Bend Over, Here It Comes

Regardless of whether or not Reuters withdrew the story, you're about have some taxes shoved through your back door:

Published under the headline “Backdoor taxes hit middle class,” the article opened by describing the Obama Administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade as relying “heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.” Four hours and three minutes after it hit the wire, the story was “withdrawn” with a promise that “a] replacement story will run later in the week.”

Why did Reuters pull the story? One site cited a Reuters rep as saying the piece was withdrawn “due to significant errors of fact” and “should not have gone out.” I think it was the language used in the article that prompted Reuters to pull it. In particular, it was the series of phrases shown below that, combined with the one mentioned above, must have made the hair stand up on the back of Rahm Emanuel’s neck:

“…effectively a tax hike by stealth.”


“middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.”

Perhaps the largest contributing factor to the article being yanked is a list of tax break provisions popular among middle-class families that Obama might allow to expire:

* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes.

* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies.

* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses.

* Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid.

* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

The last line of the story was, perhaps, the proverbial “nail in the coffin” for the Reuter’s piece:

* Trickle-down-taxation.

And from the 'Doctor of Democracy:'

Here's why. "If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent." This is what they all were before Bush cut them. "The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated." This is all true. Every bit of it is true. If you're going to let these tax cuts sunset, it means we're going to go back to what they were before Bush cut them, and those are the rates that I just gave you. That means that everybody paying income taxes is going to effectively get an increase, a tax increase, despite Obama's constant pledges that 95% of the American people get a tax cut, and he's calling one-time tax rebates a tax cut. So obviously the White House did not like this story.

If you just relax your muscles and stop resisting, the 'Hope and Change' will slide in much easier.

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