Archives

Thursday, February 26, 2009

400-408Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America (visionamerica.us) author of Enough is Enough:  A Practical Guide to Political Action, Plus Why Christians Must Engage.
413-423Rick Scarborough,
So how much will President Barack Obama's budget cost us? The projected 2010 budget of $3.552 trillion can be found on page 114 of the "New Era of Responsibility" budget here.
The US Census bureau estimates that the current US population is 304,059,724. Dividing the $3.552 trillion by that gives us close to the $11,833 that Drudge came up with. ABC's Jake Tapper reports that there will be $989 billion in new taxes over the next decade.
I'm an American taxpayer and the starkest figure is what this could cost me. The latest figure I could find for the number of US taxpayers is 138,893,908 returns in 2007 here. By my reckoning, that's $25, 573.48 each.
President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."
This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.
Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.
But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.
// The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.
// Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.
443-452 Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (frc.org), and co-author of Personal Faith: Public Policy with Bishop Harry Jackson.  This Sunday, Tony will be speaking at all the services at Calvary Chapel South Bay (ccsouthbay.org).
458-508Edward Amey, the Executive Director of Los Angeles Lutheran Middle & Senior High School (lalhs.org), located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in Sylmar, CA, on the status of Christian education in America. 
512-523Edward Amey
TH 524 – [2:00] Don Rohde (818) 262-2092.  For the past 36 years, Don has been a sales manager at Galpin, the #1 volume Ford dealer in the world for the past 18 consecutive years.  Galpin has been family-owned and operated for the past 59 years, and 90% of their business is repeat or referral.  Galpin offers Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Honda, Mazda, Saturn, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin.  Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley at Roscoe and the 405.
528-538 – (K) Bill Dallas, president of Church Communication Network (ccn.tv), and co-author of Lessons From San Quentin (lessonsfromsanquentin.com), the amazing story of his two years in San Quentin.
Bill's story definitely breaks the stereotype of the way things are supposed to go.  There was no "country club" waiting for him. He shares how a successful Vanderbilt graduate ended up doing hard time in San Quentin for a "white collar" offense.
Bill's book takes us behind the walls and into the lives of the people that many would call "the worst of the worst" - where he did more than just survive. Bill tells how his life was changed by the people that many call "lifers?"
544-554Bill Dallas
558-608Your "out-of-the-blue-God's-messenger" story.  Who had a big impact on you spiritually, that come from a completely unlikely source? 
612-623Calls
628-638Calls
644-655Matt McCormick, CEO of the Christian Lawyers of America (christianlawyersofamerica.com, 888-702-0111), our host for tomorrow nights FREE Financial Restoration Workshop at the Universal Hilton where he and the experts he's gathered will be answering your financial questions along with Dr. Robert Cathers, senior pastor of The Gathering Place.  We'll be doing our show from 4-7pm, so come on by and say "Hi," and then we'll hop into Ballroom D for the FREE seminar.  Seating is limited so please register now at KKLA.com.
• Barack Obama (2/24/09) President Obama's Address to Congress.
• NRO Editors (2/25/09) Not All Talk Is Cheap.
• William Kristol (2/26/09) Republicans' Day of Reckoning.
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Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com
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