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Obama: Health Care Reform Will Likely Include Tax On Rich
Rachel Slajda | July 21, 2009, 9:52AM
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Health care legislation will "probably include some additional revenue from well-to-do people," President Obama said in a Today show interview with Meredith Vieira that aired this morning.
"It's not punishing the rich," Obama said. "The way I look at it is, if I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that's part of being a community."
The president also claimed that, despite the "hew and cry" that he's a tax-and-spend Democrat, "the only tax change I've made is to cut people's taxes."
That's not exactly true. In March, Obama signed a law upping the cigarette tax by 62 cents a pack.
Obama said the Congressional Budget Office has looked at some of his administration's health care proposals, "and they've said, you know, this has a good chance of working."
The CBO has said the proposed House bill won't cut health care costs. Obama said some of his proposals haven't been adopted by Congress yet.
According to the president, the CBO is saying that "the cost savings that are in those bills right now, some of them may work, but they're not enough to offset the additional costs of bringing in 46 million new people."
"I'm actually optimistic," he went on, "that at the end of the day we will have a bill that assures we're driving down costs over the long term, and in the short term, people have more security."
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ctal
July 21, 2009 10:24 AM
I would like to know if this bill is anything like HR 676. If it just compells ppl to buy -- even cheap/affordably -- from the health "care" industries, then I will be against it.
But taxing the rich? Fantastic. If only we could eat them. :)
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hsr0601
July 21, 2009 10:55 AM
Let me be clear the current world-wide recession most likely resulted from the concentration of capital toward a few, thereby revived middle class and consumer confidence would be a key to vibrant economy activity and employment as the money does not evaporate.
Basically, If ruling party changes, accordingly so does tax system , especially given the condition that the middle class is undergoing severe financial hardship as a consequence of the extremely high fuel price, mortgage rate, and insurance premium, which is a beauty and virtue of democracy as we know.
In case some people have enjoyed the benefit of exemptions, that might imply others have shouldered the equivalent of their share.
Now the time has come for the middle class and middle class-oriented party to take initiative.
In general, advanced states are characterized as a broad base of middle class, the recovery of which is what the last presidential election is about as the California budget crisis demonstrates the severity in collapse of middle class and tax decrease.
Alongside a tax on the richest, alcohol tax and ending subsidies for the private insurers can be considered to mitigate the amount and resistance, I guess.
How can anybody expect vibrant economic activity / JOB CREATION ( faulted by the non-alternative naysayers to distract a series of scandals ) and housing boom in the context one in two Americans say someone in their family skipped pills, postponed or cut back on needed medical care due to the cost ?
Thank You !
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