it that 30% of my income goes to government programs, yet my vote counts exactly as much as people who are in what amounts to a negative tax bracket.

He’ll be looking for the chicken button for the first few months, then Uncle Joe* will come into the Oval Office, pick poor, indecisive Barry up off the floor and show him how to make decisions… and then he may even hold Barry’s hand as he signs the bill… (esp. starting at about 2:20: “work, work, work…”)

*Scary how readily “Uncle Joe” fits the Obama phenomenon.

to start even lower than that. I’ll hazard a guess that the $182K lower limit will easily be another $100K lower by the time these plans would be implemented. Ordinary two income families as well as ordinary skilled workers would get hit. Yeah, I know, software engineers like me are part of that targeted demographic. Gee it feels unusual being part of the “rich”.

I own a small business with aprivate investment firm, employ 144 people and have invested our profits back into the company the past three years, expanding and hiring poeple, we have gone from roughly 70 employees to a 144 over this time.

The shareholders have not taken a discretionary distribution during this time (the only distributins of profits we haev taken have been to pay our quarterly taxes)while our employees have benefitted in the form of higher wages and bonuses. Let me just share with everyone how a real small business will be dealing with an increase in our taxes or what i will refere to has burden cost.

1) we will be redcuing the amount we contribute to our employees 401 K match roughly saving us 10K per month.

2) we are making modifications to our health insurance (most likely going from thousand dollar deductible to 5000 thousand, requring employee to go frompayingh 30% to approxiamtely 50%)

3) We will be removing the following from our payrolls, 1 salary @ 174K, 2 salary @43K, 14 employees in the 30K to 36K range.

4) We are postponing any 2009 merit increase for at least 6 months (these merit increases would equate to an additinal 175K to the payrolls for existing employees.

5) 2008 discretionary bonuses will be cut in half from an approxiamte payout of 145K to about 75K. To put it in perspective our average bonus for 2008 will go to about 2500 per employee from 5000 last year.

6) we our reducing budgets for IT and advertising wich inturn will effect other small business that currently do business with us.

Bottom line is there is a lot of good peopel are going to suffer to pay for the extra burden cost put on our business when our taxes our increased. But i guess that $1000.00 rebate check adn free heath care will compensate for the fact that you don’t have a job anymore.

I do not agree with Obama’s tax plan, but I disagree with this line of argument against the plan. Arguments against Obama’s tax proposal should be based not on a dollar figure (which is arbitrary at any level you pick), but on a set of principles that argue against the redistribution of wealth. Keep in mind that this number, while meaningfully lower than what Obama claims, is greater than the household income for more than 90% of families in this country (the 95th percentile for family income in 2003 was $154,120–not sure about more recent figures). We can’t be baited into making arguments such as this, due to the simple fact that 19 out of 20 people find this number irrelevant, if not obscene. We are not, nor do we want to be, the party of the top 5%, but making arguments such as this does much to support this unfounded criticism, particularly in these strained financial times.

I’m a bit confused as to what Krugman was saying. Why did he give the number “after deductions?” I skimmed his piece and don’t think I saw an explanation. But it sounds like he’s just using Obama’s number, but removing itemized deductions from it or something. But I can’t really see why he’d do that. Did I miss something?

Call me a lurker, or a troll, whatever — the few times I’ve commented on RedState, I’ve been attacked for any polite disagreement without exception. I check out RedState daily just to see what conservatives are focusing on, and it’s been disappointing in the extreme — constant character assasinations, guilt by association, and generally a huge focus on issues that have no bearing or commentary on the incredibly serious crises facing our country today.
But today I notice the postings here are tending toward practical issues — examinations of Obama’s economic policies and Deomcratic party gaffes for example. Keep it up.
Too little too late? Perhaps, but I yearn for the day when conservatives actually had a consistent philosophy and integrity, William F. Buckley days, and we need debate — not screaming and name-calling — to come to the best solution for our nation together.
McCain’s failure to win this election offers conservatives the opportunity for some soul searching. I hope they rediscover their soul — it’s not enough to smear the other guy, you’ve got to come up with better ideas and not abaondon them as soon as you’re in the majority.