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Bad News If You Make $150,000 to $300,000: Higher Taxes for Many (wsj.com)
From a WSJ report: If President Donald Trump sticks to what he has said, Americans earning between $149,400 and $307,900 are most likely to see an increase in their taxes as a result of tax reform (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled). Those figures come from a recent study by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group in Washington, and are based on Mr. Trump's statements and proposals. The study concludes that nearly one-third of about 19 million households in that income range could see tax increases averaging from $3,000 to $4,000 a year. By contrast, less than 10% of households earning the least or the most -- below $25,000 or above $733,000 -- would owe more after a tax overhaul. Over all, the study found that about 20% of taxpayers would owe more after tax reform than before it. The issue of tax reform's winners and losers has resurfaced after top congressional Republicans and the Trump administration released a set of broad principles for tax policy on Thursday containing few details.
Just like those who scream "CUT" when the increase they get is smaller than than they wanted, TFA discusses relative winners and losers based on a plan imagined by the author, based on the author's biases, and not reflecting any actual legislation.
This is an attack on the middle class. No new taxes for the real rich but we are gonna stick it to the households that have two solid middle class jobs.
So, is that flat or sliding proportional to the cost of living for your region? Because $150K for a family in SF does not feel like you think it would...
No, I did not read the paywalled story
You all voted for conservative politicians in the States who ran on cut now pay later starting with Reagan and vodoo economics.
Later is here! No it is not Obama's fault. It is yours and your parents. The banks need their money and it is not fair for the rest of us to pay higher taxes and no services for things like healthcare. Pay the piper man and in 30 years we can pay off the interest and $19,000,000,000,000!
Oh and lets blame it on the liberals so you can keep your nice home? Well expect a dollar crash and Great Depression 2.0 as the value of the dollar is nothing because the credit built on a house of cards for tax cuts and spending increases comes crashing once bankers start demanding a return on their money.
http://saveie6.com/
As a higher earner (well, when I'm not in startup mode), I don't actually have a problem with being taxed more - provided those that earn even more than me are not able to avoid the tax. The thing is, once you earn over about $100k, pretty much all your extra money is just going into bidding up the prices of a limited pool of assets such as housing. This doesn't benefit you or your fellow high earners, because if we can't build more, say, London housing when a rickety Victorian hovel costs over $1 million, then bidding up the prices to even more ridiculous levels isn't going to deal with the fundamental supply issue. All that happens is a parasite class forms around these things, consisting of speculators, gamblers and real estate agents. The same houses are still being traded between the same pool of high earners.
If we had higher taxes, then it would help to curb speculation activity by preventing this form of asset inflation, and governments could use the money to redirect economic resources towards, say, actually creating new housing supply through transport infrastructure or training new engineers and doctors. Of course there is a big if there, because the government could also just use those resources to create more bureaucracy, but that is probably still better than real estate agents.
The big problem, though, is that once you move into the 0.1% nobody is paying any taxes. I mean, the wealthy are even quite open about this - its not some sort of conspiracy. The problem then is that if you just tax the upper middle income earners more, all you do is allow the ultra rich to hoover up all the assets off them even faster than they are doing now. It is a one way road towards neo-feudalism.
There is no easy solution. Probably a land tax would help, but that is almost impossible to achieve politically. France tried a wealth tax, and London is now stuffed full of rich French people. An aggressive death tax is probably the best solution, but again this is incredibly hard to achieve politically. Of course the natural solution is a revolution where the masses just confiscate everything. I really hope we can avoid this.
The rich don't have income, they have capital gains. The rich also never learn. This will end badly. Very badly.
Hereâ(TM)s an idea. How about a system of no more than 3 - 4 tax brackets where every single person who earns income regardless of how they earn it pays the same rate as everybody else? Letâ(TM)s start there. It wonâ(TM)t happen because Republicans see that as âoepunishing job creatorsâ. Lol ...
God forbid a multimillionaire pays the same tax rate as a somebody working 40 hours a week.
Anyone with TOTAL worth at 1 BILLION or more is to be subject to TOTAL forfeiture of all worth, and is to be exported to RUSSIA where they belong.
Next year, same but anyone with TOTAL worth at 500 MILLION or more.
