Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.
Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.
Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion over a decade, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.” Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the costs will likely exceed $1.5 trillion.
Ok...let me get this straight. The "no new taxes" President thinks it's just hunky-dory to raise taxes by $600,000,000,000.00. Bet you think he'll just tax the "rich," right? Say, the top 5%? Let's think about this for a minute.
According to Wikipedia:
As of 2007, there are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. The Treasury Department in 2006 reported, based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, the share of federal income taxes paid by taxpayers of various income levels. The data shows the progressive tax structure of the U.S. federal income tax system on individuals that reduces the tax incidence of people with smaller incomes, as they shift the incidence disproportionately to those with higher incomes - the top 0.1% of taxpayers by income pay 17.4% of federal income taxes (earning 9.1% of the income), the top 1% with gross income of $328,049 or more pay 36.9% (earning 19%), the top 5% with gross income of $137,056 or more pay 57.1% (earning 33.4%), and the bottom 50% with gross income of $30,122 or less pay 3.3% (earning 13.4%).
Since this isn't rocket science, those numbers are good enough for me. Obama swore that there would be no new taxes on anyone making less than $250,000/year. Even taking the top 5% would grossly violate that promise, raising taxes on families making as little as $137,056...perhaps we should just expect tax increases on the top 2%. Seems reasonable. Two percent of 138 million is 2,760,000 taxpayers. Six hundred billion in new taxes would work out to just $217,391 per taxpayer. Oh...but these people already pay about half of their income in various taxes - most of them don't have $217,391 left over. Guess that no new taxes promise will have to take in a few more taxpayers.
If we figure that he'll raise taxes on the top 5% of the population, taxing those who make as little as $137,056, we have to divide the $600 billion among 6,900,000 taxpayers. That works out to $86,956 per taxpayer. Same problem as above - many of these people already pay enough in taxes that they don't have $86,956 left. Hmmm...
If you divide that $600 billion dollars among all 138 million taxpayers, it works out to $4,347.83 per taxpayer! That's every single taxpayer in the country, including those who make only $30,000 a year. Obviously, as five minutes work with a calculator should show any of the idiots in Washington, it will not work.
Worse still, that's only $600 billion of the potential bill of $1.5 trillion. Look at this number, please:
$1,500,000,000,000.00
In case you hadn't noticed, that's a very large number. The Drudge Report, one of the most popular web sites in the world, claims to have had 7,930,137,629 visits in the past year. At that rate, it would take Drudge over 189 years to reach 1.5 trillion visits! If you spent a dollar a second, every minute of every hour of every day, it would take you over 47,532 years to spend $1.5 trillion! For an individual to spend that sum in an 80 year lifetime, they would have to spend $51,334,702 every single day of their lives. I hope you're getting the point...it's one hell of a lot of money.
We've already determined that there just isn't enough money in our wallets to pay for it...or even a fraction of it. But the story also said that the Dems plan to cut $400,000,000,000.00 from Medicare and Medicaid...that will help, right? One big problem. Medicare and Medicaid are already underfunded, as discussed here. So they are cutting money that does not exist to transfer it to another entitlement. With over $107 trillion in currently unfunded entitlements (it would take 3,390,616 years to spend that at a dollar per second!) how the hell do these morons think we're going to pay for this?
Please, I'm begging you...think about this. Think long and hard, then get off the couch and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. We are about one entitlement program away from becoming Zimbabwe, folks...it's time to stop the madness and accept the reality that sometimes life just isn't fair, and if you want something you just might have to work for it.
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