What Did The White House Know About the PhRMA Deal?

All the WH has to deal is release the video of the negotiations with PhRMA so that way the American people can see the terms of the deal. Obama said that all dealmaking would be televised on C-SPAN, so merely getting the recorded video of Obama's dealmaking isn't asking too much. Instead of the WH going back and forth on denials and non-denials, just clear everything up by showing the video!

What is new about the fact this administration can't keep its own stories straight.

The most common words that come from this Administration:

"He meant to say....."

"He meant......"

"His intenetions were....."

"There's class warfare, all right," Mr. Buffett said, "but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Think Alyson, that is what I said. Obama and Congress continues to protect the truly wealthy while the strivers and small business owners are the ones getting hit the hardest.

The "war" being fought is between the truly wealthy (Gates, Soros, Buffett, Kerry, Kennedy, Bush and the like) and those on the way up, small and medium business owners, middle management and even farmers. Those making between $100,000 and a $1,000,000 on paper.

Sounds like a lot? It's chump change to Warren and the boys.

President of the United States and Office of Imaginary Information. $500 million for jet planes? 6 months to pick a dog? Medical with abortions at will? Kill off the old end to social security payments? CHANGE IS WHAT WE NEED NOW.

James and Tsar Nicky,

I'm on my way out of town soon, so this will be briefer than my usual ramblings. On some things, maybe many things, we have to often just agree to disagree. My main point to James was that I find percentage of income a more persuasive figure, a more equitable figure, to use in these kind of discussions than a dollars to dollars comparison of income tax paid. I have read Warren Buffett's books for years and find him to be a more honest and interesting source than others.

So here's another quote:

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Have a good week,

Alyson

"Warren Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid less-- much less--than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office when you looked at it as a fraction of his income."

Ayson, do you really believe Warren Buffett does not "try to avoid paying higher taxes"? That is simply not true. His wealth is immense.

He has tax lawyers, trust managers and consultants structuring his wealth to avoid paying taxes. He could pay more in taxes (voluntarily) but chooses to avoid them.

That is the ultimate unfairness of Obama's attack on the rich. He targets the strivers, the working "rich" who run small businesses and earn their income through salaries.

The truly WEALTHY, the Gates, Buffetts, Kennedys, Kerrys and Bushs do not earn their wealth from income and will not be touched in any serious way by Obama's plans to "Tax the Rich."

It's all smoke and mirrors meant to protect the truly wealthy and keep others from attaining their status.

As a follow up. In 2007, the top 1% of the nation's wage earners (those making over $410,096) paid an average federal income tax rate of 22.45%. The bottom 50% of the nation's wage earners (those making less than $32,879) paid an average federal income tax rate of 2.99%.

Sorry, that should have been Warren Buffett.

Alyson,

arren Buffett makes it seem a lot simpler than it really is.

First of all, looking only at the payroll (FICA) tax for 2007. Warren Buffett's secretary's income of $60,000 would require her to pay 6.2% on all of her income (since she earned less than the cap of $97,500) for Social Security. That would be $3,720. She would also pay an additional 1.45% on all of her income for Medicare. That would be another $870. That's a total of $4,590 FICA for the year.

NOW THEN Warren Buffett, as his secretary's employer he would have to MATCH that amount. So he would have to pay another $4,590 in FICA tax for his secretary.

NOTE: Warren Buffett would pay the matching FICA tax for EVERY employee. I don't know how many employees he has. Nor do I know if any of his employees earned more than the Social Security cap. But just for convenience sake, let's say none do exceed the cap. That would mean that Warren Buffett would have to pay 7.65% of the total payroll for his share of his employees' FICA tax. For simplicity sake, let's say that he has 100 employees with their average income of $50,000. That would mean that Warren Buffett would have to pay 7.65% of $5,000,000 or $382,500 for the FICA for all of his employees.

Now as for Warren Buffett, himself, I don't know for certain but it is my understanding that there is no cap on the Medicare portion of FICA. If that is the case, then Warren Buffett would have paid both shares of his Social Security tax--12.4%--up to the cap of $97,500, for a total of $12,090. He would then pay both shares of his Medicare tax--2.9%--for all of his income, $46,000,000, for a total of $1,334,000 for Medicare. His own total FICA tax would be $1,346,090.

So just considering the FICA tax: The secretary paid $4,590 on $60,000. (7.65%)

Warren Buffett paid $1,346,090 for his own FICA tax, but also $382,500 for his share of his employees' FICA tax, that is a grand total of $1,728,590 on his $46,000,000 (3.76%)

So while he technically is paying 3.76% of his total income to FICA, he is paying an equal amount that each of his employee's pay, plus his own.

Now when you include federal income tax, state income tax (where applicable), city income tax (where applicable), sales tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax, excise taxes, various gasoline taxes (oh does he smoke or drink?), Warren Buffett's total tax percentage is not as low as he portrays it to be. Obviously the $46 million that he made in that year is not all taxable, for had it been then his federal income tax liability would have been $16,079,074 or 34.9%.

Per James, According to the latest IRS statistics--2007--the top 1% of the nation's wage earners (representing 22.83% of the total Adjusted Gross Income) accounted for 40.42 % of the total federal income tax revenue. . . and so on.