So you wanted big government, Bunky. What makes you think it comes for free? Where do you think most of the taxable resources exist? Visit IRS.GOV and hunt around. The answer will annoy you no end, especially with the highly artificial definition of "poor" that we live with. (Where else in the world do officially poor people have AC, a car, a cell phone, and big screen TVs as a matter of course?)
Given that you and I are the income targets for modest tax increases that can greatly increase the tax revenues maybe it is time to rethink this overwhelming drive we seem to have for ever bigger government - especially since we are paying for so much government and the most expensive portions of it cannot do their jobs. ObamaCare is a failing farce. The Department of Energy, charged with making the US independent of foreign oil, has not managed to do this in its entire time in existence. And so forth.
If you do not want to pay as much in taxes then get down and dirty working to make our government smaller. Maybe create a bounty program for our legislators. They personally get checks for 10% of every cut in the size of government in lieu of their salaries. Think out of the box. Think small government.
{^_^}
It's about time you paid your fair share.
Next up: go to jail for employing an illegal gardener/maid.
It's called "trickle-down economy". You asked for it, you got it. Staying rich becomes easier, getting rich harder.
The current model of governance was created as an alternative to a monarchy centuries ago. And it is time to start to think how to modernize it.
I have got an impression that the "elected" officials represent mostly themselves.
For all those technical H1B researchers that will be brought in to remove the last vestiges of the corporate owned American workforce?
MY TAXES pay for CRIMINALS like DRUMPF to go to POUND ME IN THE ASS PRISON - GET ON IT!
Hey, Fox News started it, now everyone can play, isn't it fun!
They mod you down... truth hurts.
SO
MUCH
WINNING
Better title: "Good News: Well-off people to contribute slightly more to help keep society from collapsing around them"
People TALK about cutting spending, but it never seems to happen. And as a result taxation must increase to compensate... and that has limits and damages the economy at some point leading to lower economic growth etc which over time actually leads to lower tax revenue because there is less revenue to tax. Then there is the printing money idea which if done slowly simply rips off lenders and bond holders... which is the whole idea. Oh, I owe you a trillion dollars? PRINT... never said on the bond what the dollar had to be worth, eh?
So far the printing money idea has worked well for the US. We've lost about 96 percent of the value of the dollar over the last 90 or so years. It hurts workers that don't negotiate wages or have their wages pegged to inflation and it hurts bond holders. But its what we're been doing.
I suspect taxes will go up for a bit then get cut then go up then get cut... and all the while spending will increase and the difference will be paid with money snapped into existence with the press of a button.
I personally don't believe in the money tree... that you can just create value out of nothing. But that appears to be what we're doing and it seems to have worked this far... let us hope America's Wily E Coyote moment doesn't come at the wrong moment... and gravity reasserts itself when we're over a fatal cliff. It would be unfortunate.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
you get what you deserve
My daddy was an engineer in the Defense INdustry for 50+ years. He had a long high paying cushy job and saved. I inherited a very very nice chunk of change -tax free.
Whenever a POTUS says the word "BOMB", $100,000 gets tacked on - tax free.
Whenever there is talk about Israel - mo' money!
Aircraft carriers? - Mo' money!
Team America World Police is very nice for me.
And where does my money come from? Out of everyone else's pockets.
So keep on with distracting yourself and everyone about the "poor" and DoE. The military industrial complex is very nice indeed! And I double dip too. US Treasury bonds.
And with our aging population, Medicare and Social Security is going to dwarf everything else, anyway.
YOu are just being penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to the Federal Budget.
Poor people are not the problem.
Now, I need to get another war going on so I can get richer.
I mean seriously there are lots of causes for the current state of the world but there is also no doubt that the lust for oil contributes a whole lot.
Because we need oil so much, we meddle in other countries way more than we should which means we "need" a huge military budget for both direct interventions and to protect ourselves from the blowback.
If we put even half the money we use on defense into developing renewable energy, not only would we be solving that problem but we'd be employing Americans in the process. The USA could become the energy supplier to the world.
And to be clear, I actually have no problem with the number of soldiers we employ. It's the money we blow on keeping them overseas and paying the military industrial complex that bothers me.
I think one possible solution would be that we'd pick a few strategic overseas bases with the permission of longtime ally host nations and then any deployment of troops outside of those areas is limited. The president has up to 30 days that he can do on his own authority, any more than that requires full congressional approval, preferably via super-majority.
