Obama Policy Book Coming Out Sept. 9

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If you're a senior citizen and make less than $50,000 a year, Barack Obama has a deal for you: the rest of your life free of federal income tax.

Sounds appealing, right? Maybe to many seniors. But tax policy experts in Washington are giving it bad reviews. They see it as another subsidy for senior citizens, who already get federal help through Social Security and Medicare and often have economic advantages over other demographic groups.

Some of Obama's allies in Washington think he's onto a bad idea.

"Most low- and moderate-income seniors already owe no income tax. Among seniors with incomes below $50,000 who do owe income tax, a significant number have modest incomes because they are retired but possess substantial assets," said Robert Greenstein, who heads the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. "Given all the problems and needs the nation faces, targeting relief to this group isn't a priority."

The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, gave the idea bad grades in a recent study of the two presidential candidates' tax plans.

Seniors already get preferential treatment in the tax code. They get to claim an additional standard deduction and only a portion of their Social Security benefits are taxed. Many don't pay payroll taxes because their income is from investments rather than wages.

"The proposal would exempt comparatively well off, though not affluent, senior citizens from tax and give them a benefit not generally available to working Americans," said the Tax Policy Center paper. It "helps only those low-income seniors who currently pay income taxes. Those too poor to owe any tax - arguably those most in need - would get no benefit."

Even the powerful seniors' lobby AARP doesn't seem excited about Obama's idea. An AARP bulletin on the presidential candidates' tax plans barely mentions it, saying that Obama's proposal could partly offset additional taxes that Obama would impose on seniors through higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

sozobe wrote:

The speech itself was substantial, wonkish, chock full o' policy, but the press coverage was mostly (not entirely, I am of course speaking in generalizations here) soundbitey and reductive.

Yeah, it was. They tried to make a flip flopping scandal yet again before collectively figuring out that American politics has flip flopping scandal fatigue.

But the part I don't get was why you think this is something they decided to do to Obama in particular.

Quote:

..the media has decided that the Obama story is that he's fluffy and rockstar-y, and the "Obama as wonk" story just doesn't fit.

They do this with everything and everyone in life. If even science is reduced to misleading soundbites why is it any different that Obama speeches are?