OPINION:
The New York Times threw a pity party for President Obama on Monday, but the people who really deserve pity are taxpayers burdened by Obama administration excesses.
“What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?” asked Michael Cooper in the lead sentence of the Gray Lady’s ode to Mr. Obama’s mysteriously underappreciated tax-cutting proclivities. A $400 respite for individuals - in the form of lower income-tax withholding in regular paychecks - was contained in last year’s nearly trillion-dollar stimulus spending package. Mr. Cooper’s subtext was that the president ought to get more credit for his beneficence. What the article failed to grasp is that Mr. Obama doesn’t deserve any gratitude for minimal tax cuts when his policies are responsible for dramatically raising taxes much more.
In just two years, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the president and the Democratic Congress have been responsible for raising the total tax burden on the economy by $352 billion over 10 years. Obamacare alone raises taxes by $652.2 billion before offsets, as documented by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation. This dwarfs any remission in the stimulus package or elsewhere in Obamacare.
If anything, ATR was too lenient on Democrats. The anti-tax group didn’t count the cost of lawmakers failing to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. With Speaker Nancy Pelosi casting the deciding vote, the House adjourned for the election season without continuing those cuts - a failure that could raise taxes $2.6 trillion over the next decade. Also overlooked is the expiration of small-business tax cuts, which will take $2 trillion from the economy, and $560 billion in projected added taxes in the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
These numbers don’t take into account that someone eventually will have to pay for the Democrats’ entire spending spree. That heavy burden will fall on today’s young workers and their children and grandchildren.
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