Maybe, but that's a result of lifestyle choices. $150000 for a family of four is definitely easy street in terms of income.
I do acknowledge, however, that many families in that bracket can feel like they are struggling.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lifestyle-creep.asp
There's nothing necessarily wrong with wanting nicer things (and experiences), but it can get out of hand.
"If President Donald Trump sticks to what he has said... " ... and when has that happened, even if he wanted it to?
If you live on Manhattan island or inside San Francisco - $150K barely covers rent.
I've lived in 11 different states and 13 different metro areas. They have very different "costs of living." Where I live now is not the cheapest, but $150K/yr is fairly well-off.
Remember, in the USA, we have to pay for things you probably don't there. 1 or 2 vehicles. Only about 10 cities here have public transportation sufficient to forgo having a vehicle. The closest bus stop to my home is a 20 min drive away, for example. My city HAS a subway system and huge bus system. BTW, the bus I can get to isn't part of the overall metro system and overlaps only about 45 min away at 2 location, with a total of 6 buses a day.
So - add $40K to your expenses every 10 yrs for new vehicle. My car is 16 yrs old now, but I keep it well-maintained, if not pretty.
College. My education in the late 1980s was cheap, even by standards today. I attended a top 5 engineering school for undergraduate degrees for the entire USA. If cost about $6K/ year. I just looked up the costs for my school. They are about $7K/semester now, if I'm "in-state." I don't live there anymore, so that would cost about $21K/semester. Assuming a 4 year degree (which took me 5 yrs), that would be $170K for an engineering degree - and this is one of the cheapest, excellent, state, schools in the entire USA. Forget about Stanford, MIT, Rice - those would be much higher costs.
In the USA, the tax system helps business owners. Workers get screwed, but if you have a business, many things become "business expenses" and tax deductible. The people working normal jobs should learn this. Keep their normal job, but add some other personal business and all sorts of things become partially deductible. Worst case, you quit your day job because the night-job you love takes off. I read about a Russian girl who immigrated here as a teen and worked in a circus act. She started making thigh-high socks with faces and back-stories. People loved them. She learned how to handle everything and stopped doing her circus act and now has a full-time job with some employees selling/making these socks. She also has a youtube channel, so her hobby became her business. Computers, switches, Bluray devices, projectors, still/video cameras - all that is part of her business. Wearing the socks in public is "marketing" and tax deductible. Imagine - going for a walk in a mall for exercise is tax deductible - the mileage to get there or any gas, bus-fair, is covered. Need a smoothy after the workout? Deductible - ok, that last one is debatable. I wouldn't take the deduction unless I also bought another for a potential purchase agent from one of the mall stores too.
Did I mention health insurance and care costs? I pay over $1000 a month for health insurance and have ZERO medical conditions. ZERO. That is thanks to Obamacare. Before the ACA, I was paying $154/month - that was just 4 yrs ago. The plan choices in my state have dropped 50% from 2016 to 2017. There are only 2 insurance providers left - it is like internet service - AT&T or Comcast. Both charge 50% more than they should. For 4 months, Comcast has been sending fliers about GigE being available in my area. I contacted them 2 days ago, got a call back yesterday where the caller never said I could get GigE service. He was reading a script with 25Mbps at the beginning, then 35Mbps, then 50Mbps. At that point I told him he was wasting my time and hung up. Every year, Comcast sends out 30 "new" offers which all turn out to be a complete waste of my time. Every August, I give in and call, wasting 15 minutes to discover their crap hasn't changed. It still stinks.
Anyway, the point is that comparing total income and costs of living just isn't apples-to-apples.
If I were starting my career in software development over today, I'd get a job in the most expensive city I could at the beginning. Then every 3 yrs, change jobs to get a promotion and every 6 yrs move to a slightly cheaper city,
Household income ~$190k. But, after deductions ($36k in 401k's, $6k in HSA, $5k in DCFSA, medical premiums, etc.) well under $150k. Factor in standard deduction and exemptions for a family of four and you're closer to $100k.
Haven't read the article, but if you are saving wisely you'd need to be making over $200k-$230k at least before getting $150k taxable.
