Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.

During the campaign, Obama insisted that he would not resort to an individual mandate to achieve universal coverage. In fact, he repeatedly ripped Hillary Clinton’s plan for proposing one. "To force people to buy coverage," he insisted, "you’ve got to have a very harsh penalty." What will this penalty be, he demanded? "Are you going to garnish their wages?" he asked Hillary in one debate.

Yet now, Obama is behaving as if he said never a hostile word about the mandate. Earlier this month, in a letter to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., he blithely declared that he was all for "making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and making employers share in the cost."

But just like Hillary, he is refusing to say precisely what he will do to those who want to forgo insurance. There is a name for such a health care approach: It is called TonySopranoCare.

Dear Leader Obama believes he’s better than the Dear Leader of North Korea it seems. Will America soon regress in the image of NK? Past time to stop this IMO.

Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.

Obama took his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, to the mat for suggesting that it might be better to remove the existing health care tax break that individuals get on their employer-sponsored coverage, but return the vast bulk–if not all–of the resulting revenues in the form of health care tax credits. This would theoretically have made coverage both more affordable and portable for everyone. Obama, however, would have none of it, portraying this idea simply as the removal of a tax break. "For the first time in history, he wants to tax your health benefits," he thundered. "Apparently, Sen. McCain doesn’t think it’s enough that your health premiums have doubled. He thinks you should have to pay taxes on them too."

Yet now Obama is signaling his willingness to go along with a far worse scheme to tax employer-sponsored benefits to fund the .6 trillion or so it will cost to provide universal coverage. Contrary to Obama’s allegations, McCain’s plan did not ultimately entail a net tax increase because he intended to return to individuals whatever money was raised by scrapping the tax deduction. Not so with Obama. He apparently told Sen. Baucus that he would consider the senator’s plan for rolling back the tax exclusion that expensive, Cadillac-style employer-sponsored plans enjoy, in order to pay for universal coverage. But, unlike McCain, he has said nothing about putting offsetting deductions or credits in the hands of individuals.

In other words, Obama might well end up doing what McCain never set out to do: Impose a net tax increase on health benefits for the first time in history.

Lie Three: Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.

Ignoring the reality that Medicare–the government-funded program for the elderly–has put the country on the path to fiscal ruin, Obama wants to model a government insurance plan–the so-called "public option"–after Medicare in order to control the country’s rising health care costs. Why? Because, he repeatedly claims, Medicare has far lower administrative costs and overhead than private plans–to wit, 3% for Medicare compared to 10% to 20% for private plans. Hence, he says, subjecting private plans to competition against an entity delivering such superior efficiency will release health care dollars for universal coverage.

But lower administrative costs do not necessarily mean greater efficiency. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office analysis last year chastised Medicare’s lax attitude on this front. "The traditional fee-for-service Medicare program does relatively little to manage benefits, which tends to reduce its administrative costs but may raise its overall spending relative to a more tightly managed approach," it noted on page 93.

In short, extending the Medicare model will further ruin–not improve–even the functioning aspects of private plans.

Lie Four: A public plan won’t be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.

Obama has repeatedly claimed that forcing private plans to compete with a public plan will simply "keep them honest" and give patients more options–not lead to a full-blown, Canadian-style, single-payer monopoly. As I argued in my previous column, this is wishful thinking given that government programs such as Medicare have a history of controlling costs by underpaying providers, who make up the losses by charging private plans more. Any public plan modeled after Medicare will greatly increase this forced subsidy, eventually driving private plans out of business, even if that weren’t Obama’s intention.

But, as it turns out, it very much is his intention. Before he decided to run for office–and even during the initial days of his campaign–Obama repeatedly said that he was in favor of a single-payer system. What’s mo

Would this do more to stimulate the economy?

http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN2853502020090128

(I am not sure why, but some bot deleted this question)

* Cut the lowest two income tax rates for 2009 and 2010, from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent.

* Extend through 2010 a patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to ensure that wealthy people pay taxes, but instead would hit millions of middle-income families with higher taxes.

* Expand the ,500 first-time homebuyers tax credit for a principal residence to all homebuyers while limiting it to purchasers who can make a down payment of at least 5 percent of the purchase price.

* Provide a tax deduction for small businesses with less than 500 employees equal to 20 percent of their income.

* Offer new tax deduction for those who do not receive tax-preferred, employer-sponsored health care coverage. And provide assistance to the unemployed who do not qualify for a COBRA premium subsidy.

* Give tax exemption on unemployment benefits and extend temporary federal unemployment benefits through 2009, phasing it out through mid-2010.

* Allow companies to write off current losses against previous tax years for up to five years. Companies now can only "carry back" losses for two years. The tax break would not be available to banks and other companies receiving help from the 0 billion bailout package.

