Say it Ain’t So: ObamaCare Will Raise Taxes

We always knew ObamaCare will raise taxes on everybody, but now  the AP actually reports it.  Where the hell were they when this rancid legislation was being rammed through Congress?  Helping the Dems sell it with the rest of the MSM, of course.

Obama’s Democratic allies in the Senate promise to cut the deficit by almost two-thirds over the next five years, but their budget plan could threaten about 30 million people with tax increases averaging $3,700 in 2012 and after because of the alternative minimum tax.

The alternative is tax increases elsewhere in the revenue code averaging up to $100 billion a year after 2011 to continue alternative minimum tax relief and also curb taxes on people inheriting large estates.

The Democratic plan released Wednesday by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota relies on such boosts in revenues to carve the deficit from $1.4 trillion last year down to $545 billion by 2015.

The minimum tax, or AMT, was enacted four decades ago to make sure wealthy people couldn’t avoid taxes altogether. But it wasn’t indexed for inflation in people’s incomes, so it gets “patched” every year or so in order to prevent people from being surprised by multi-thousand-dollar tax bills at tax time.

Estates larger than $7 million would also be threatened with higher taxes after 2011 if Conrad’s plan is carried out.

Conrad says lawmakers will have to find revenues elsewhere in the budget to pay for AMT and estate tax relief after 2011, which could require tax increases averaging up to $100 billion a year elsewhere in the code if Congress is going to keep its promises under tough new budget rules.

Conrad says he hopes the dilemma will force Congress to overhaul the complicated and inefficient U.S. tax code. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, says that 33 million taxpayers would face the AMT in 2012, adding $3,700 on average to their tax liabilities.

Extending AMT and estate tax relief would cost $300-$400 billion over 2012-2015, Conrad said. Many observers say it’ll be virtually impossible for Congress to produce offsetting revenues to extend the tax relief. GOP Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire predicted that when Congress confronts the problem in two years it will blink and simply borrow the money as it has done in the past.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100421/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_budget

Oh and lookie here. More confirmation of the punitive side effects of socialist economics.
Nearly 4 million Americans — the vast majority of them middle class — will have to pay a penalty if they don’t kowtow to ObamaCare. So much for the pledge not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.
Link to the CBO Report:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11379/Individual_Mandate_Penalties-04-22.pdf

More at the American Spectator:
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/04/22/cbo-millions-of-middle-class-a

Oops. More bad news:

The Obama administration on Friday defended the new health insurance law after a report from its own Medicare services agency showed the provisions will increase the nation’s health care tab over the next 10 years instead of bringing costs down.

The sobering assessment by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concludes what Republicans had warned about during heated debate — that the double-counting of Medicare spending — as both savings and as a means to shore up the debt-ridden government fund for seniors’ health care — means the cost is unrealistic.

……Among the findings, the actuary concluded that:

— About 14 million people would lose their employer coverage by 2019 as smaller employers terminate coverage and workers who currently have employer coverage become enrolled in Medicaid;

— The estimated reductions in the growth rate of health spending “may not be fully achievable” because “Medicare productivity adjustments could become unsustainable even within the next 10 years, and over time the reductions in the scope of employer-sponsored health insurance could also become an issue”;

— New fees and taxes on medical device makers will “generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums”;

— By 2011 and 2012 the initial $5 billion in federal funding for the creation of a national high-risk pool “would be exhausted, resulting in substantial premium increases to sustain the program; we anticipate that such increases would limit further participation”;

— It is reasonable to expect that a significant portion of the increased demand for Medicaid would be difficult to meet, particularly over the first few years”;

— Businesses would pay $87 billion in penalties between 2014-2019 for failure to offer insurance.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/health-care-law-increase-costs-experts-conclude-new-report/

How’s that “change” working out for you?