So what is the article talking about? Gross, AGI, or taxable?
..have to do with tech or geeks. This isn't reddit, won't ever be reddit. Good to see the new owner running this site into the ground.
Oh, it's clear why people here wouldn't like this: this is just the income bracket for progressive Silicon valley techies and nerds. But to put this into perspective: this is small potatoes to what Democrats would have given us. Democrats want a European-style welfare state, and that requires large tax increases on the middle class; it's the only way it can be financed. In European welfare states, the average tax bill for people making more than $50000 is 35% (compared to our 25%), and sales taxes are 2-3x higher.
Alternative headline: People in all income brackets will see a tax cut
Another: 70% of people making $150k - $300k will see a tax cut
It's simply fake news to say this is BAD NEWS for high income people. It's good news for most, bad news for some.
I really want to pay those taxes. :-)
Why?
- that means that I am earning $100-150k/year
- I am resident in the USoA
Now, as contractor I am earning ~50k/year working for US based company
but living in nook of the Eastern Europe.
Pay is very good locally but other aspects not so brilliant locally.
What do we call these Progressives who make a lot of money and want their taxes raised but feel sadz because a Republican came through for them. Then they whine and cry about higher taxes.
Effing Republicans....run on this whole anti-tax and spend thing, then turn around and double down on the same. Sure, they'll cut a few bucks from the EPA, ding PBS, or Planned Parenthood. Frankly, that's fine you attack the big stuff. Defense & entitlements,
Remember when we had 'sequestration' in 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_sequestration_in_2013 ). That was the whole, doomsday scenario of 10% across the board cuts if the Dems and Republicans couldn't negotiate a budget. It was never supposed to happen, and dire threats of what would happen to military readiness...poor people, the environment, if this was enacted. Guess what, it was enacted and all was/is fine. Indeed like most budget deals it only slowed the growth of the increases but it was something. All that crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth and it was all fine. No Red Dawn style invasion.
So Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Tea Baggers, it's time y'all got your acts together and put up or shut up. You got full run of the joint, lets see what you really are about. Methinks you are about enriching the military-industrial-senior-citizen-entitlements complex, just like your evil twins (Schumer/Pelosi) across the aisle. And Trump...totally worthless bag of hot tweety air..
$150,000 is the salary of the rich if you lived in middle America, i.e. Trump's base. However, it's the New York City liberal or California socialist, this is right smack in the middle class of their costs of living. Trump has shown he doesn't care a rats ass about those who disparage him, so buckle up buttercups. It's payback time.
I'm getting tired of Msmash's political posts. Think it might be time to move on from slashdot after 5-6-7? years.
..if his proposals go through, I'm looking at a refund about 10x what I was anticipating, with my obligation falling from 14,500 to ~10,000.
As I loathe giving this government a single dime, I have to say I'm quite pleased with this potential outcome.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I have nothing to worry about if those numbers are correct.
Gee, isn't raising taxes something the LIBERALS and DEMOCRATS do?
How happy are you going to be when your buddy Trump is taxing you into oblivion? Are you feeling America becoming Great Again? Or are you feeling betrayed and used? Are you still not seeing how screwed the entire country is because of this 'president'?
Don't EVEN SAY I WANTED HILLARY. NO ONE WANTED HILLARY EITHER! But YOU PEOPLE helped bring this, and everything ELSE this narcissistic megalomaniac is doing, down on EVERYONES HEADS. I hope you're all happy with yourselves!
My salary is within that range, and I am nowhere close to being "rich."
I am renting a mediocre apartment. I can't afford to buy a place because the prices are astronomical. From my quick math, I would need a 20% pay raise in order to afford the cheapest condo.
And I drive a 19 year old car (no uppity $35k Teslas for me!)
It's insulting that some people think $200k is rich. $200k might get you a pretty nice life in a small farm town middle of nowhere, but in a city where people actually want to live it's nothing special.
Last time I checked Article I gave Congress the power to levy taxes not the Executive branch. Yeah, yeah, the ruling party in the White House tends to set the tone for the legislative agenda and is normally heavily involved in the process, but why would anyone think that would be the case this time? When the tax code overhaul comes along this time it will be McConnell and the gang and their agenda, not the know-nothing, feckless reality TV star figurehead. His input will be just as it was with health care reform: more self-serving NY-style real estate tycoon BS about how great everything is and will be (and how much the previous guys sucked and were idiots) and more stellar insights like: "it turns out tax law is complicated—who knew?" or maybe "how Andrew Jackson could have stopped that whole WWII thing (and he was dead set against it, and hey why doesn't anybody wonder why it happened?)"
