Democrats Might Exempt Unions From Taxes
by Big Dog on Jun 28, 2009 at 05:01 Political
The plan to tax health care benefits is on the table and will likely be put into place if this abortion of a health care plan passes. Democrats need a way to pay for the plan so they will take your taxes to pay for others and then they will tax your health benefits to pay for others. Incidentally, Barack Obama made a big deal out of McCain’s proposal to tax health benefits during one of the debates. This is something he said was unprecedented (it is) and that he did not favor that idea. Now he says that Congress is dealing with this. If it happens Obama should man up and veto it. He won’t.
I have a problem with benefits being taxed. People are generally paid lower salaries because of the cost of health care and the tax exempt status of it allows them to keep a little more of their money. If the government starts taxing it then our wages are effectively cut. We will not get paid more to make up the difference.
The article discussing this (link below) states that only high value or “gold plated” plans are the object of taxation but don’t let this fool you. Once they have the tax in they can adjust it anyway they want. They will start lowering the bar as the cost of the plan increases (and it will). This is also not the only plan being considered. It is wise to keep both eyes open when Democrats are talking about raising taxes. The whole gold plated idea is another redistribute the wealth philosophy of Obama. God forbid private business takes good care of an employee.
Perhaps we should take a close look at what the members of Congress and Obama gets. The perks with regard to health care are out of this world. There is a whole floor at Walter Reed dedicated to taking care of these people. It is never full but costs nearly a million a year to operate. Let Obama get sick and he is off to Bethesda. Let a Congressman have a brain tumor and he gets great care and then is transferred for even better care. Hell, they have a physician at the Capitol (or in one of the common buildings) to tend to them during the day so they do not have to miss work.
Let’s start taxing that…
The Democrats need to make this plan easy on their constituents so they are considering exempting unions from the tax. The plan is that any benefit (and union benefits are good ones) received as a part of collective bargaining would be exempt from the tax. Why is this? This would seem to violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
I have a few thoughts on it. First, the Democrats cannot tick off the unions or they will lose a lot of elections. The unions are a main voting block for Democrats and they cannot afford to lose it. Second, this might be a backdoor way of increasing union membership without the unconstitutional (and inappropriately named) Employee Free Choice Act. If government exempts unions then maybe more people will want to join unions or have their shops become unionized in order to avoid the taxes.
I am not sure which but there is no way that people should stand still and allow this to happen. If they exempt unions then those of us not in unions should consider making a conscious effort NOT to purchase any product made by union employees (the unions recently did this with their “Made in China” plastic hats. Put them out of business.
But we should definitely ensure that anyone who votes for it is beaten in the next election.
Source:
Bloomberg
Tags: Democrats, gold plated, health care, taxes, unions exempt
The unions have been losing influence and members for years now- this is their last chance to retain any clout in the political process, so they have made their deal with the devil, which includes the founder of ACORN, Wade Rathke, who is trying to form unions and ACORN wannabes in other countries, in an effort to unionize the world. It would not surprise me if he was killed in one of these countries that do not want unions. That would be small loss to the world as far as I am concerned- unionization of the world would be a negative as far as I am concerned, and would lead to a “Union Elite”, which would be even worse than the UN is now.
If Obama and the Democrats keep going, they are going to cause a civil riot in America. TV said tonight that Obama is down in the polls. Even people who voted for him are getting fed up.
If you take an average of the eight polls taken in June measuring Obama’s job approval rating, we find that he has an average of:
61.5%
The most recent two were 65% and 63% respectively.
http://pollingreport.com/obama_job.htm
Bush spent many years running at half that level or very near it (along with time below it).
I think the “Obama is down in the polls” turkey needs a little longer in the oven. You can give it a poke, but… that bird just ain’t ready yet.
D.
——————–
“Palin Popularity Plunging in Polls
In March 2008, Sarah Palin’s combined positives were 85%. Her combined negatives were 12%.
The new Hayes Research polls show the governor at 54% combined approval and 41.6% combined disapproval. 30% of her former fans now boo her.” (May ’09)
Keep cooking the books, Darrel, you might get a result you like- Palin’s popularity is just fine, thank you, you should look at the Un- popularity of your democrat congress- lower than a snake’s belly, and not rising a bit.
All polling organizations are “cooking the books?”
Is there any conspiracy so bizarre or so palpably false that you won’t reach for it in some lame attempt to preserve your belief in the impossible?
Congressional approval goes up, goes down. But Congress is not voted on as a group is it? What matters is what constituents think of *their* individual representatives.
But lets look anyway, since you brought it up:
Congress approval rating, by party:
6/10-14/09
Demo approval: 42%
Demo disapproval: 45%
http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_dem.htm
6/10-14/09
Repub approval 29%
Repub disapproval: 56%
http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_rep.htm
D.
BLK: “your democrat congress- lower than a snake’s belly, and not rising a bit.>>
DAR
Incidentally, if you look at the history of demo congress popularity you will see that they currently enjoy the highest rating since 2001. So this bit about “not rising a bit”? More rubbish.
And since when is 42% “lower than a snake’s belly?” (see 49% below)
Oh, and as a bonus, if you look at the repub congressional approval numbers you will see that their 29% in June (and 28% in March) are the LOWEST numbers they’ve had going back to at least 1997. That’s as far as the record at this link shows.
So looks like someone is *still* trending (read: spiraling) downward.
D.
——————
Diageo/Hotline Poll conducted by FD. June 4-7, 2009. N=800 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.5.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job Democrats in Congress are doing?”
Approve: 49%
Disapprove: 42%
–ibid
Now the plan is to exempt the unions from taxes on their healthcare benefits until 2013, four years from now. oh joy.
Unions are Hussein’s favorite toy right now, because they move in lockstep- so far, anyway, but what will happen when they run GM and Chrysler into the ground is another matter. Then they will have lost all their jobs, except those that are “captive” jobs, like telecommunications, or longshoremen. or cleaning the hotels.
That is why they push card- check so hard.
Now they’re going to “run them into the ground”? Actually, you have it backwards. They picked them up from off of the ground.
Who? Hussein? Do not make me laugh- and the unions picking anyone off the ground is too bizarre to even be considered.
They had their day, and now it’s gone.
Chrysler was picked up from off the ground, by the government, in 1979. They paid back their loans by 1982, several years ahead of schedule and with the government making a tidy $350 million profit as well. They then went on to enjoy decades of profitability.
In this sense I say Obama has “picked” these bankrupt car companies up from off the ground and given them a second chance. What they will do with this opportunity remains to be seen.
D.
No, Chrysler was picked up by the taxpayer. The taxpayer received the additional money on its investment but the government spent it instead of giving it back to us.
When you have the unions running Chrysler instead of someone who KNOWS how to do this, you will have a different result, and Dog is right- we, the taxpayers, never received a dime on our investment in 1979- the government stole it- and they will do so again, if by some impossible chance pigs fly and unions know what they are doing.