-By Warner Todd Huston
The Senate is about to pay off the unions for helping get Obama elected. Senator Max Baucus (D, Mont.) looks to be about ready to propose a plan to pay for Obama’s massive, more than $1 trillion in new government spending on healthcare by instituting a new tax on many employees that currently have healthcare through their workplace (nearly 1 in 8 workers according to Peter Barnes). Never having been “income” before, Senator Baucus is prepared to claim it is and will be taxed accordingly.
… unless, of course, you happen to be a union member. If you are a Democrat supporting, Obama voting union member, why you don’t have to pay this never before levied tax at all. You get off scot free. Fuggedaboutit.
So much for equal under the law. Now, all you have to do is join a union and, voila, you don’t have to pay the taxes everyone else suffers under. Aren’t you glad that Obama is so interested in “fair,” and “balanced” governance? Isn’t it great that the Obama era is the “post-partisan” era? If it weren’t the “post-partisan” era, I’d fear for my life instead of just my tax bill this being an example of Democrat’s “fairness” for America.
One of the many problems with Obamacare is his claim that the program could be made “revenue neutral.” It is a thorough fantasy to imagine it could be so. We all know that for Obama to begin to pay for even a small portion of this mess taxes will have to be raised in many areas. And even that will never cover the cost of the trillions that Obama wants to spend on this policy. Obama’s meddling in healthcare will cost an exorbitant amount of money. Worse, it is likely that the states will be left with unfunded mandates that will force them to raise taxes as well (just like what happened with Medicare and Medicaid).
Additionally, Baucus has a sort of bait and switch in his proposal. Not only is he selling this idea to his biggest supporters in unions as a free ride for them in order to get their class warfare vote, but he is also pretending that only “the rich” will have to pay the healthcare-coverage-as-income tax. He says that only a small number of Americans will be hit with the new tax scheme. To soften the blow, Baucus is proposing a cap on on his tax exclusion at a level “significantly above” the cost of current federal employees plans. That way, he claims, the tax would hit only those making $100,000 or above (or $200,000 for a couple). He then proposes that the tax cap be frozen at this current rate. It’s a classic class warfare maneuver. Soak the rich, give everyone else a pass… even though that “everyone else” will ostensibly benefit the most.
So, why would Baucus only want to tax such a small number of people? If his goal is to “pay” for Obama’s massive spending on healthcare, one might think Baucus would make the cap at a much lower income level so that more Americans would find themselves paying the new tax.
This is where it gets underhanded. Once the Baucus cap is frozen at today’s rates, as time goes on and incomes rise, more and more Americans will find themselves suddenly “rich” enough to be taxed unequally. This happened with the “Alternative Minimum Tax.” In that case, only “millionaires” were supposed to be hit harder, but as incomes rose more and more people found themselves forced into the bracket that triggered the tax. The obvious tactic is to hurt fewer Americans now to get the thing passed all the while knowing that more and more citizens will be hit later.
And why exempt all union members? Shouldn’t they share the same burden as other Americans? This is just more of Baucus’ underhanded political games being played with our health. Was Baucus trained by Tony Soprano? It sure seems so.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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