Mr. Orwell would be proud

A new newspeak has emerged from the Obama campaign. Tax increases are no longer tax increases. They are now "rollbacks". As in rolling back the evil tax cuts by the evil Bush.

his middle-class tax cuts are larger than the rollbacks he has proposed for families making over $250,000.

Sen. Obama does not support uncapping the full payroll tax of 12.4% rate. Instead, he is considering plans that would ask those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2% to 4% more in total (combined employer and employee).

And forcing people - with the threat of jail for non compliance - to pay additional taxes is now simply "asking" people to do so. I don't know about you, but to me, asking someone to do something implies they have a choice of whether to say yes or no. I have a feeling that if I say no to Barry's question, I will get a visit from someone working for the IRS, and not a social visit either.

And since when the hell did making $250K suddenly put you into Bill Gates territory? They way they're spinning this you'd think $250K a year were $250 million. Judging by the media reports on this, with $250K I can buy a private jet, 7 houses all over the world and have a little left over for my 4 Italian sports cars. Reality is $250K a year in many parts of the country is barely middle class these days. And it is $250K per household, not for an individual, another small piece of information that is left out of the reporting.

And OK Barry says it will be 2-4%. BULLSHIT! When the income tax was first enacted in 1913, the top tax rate was 7%. And this was only on incomes above $500,000 a year which at the time was the equivalent of about $5M a year in today's worthless dollars. 2-4% may be the additional "asked for" money in 2009. By 2011 it will be 7% and by 2013 it will be 9% and within a decade it will be 15%. No tax in the history of taxation has ever stayed at the original level. Tax rates are like introductory interest rates from credit cards. They suck you in with the 3.99% promo and before you know it, it's up to 23.9%.

The idea of a middle class tax cut is in and of itself laughable. This is because the middle class does not pay any taxes and therefore cannot possibly get a tax cut. I have written here before and have a link to the site that details who pays what. The bottom 50% of income earners pay 3% of income taxes. The top 20% pays 80% of all taxes. The top 1%- the evil super rich- pays 35% of all taxes alone. So by definition any tax increase (or decrease) will apply almost exclusively to the non-middle class. And this doesn't include non-income taxes which the evil rich people pay more of as well. The the evil rich person buys the $100K car, he pays sales tax on $100K. When the glorious $9 an hour worker buys a $8000 car he pays sales tax on $8000. But yet somehow the rich guy doesn't pay his fair share in the twisted world that we live in today.

Finally even putting all that aside, what Barry doesn't get is that the really rich people, won't pay the extra tax. You can impose a 100% tax rate and it won't matter. They ultra-rich will have an army of lawyers and accountants who will move money offshore, hide it, launder it, what have you. The people that will get hurt the most - as usual - will be the upper middle income earners who have earn money to get trapped by this socialist madness, but not enough money to pay for the army of lawyers and accountants to avoid the taxation.