* Extend through 2009 a break for small businesses that allows them to immediately write off up certain capital expenditures. (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by David Wiessler)

I’m helping a friend do taxes, but not well-versed in the area of home ownership myself. He moved from Alaska to Texas this year with his wife, and purchased a house to "flip". He bought the house in Sep 2007, and wants to sell this summer and immediately move into a second "flip". Based on what I’ve been reading, he has two options:

Path 1: Be a home investor, and wait until one year to sell, and then tax his cap gains at only 15% , instead of 35%.

Path 2: Declare himself self-employed, making his house his business, which I would think give him a lot of tax deductions.

I’m not actually clear on what path is most advisable. What deductions can he take following either path? What "errors in thought" should he be aware of? He thinks that if he sells within the year and goes to another house he gets a tax break. But I’ve not found anything about that. I want to help him, but don’t want to give him bad advice, so thought the community could help.

Thanks.

— Broaden the 1.45-percent Medicare tax on earned income to “passive income,” which could include money from capital gains, rental properties and businesses that do not require direct participation. This could raise 0 billion.

— Levy a five-percent surtax on individuals who earn more than 0,000 and couples that make million.

— Tax health benefits at a higher level than had been considered. Two scenarios are in play. Taxing plans worth more than ,300 for a family and ,300 for an individual could raise 0 billion. Increasing the cut-off to plans worth more than ,000 would bring billion.

— Capping the tax break on itemized deductions at 28 percent, as President Barack Obama had proposed, or freezing the top deduction rate at 35 percent when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. The first scenario would raise 8 billion, while the second would collect billion.

— Issue tax credit bonds to pay for the proposed Medicaid expansion, raising billion.

— Charge fees to pharmaceutical manufacturers, bringing in as much as billion, and insurance providers, raising billion.

– Raise taxes on sodas and sugary drinks. A 3-cent hike could pick up billion, and a 10-cent hike could make 0 billion. This one already appears out of favor: Many senators have specifically ruled out the sugar tax, and a Senate Democratic source said it was the one option that was clearly not gaining traction with committee members.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24752.html

— Broaden the 1.45-percent Medicare tax on earned income to “passive income,” which could include money from capital gains, rental properties and businesses that do not require direct participation. This could raise 0 billion.

— Levy a five-percent surtax on individuals who earn more than 0,000 and couples that make million.

— Tax health benefits at a higher level than had been considered. Two scenarios are in play. Taxing plans worth more than ,300 for a family and ,300 for an individual could raise 0 billion. Increasing the cut-off to plans worth more than ,000 would bring billion.

— Capping the tax break on itemized deductions at 28 percent, as President Barack Obama had proposed, or freezing the top deduction rate at 35 percent when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. The first scenario would raise 8 billion, while the second would collect billion.

— Issue tax credit bonds to pay for the proposed Medicaid expansion, raising billion.

— Charge fees to pharmaceutical manufacturers, bringing in as much as billion, and insurance providers, raising billion.

– Raise taxes on sodas and sugary drinks. A 3-cent hike could pick up billion, and a 10-cent hike could make 0 billion. This one already appears out of favor: Many senators have specifically ruled out the sugar tax, and a Senate Democratic source said it was the one option that was clearly not gaining traction with committee members.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24752.html

I run a lawn service out of my parents garage right now. I am making very good money and do like to claim it on my income takes as "other" or Schedule C. (its taxed @ 15%)

Recently I purchased several pieces of expensive equipment but I have not yet filed for a Tax ID # nor have I made the business an official corporation. Can I claim the purchases on my 2007 tax forms as deductions? I would like to claim full revenues and recieve a tax break from expenditures.

How would I go about this?

I want to start an office recycling business, and am trying to come up with ways for this to work. I thought if I could find something that says it can be "written off" as a tax deduction for their efforts in helping the environment, this would really help the cause. If there is not, this should really be brought to become a possibility, I think!
I should clarify – I meant is there a tax break for a business who pays someone to recycle for them, not for the actual recycling business…does that make sense? I was hoping to use that as an incentive to get them to use my services.

Strippers do not pay taxes on tips, so shouldn’t the tipper get a tax break as well?

I run a lawn service out of my parents garage right now. I am making very good money and do like to claim it on my income takes as "other" or Schedule C. (its taxed @ 15%)

Recently I purchased several pieces of expensive equipment but I have not yet filed for a Tax ID # nor have I made the business an official corporation. Can I claim the purchases on my 2007 tax forms as deductions? I would like to claim full revenues and recieve a tax break from expenditures.

How would I go about this?

My father and I are on the title of this house. He lives in his own house with his new family and runs a business there, but uses this address for tax deductions (the business used to be here). He tells his accountant this place is employee housing, but really it is where my husband and I live. We want to take over the mortgage, without his name on the loan, but he demands that he is dependant on this tax break, although the business is not run here nor are there employees of his living here.