forgottenliberty.com

Reuters is claiming that Obama’s plan to reduce the deficit includes increasing taxes on the middle class.  The story was originally posted to the internet Monday evening with the title “Backdoor Taxes to Hit the Middle Class”.  It clearly lays out the case that Obama is going to break his well known campaign promise of not raising taxes on people making less than $250,000.  This is a rare story from Reuters, because it is critical of Obama.  However, a few hours after the story was posted, Reuters pulled it from the internet.  Why would they pull such a big story about the President breaking a major campaign promise?  Maybe they received a phone call from the White House telling them that the administration did not approve of the story?  Liberal bias in the media?  State control of the news agencies?  Whatever the reason is, I found a copy of the Reuters story still up on the website of an NBC affiliate in Texas.  Here is the now elusive Reuters story about Obama’s backdoor taxes on the middle class.  I decided to post the entire article in case the NBC affiliate is forced to take it down.  From Reuters,

The House passed an extension of the estate tax (death tax) on Thursday, Dec. 3rd.  The tax was supposed to temporarily expire next year, but those in power couldn’t stand to let money stay in the hands of citizens.  The extension places a 45% tax on estates worth over 3.5 million dollars.  This extension could quite possibly kill jobs in a time when we need every job we can get.  I know 3.5 million sounds like a lot of money, but if someone owns a successful job producing small business, the 3.5 million threshold  can be met fairly easily.  If a small business owner passes away, the business and/or equipment would most likely have to be sold off just to pay the tax.  This would cause jobs at the business to be lost  The death tax is an overall bad idea, but the attitude of many liberals about taxes in general is what is really unsettling.

One of the many differences between a liberal and a conservative is their respective views on personal property.  The conservative views personal property as a right that cannot be taken away.  John Locke, who was a major influence on our founding fathers, claimed that we all have a right to Life, Liberty, and Property.  We all have the right to own and protect our property and no one has the right to take it away from us.  We allow, by way of our Constitution,  a portion of our property to be taken in the form of taxes to pay for the necessary functions of government .  The key phrase here is, “We allow, by way of our Constitution”.  The government does not own our property nor does it have a right to our property.  It only has the ability to tax us because we have given it that ability in the Constitution.

Liberals views personal property in a different light.  They believe

During the campaign, we all heard Obama say over and over again that he would not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 a year.  George Stephanopoulos, on his “This Week” program, asked Treasury Secretary Giethner if taxes would have to be raised on the middle class to lower the record deficit the Obama administration is creating (transcript of the interview).  Giethner’s response was, “…we’re not at the point yet where we’re going to make a judgment about what it’s going to take.”  Stephanopoulos pressed him saying, “But you’re not ruling it out, you can’t rule it out.”  Giethner replied, “I think what the country needs to do is understand we’re going to have to do what it takes, we’re going to do what’s necessary.”  Apparently, to the Obama administration, doing what’s necessary to reduce the deficit includes raising taxes on the middle class.  I have an idea.  Instead of raising taxes, how about we stop spending TRILLIONS of dollars we don’t have.  I guess that’s not an option.