Nobody Seems To Care About The Increases In Obamacare Taxes
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
There are at least two ways to balance the budget. Increase taxes or decrease spending.
If you increase spending without increasing taxes, you increase the budget deficit. If taxes are increased enough the budget deficit might be reduced.
It was the Obama administration’s hope that if taxes were raised slowly, Americans would not notice the increases.
This is exactly what President Obama and the tax and spend Democrats are doing.
A frustrated reader writes about the slow rise but unrelenting rise in taxes.
“Here is a message from my buddy Brad.
As Jim Naybors/Gomer Pyle used to say – "surprise surprise."
Here is what happened on January 1, 2015:
Top Medicare tax went from 1.45% to 2.35%
Top Income tax bracket went from 35% to 39.6%
Top Income payroll tax went from 37.4% to 52.2%
Capital Gains tax went from 15% to 28%
Dividends tax went from15% to 39.6%
Estate tax went from 0%to 55%
Remember this fact:
These taxes were all passed only with Democrat votes, no Republicans
voted for these taxes.
These taxes were all passed under the Affordable Care Act, aka
Obamacare.
The problem is taxes are at the tipping point. The rich and the middle class are now noticing the yearly tax increases. They are starting to shout, “no new taxes. Where is the value of these new taxes?”
A problem in America is an increasingly large group of people who pay no taxes. These people have no choice but to accept government handouts to survive.
It has been reported that government handouts are equivalent to about a $50,000 a year post tax income. The entitlements blunt incentives to take the initiative and find work in order to be productive citizens.
Working people are experiencing the increased tax burden and are unhappy.
The most irritating thing about the increased taxes is Americans are not getting value for their money. All they are getting is lies and failed programs.
Administrator Marilyn Tavenner is resigning her post overseeing Obamacare just months after she admitted that the Obama White House’s highly publicized 8 million Obamacare enrollment figure was inflated by at least 1.3 million.
There is always a fall guy. It is never President Obama or his policies that are at fault. There is never full disclosure or transparency about these failed programs.
A vivid example of the lack of transparency is a recent disclosure by the budget committee about the Obama administration’s using unauthorized funds to pay for Obamacare cost overruns. Congress is supposed to authorize the use of funds according to the constitution.
Obamacare was having trouble getting insurance companies to participate in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. President Obama activated the government guarantee reinsurance program to subsidize the insurance industry. The goal was to induce the healthcare insurance industry to participate in the health insurance exchanges. The Obamacare reinsurance program guarantees the insurance industry that it cannot loss money in providing insurance through the health insurance exchanges.
The Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations.
At issue are payments to insurers known as cost-sharing subsidies. These payments come about because President Obama’s healthcare law forces insurers to limit out-of-pocket costs for certain low income individuals by capping consumer expenses, such as deductibles and co-payments, in insurance policies. In exchange for capping these charges, insurers are supposed to receive compensation.
What’s tricky is that Congress never authorized any money to make such payments to insurers in its annual appropriations, but the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway.
There are several other incidences of money shifting without congressional appropriation.
President Obama continually forgets that the constitution provides for three independent branches of government. They were formed in order to maintain checks and balance so one branch does not become all powerful.
The apparent disregard for the constitution is ubiquitous in the Obama administration.
If anyone is bothered by these actions by the Obama administration, please write to your representatives in congress.
If you think it is important that everyone in the U.S. should
know these things, feel free to pass this on.
If there is value to the healthcare system with Obamacare, a debate about the need for increased funds is appropriate.
Most Americans do not like Obamacare. Most physicians do not like Obamacare. America’s budget cannot stand Obamacare.
President Obama loves Obamacare. Isn’t President Obama supposed to represent the will of the people?
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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