Submitted by greg, Mar 12, 2008 15:50

Obama's goal is to encourage non-rich people to become more prosperous, not to tear down the rich. He does this through making education more affordable and providing tax credits to low and middle income people to encourage investment and savings. The fact that Obama came from a poor family, is black, and paid his way through college and law school encourages poor people and minorities to become more propserous by demonstrating that anything is possible in the US, even if you are black, as long as you focus your life on education and hard work.

There are no Obama proposals right now to increase income taxes, or any policies that increase tax rates based on a persons' income. He has supported increasing tax rates on capital gains, dividends, and hedge fund profits. These changes apply to everyone in the US regardless of their income level. Since wealthy people make more money than poor people on capital gains and dividends they will end up paying more in their total taxes than they do now. That part is true. But anyone who get capital gains, no matter what their income level, will be paying the same rate. Right now wealthy people who don't have jobs, and just manage family money, pay less on the money they make each year than people who have to work for their income every day. Increasing these taxes, over time, should hopefully decrease personal income tax rates and move us closer to a flat tax where everyone pays the same percentage of their yearly earnings no matter what.

Raising Social Security Taxes:

The social security tax only taxes people each year up to $97,500 of their earnings. That means if you make $50,000 a year right now you pay a higher percentage of your yearly earnings to Social Security than someone earning $500,000. How does it make sense to tax poorer people at a higher rate than wealthy people? At least the percent tax should be even for everyone in the US regardless of how much money they earn. Obama does not support raising the tax paid as a percentage of earnings, but he does think that the $97,500 cap should be raised. In my opinion, there should be no cap. Everyone should pay the same taxes to the government no matter what amount of money they earn.

Obama's actual tax plans focus on finding ways to help non-rich become more prosperous and to decrease reliance on social security through encouraging private savings:

• Tax credit to offset payroll tax on first $8,100 in earnings for lower—middle income people, decreasing employer expenses on payroll taxes.
• Create pre-filled returns sent by IRS to citizens that can be signed and returned as an option to doing your own taxes.
• $4K Tax Credit for College Costs for everyone. (tax reduction)
• Increased "Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit" by 15% for families earning less than $50K per year.
• Eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50K per year.
• Require businesses to give employees access to direct-deposit IRAs to increase private retirement savings.
• Up to $500 tax credit for families earning less than $75,000 for saving $1000 or more for retirement each year.

The end result of the tax plan will be that poor people pay less in taxes than they do now and that rich people will pay more; so redistribution is taking place, compared to the current tax system. That point I agree with the writer about. However, it seems to me that the wealthiest Americans currently pay a lower percentage of their yearly earnings right now than middle class and poor people so the Social Security and Capital Gains tax increases are only making the total yearly tax percentage paid by everyone more equal. I don't want to pay more taxes either, but I shouldn't be able to pay less than people who earn less money. Also, most of the redistribution is in the form of helping to provide child care, college education, and personal retirement savings for low-income families. Those seem to me to be good areas for social investment because they encourage personal responsibility, rather than big government, improve the skill and education of the US labor force increasing international competitiveness and lowering unemployment, and decrease costs for social services for the poor and elderly by encouraging personal savings and decreasing their respective tax rates.

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