Obama 30-minute ad

I guess I have to hand it to either woiyo or H2O Man: The lower income limit for his tax increase has shifted down from $250,000 to $200,000.

Stunning! Obama Changes Tax Plan Seven Days Out*

28 Oct 2008 01:10 pm

With an appreciable lead in national polls just a week before the election, Barack Obama has radically overhauled his middle class tax cut plan, dropping to $150,000 the cut off for those who'll see a tax cut. What's more, he did so on television in working-class Scranton using a native son, his vice president, Joe Biden.

Can you believe it? What chutzpah. What confidence! Said Biden:

Quote:

"Spreading the wealth was not--he was talking about is all of the tax breaks have gone to the very, very wealthy. For example you have right now, this year, under the old tax policy that was just - that was put in by George Bush, people making an average 1.4 million a year, good people, decent people, patriotic - they're going to get an $87 billion tax break. What we're saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn't need to go to people making an average of 1.4 million, it should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people -- people making under $150,000 a year."

What a gift to Republicans.

* = well, not exactly.

Well, the Obama campaign insists that its plan hasn't changed. Families making $250,000 or less will not see their taxes raised; families making less than $200,000 will see their taxes cut -- and some making more than that will -- depends on other factors, including your outstanding mortgage balance; individuals making less than $200,000 won't pay more and those making $150,000 will pay less.

This comports exactly with what Biden said today.

And it's pretty much what the Obama campaign has been saying all along... most every family making less than $250K would see a cut. None making less than that would see their taxes rise.

(In the second debate, Obama said: "If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down.")

On Obama's tax cut website, I posed as the breadwinner for a family of four making $250,000 a year; I'm older than 65 and I pay child care expenditures. The result: no tax cut for me.

Then I inputed an annual salary of between $150,000 and $200,000 and said I had at least three dependents. My tax cut would be roughly $500.

One can question the wisdom of raising taxes (or letting the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire), but it's not accurate to say that Obama has changed his plan.

They already have the same "civil rights" as everyone else. You have no right to get married in a church. You have no right to receive employer benefits.

Complacency is his worst enemy.