____

Hello James. Truth be told, I find the whole federal income tax argument to be unconvincing, or flawed, or maybe it's just that we see it differently. Here's what I look at-- While the individual income tax has been the largest single source of federal revenue since 1950, it still accounts for less than half of federal revenues, about 45% or so. Payroll taxes account for 36%. And corporate taxes, excise taxes and "other" account for the rest. While our tax system is progressive and the wealthiest do pay a larger dollar amount in taxes, they typically pay a smaller percentage of their income. I'm sure you're familiar with the story Warren Buffett has told about compiling a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all. As we all know, Warren Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid less-- much less--than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office when you looked at it as a fraction of his income. He has said that he was taxed at 17.7 % on the $46 million he made last in 2006 or 2007, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30%. He also said, If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

egomaniacal books

I think we should have a 100% tax on overpaid authors who write egomaniacal write that contribute to landfills. And on their spouses who get no-show jobs with hospitals to patient dump.

We may need health care reform because Democrats make me sick.

Back door deals with Pharma.
Not exactly the transparent health care debates on C-Span that Obama promised.

Do sneaky backdoor deals qualify
as "fishy".

"At some point, should the taxes on the wealthy continue to rise further, they may cut back on their charitable contributions ... '

"Charitable"?? The non-profit swamp -- laundering money for the rich while removing every public function from public control, and putting policy and practice under the control of interlocking "boards" -- makes a mockery of charity.

Note that Oblabla is biiiig on non-profits. It figures.

Alyson wrote: "Ideally, those bigwigs and those corporations would be the ones who utilized their resources best and that does initially occur..."

According to the latest IRS statistics--2007--the top 1% of the nation's wage earners (representing 22.83% of the total Adjusted Gross Income) accounted for 40.42 % of the total federal income tax revenue. Yet the bottom 95% of the nation's wage earners (representing 62.89% of the total Adjusted Gross Income) accounted for 39.37% of the total federal income tax revenue.

I'd say that the top 1% of the nation's wage earners are paying more than their fair share of the federal income tax revenue. MORE than the entire bottom 95%! Of course the bottom 40% of the nation's wage earners account for ZERO PERCENT of the total federal income tax revenue.

But besides the federal income tax revenues, wealthy individuals and corporations pay large percentages of the various state tax revenues (where applicable--some states have no income tax) and they contribute BILLIONS of dollars to charities. And now we have President Obama and Congress wanting to increase the rate for the top federal income tax bracket; then Congress wants to go even further by adding a surtax on those making over $300,000; and many states are raising taxes as well.

At some point, should the taxes on the wealthy continue to rise further, they may cut back on their charitable contributions, cut back on their spending even further (which results in lost jobs); or worse yet, they might move their businesses overseas--resulting in massive layoffs and huge losses in federal, state and local tax revenues.

the White House has launched a new phase of its strategy designed to pass Obamacare: all Obama, all the time. As part of that effort, Obama hosted a conference call with leftist bloggers urging them to pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible.

During the call, a blogger from Maine said he kept running into an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private insurance. He asked: “Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?” President Obama replied: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.” (quote begins at 17:10)

Hmm, Section 102 of H.R. 3200 -is- rather vague.

WOW.... I need to check my spelling before I hit post.....LOL.....geeeeeshhh

President Obama has already admitted that he wants to redistribute the wealth. That is not the actions of a capitalist.

Posted by: James Danley | Aug 8, 2009 8:29:40 PM

James, redistributing the wealth has always been a capitalist objective. You could say that is what capitalism is all about.

Aside from capitalism being essentially a system of theft that benefits one class over another, it is also necessarily to mitigate its worst effects. Pure capitalism doesn't work because it inevitably leads to poverty so severe as to be unsustainable.

Sometimes it is necessary to take back some of the wealth taken from the workers in order to save the system itself. This generally happens in periods of severe crisis, such as during depressions and wars.

Posted by: Flash Override | Aug 8, 2009 8:41:11 PM

***
Awesome. I've been thinking about what drives me bonkers about the way some (I wrote "some") conservatives and Republicans view Capitalism, and it really is that it's overly simplistic. They love throwing around words like "socialist" or "Marxist" because from what I gather, to them, any attempt to address the inherent issues with capitalism and the market centralizes power in the hands of government and creates inefficiencies. Is this crazy? No. Attempts at Communism have led to dictatorships, inequality and so on. We get it. However, the over-the-top rhetoric used at times by some repeat and relentless offenders seems to complete miss the reality that when government doesn't redistribute the wealth and regulate business, power and wealth slowly collect in the hands of bigwigs at corporations. Ideally, those bigwigs and those corporations would be the ones who utilized their resources best and that does initially occur, BUT the more that wealth and the power that goes with it concentrates in a few hands-- wealth and power always seems to concentrate-- the more it corrupts and the less likely it is that new players with new, possibly brilliant, ideas get a chance to start businesses or develop products or innovate. The wealthy get wealthier and lobby for laws to ensure it stays that way, the poor get poorer and the middle class shrinks-- and as the wealthy get wealthier and the pool gets smaller as power concentrates more and more, the more likely you are that those folks will be incompetent and out of touch, and even more interested in protecting the status quo than doing what they once did best. So, governments do need to redistribute wealth more equitably, rather than simply upwards, and regulate the markets to some degree, for the market to work best. Governments also should provide a safety net for those who cannot afford food, shelter, and IMO, health care as well as a public education system, infrastructure, and police, military and emergency services. That is democratic capitalism which is what has made our country so great, no?

I'm really sick of the socialist, anti-capitalist stuff.

From AP:

"The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail Obama's top domestic priority."

Something is very wrong here.