New York's Senator Chuck Schumer is all for hiking taxes on households that earn 250,000 or more–as long as they don't live in New York. Here (as quoted on The Corner) is Chuck's chuckle-inducing remark:
Schumer said the $250,000 limit is unacceptable since it will hit the metropolitan area disproportionately because of the high cost of living here.
"$250,000 makes you really rich in Mississippi but it doesn't make you rich at all in New York and there ought to be some kind of scale based on the cost of living on how much you pay," Schumer said.
Hey, let's overtax the rich in Mississippi–after all, it's dirt cheap to live there. Limousines? The pick-up truck will do. This is laughable, but then so is the entire Obama plan. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, has put out a statement on it.
Having overseen an unprecedented surge in government spending – from his failed stimulus law, to the creation of new trillion-dollar health entitlements, to double-digit percentage increases in the budgets of many federal agencies – the President has finally admitted that he plans to send the bill for Washington's reckless spending straight to American businesses and families. A $1.6 trillion tax hike on job creators is never a good idea. But taking more money from private savers and investors, and giving it to the same government bureaucrats who brought us the Solyndra debacle, is an even worse idea – especially in a weak economy.
The president's tax hike plan is not going to pass, and I think we are beginning to see it for what it is: a political ploy to stir the base. Jen Rubin explains:
The good news for the country and the GOP is that Obama's "plan" is entirely irrelevant. So is his threat to veto anything without tax hikes. The supercommittee will work its will. I strongly suspect that Senate Democrats aren't going to stand up for the president's plan, not with so many red state senators up for re-election. And should the joint committee reach a deal that is passed by both houses there is no chance whatsoever that the president will veto it. In sum, as bad as Obama's plan and speech were the good news is that just about everyone (except the ever-gullible Democratic base) can ignore it.
Still, a word of caution to the president: Class warfare is ugly. The president would do well to be careful with it because, if it becomes the real issue, dividing the United States into hostile camps, the top 2 percent of Americans, who pay 46 percent of the income tax collected in this country, are going to start thinking about the nearly half of Americans who pay no federal income tax.
What about their fair share? Mr. President, you aren't doing anybody any favors. And, while we're at it, ask President Al Gore just how effective appeals to class warfare are.