Never Met A Tax He Didn’t Like

The defining trait of Obama’s presidency.

After three years of the Obama presidency, the economy is growing, but only slowly (1.7 percent in 2011). And Obama is threatened with the prospect of fewer Americans holding jobs on Election Day in November than were employed on the day he was inaugurated in 2009. At the moment, he’s roughly one million jobs short. But if you suspect Obama is now inclined to seize the opportunity, cut taxes, and create faster growth and more jobs, you don’t know the president. He wants to raise taxes.

Obama is eager to tax anything the IRS can get its hands on, so long as the revenue is taken from the well-to-do. Just for starters, he’d let the Bush tax cuts expire, raising the top income tax rate for individuals earning more than $200,000 to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. And when the new Medicare tax on investment income and the stripping of deductions are added, the top rate would exceed 44 percent, its highest in a quarter-century.

He’s eager for the income of millionaires to be taxed at no less than 30 percent. His so-called corporate tax reduction package is actually designed to raise tax revenues by $250 billion. He would triple the tax on dividends to 44.8 percent from 15 percent and boost the long-term capital gains rate, with the Medicare tax included, to 24 percent from 15 percent.

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