Okay, I read some history books. Afghanistan is everybody's favorite place to have a proxy war, so that's why that happened. Now go look at everywhere else that they didn't have a major government backing them up. Take a look at all the unsuccessful Nazi resistances. Take a look at Ruby Ridge. Take a look at every country that ever subjugated another.
The point of a modern military is not the "boots on the ground", but the infrastructure that gets them there armed, equipped, on time, with good intel about their surroundings. And in general, it's more efficient to have a rank structure where one guy at the top can send a bunch of people out to kill or be killed without having to hold a war council: this is a tough thing to evolve as a militia.
For the best argument against the second amendment ever, we can look to the war of 1812, where the more numerous militia completely failed to prevent the British from burning down Washington, D.C.. At which point our leaders decided that standing armies were maybe not such a terrible thing after all and started funding an army and a navy. They didn't update the Constitution to reflect this change of heart, and now we're stuck with it.
Given that no one has tried to repeat this militia nonsense, not even ourselves, we can suggest that this is probably a terrible idea. However, if you want to champion it, you should probably either be advocating for the elimination of the military. If not you should be aware that what you're advocating for is very much not in line with the Founders' views.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Trump's policy statements are barely more relevant than they were during the Apprentice. Just look at what happened with health care, it's the congressional republicans driving legislation and Trump is essentially tweeting randomly based on clips he saw on TV.
Now, when it comes to tax policy his personal beliefs, give rich people a tax cut, are in line with Republicans as a whole, and he might actually push a specific policy because it personally affects him. But I don't think he has the basic competency to impose that view on congress. Paul Ryan's view is the one that really matters.
I stole this Sig
Everyone's favorite tax is the one someone else pays and everyone's favorite government expense is the one that directly benefits them.
The biggest problem with health care in this country is that most people think someone else should pay for theirs even if they smoke, drink, take drugs as recreation, eat massive amounts of sugar and fat instead of vegetables, and don't exercise.
I am far from rich but I have spent the last few decades not contributing to health problems, and living within my means. I'll be Ok but we do need to increase taxes on those who are rich because to much money is going to the top as wages and benefits decline. The unlimited immigration lobby (Dems) wants us to compete for lower and lower wages and the unlimited business practice lobby (Repubs) wants us to pay top dollar for everything with limited competition in markets.
Taxes should be flat and based on percentage of income and assets. Yet in the US (I can't speak for the UK) we have over 80,000 pages of tax code to benefit the wealthy and punish everyone else who earns money. Middle class people can't afford to read through the tax codes or hire legal staffs to do so for them, only the wealthy can (and that means the very wealthy, because a millionaire can't afford to either).
Taxes are one of several reasons for the revolt in the 13 colonies and founding of a new country called the USA. The slogan "No Taxation without Representation!" should ring a bell to anyone who studied US History (sorry if you went to US public schools and missed that course). The "average" person certainly lacks representation in their State and US Federal Governments.
The Middle class already pay near 30% of their wages to Federal tax, and depending on the State another 10-20% in income tax, property tax, and sales taxes. This doesn't include taxes on gasoline, taxes on utilities, taxes on phone services, taxes on internet services, and various "fees" the State imposes on public property and services such as vehicle registration, license fees, and usage charges for roads.
If anything, the taxes on the wealthy should be higher than lower income earners. As Socrates pointed out in the Republic, that would prevent them from screwing with Government to get more simply because of what they have and ensure that the best remain productive.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
As someone who almost makes this (135); go ahead, tax me more..... If you aren't using it to start wars and built shit for the military.
Tax me more if you are going to use it to get rid of homelessness, cut education costs, introduce single-payer healthcare, etc.
Yeah, taxing the class that has expendable income is a great idea ... for the rich. Tax me more, now I will just hoard cash. I won't spend it. So now the economy gets hurt and we have more inflation. Their is no great answer but a large death tax (no more passing down a lot of wealth) and do not allow people to deduct mortgages over a certain limit is probably an easier ones to get passed. Sorry but buying a X million dollar home so you can write off the mortgage is just not a good idea especially if the markets go down then the banks are left holding the bag again.
- on day 1 in office, building starts on the great Mexican wall
- on day 2 in office, Obamacare is repealed
- on day 3 in office, Hillary Clinton is sent to jail
- on day 4 in office, the US are purged of terrorists
- on day 5 in office, outsourced jobs return to American soil
- on day 6 in office, taxes will be lowered for everybody
- on day 7 in office, the US and Russia sign new peace treaty
I really don't see why the above summary says certain categories will pay more. The TPC article (yeah, yeah) shows negative numbers for ALL quintiles, with the top one of course having the by far largest %.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons why they were desperately trying to pass a "Health Care" bill which -- even with a giveaway to the rich of its own -- was intended to cost less so they had $ to balance against lost income here.
Note that the article says they used the same 10/25/35% brackets Trump proposed last fall. He did not specify the actual brackets and still hasn't. So this is somewhat speculative.
That said, anything with a lowered top rate, and the removal of the AMT and Inheritance Tax, will help the wealthy immensely. This is what we should be pushing back on.
In 10 years with the savings from single payer healthcare. Seriously, google the cost savings. Insurance is robbing us blind
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Speculation designed to inflame...
Call me when you grow up Slashdot...
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
are not really to be taken serious - like anything trump ever said.
Comparing the UK and the US is a bit disingenuous. 150K/year in India would make you quite wealthy, too, but is immaterial to your standard of living in the US, or Britain. 150K in the US is alot in Peoria, much less in Silly Valley. Mid-career engineers in California routinely make 150+; some of the other tech centers aren't far behind. The people making those salaries certainly aren't poor, but above middle-class ? Not really.
This site is a fucking disgrace, like Digg and reddit.
Correction. An income of $150000 for a family of four is "easy streets" IF:
4.1 You do not live in any urban area with decent services and and a decent set of work options
If you cut all the social programs and all the excess military spending taxes would drop to near zero. The problem is people want their senior citizen center, public school, parks, roads, police, fire department, and so on, but don't want to pay for it. Well, if you're forced to pay for these things directly you'll be able to decide which of these things are most important to you. Personally I have no problem paying for security services. Unfortunately 70% of our wealth is stolen from us all via hidden fees and taxes. It's not just what you know that gets stolen, it's what you don't know about that makes up that 70%. You end up having 15% for example stolen indirectly on top of another 15% they tell you about. The hidden 15% is what your employer pays. Then there is another 7-25% (varies depending on where you live) sales / VAT tax. Then there are the vehicular registration fees (some places this is high, hundreds of dollars or more a year). Then you have the property taxes. You rent? Guess what. Your paying these taxes too indirectly through your landlord. Just because you're not aware of the taxes doesn't mean they don't exist or don't add up to 70% or more of your potential wealth.
I guess those poor "poor" people in Silicon Valley will be homeless. This is fuckedup first world problems. You make that much money, "Good news! You make 150K+!" Count your fucking blessings dumb asses.
Anybody can pay more taxes by making a donation to the IRS.
But those liberal elite rich folk and Warren Buffet with their armies of tax accountants say jack up everyone's tax, they need to pay more!
And they harness their tax people to pay less.
Good job.
I'm nowhere near $150k so I will *not* be affected by this tax increase, however, I was affected by Obama's economic downturn and have been making very little money up until two months ago. So I thank you, Obama, [sarcasm]
How did this make it on Slashdot? For the most part I'm willing to deal with politics that relates with technology on this site but this doesn't have anything to do with anything.
If it's Reaganomics, it's trickle everywhere. Everyone benefited from his economic package. We saw the largest expansion of the economy the world had ever seen. It worked really well. The left can't stand it though. There will always be poor and there's nothing that can be done for some people.
Wow, do all of you realize this will be the first budget since GW Bush? Obama couldn't manage to pass one himself. I think he's the only one in history that wasn't able to pass a budget.
So you want taxes to pay for things that benefit you personally, and screw everything (and everyone) else. Typical libertarian.
Anyone who makes more than me is rich.
No politician will ever stumble and actually define what it means to be middle class.