A Voice of Sanity – RobertRinger.com

As a common-sense small businessman, I have a front-row seat to a slow-motion economic Armageddon that will be written about, discussed, and debated for decades to come.

But big-shot economists don’t listen to guys like me. They scoff as I keep predicting in commentary after commentary that small business is suffering a catastrophe of epic proportions and leading this nation toward levels of unemployment and economic crisis that will rival or surpass the Great Depression. Barack Obama is literally taxing small business to death.

I do not believe the tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes is a mistake, a coincidence, or due to incompetence. I believe my old college classmate Obama (Columbia University class of ’83) is a Marxist who is purposefully trying to destroy capitalism by overwhelming the system, thereby creating a distraction that gives him cover to redistribute America’s wealth to his voters (i.e., those who create no jobs, pay few taxes, depend on government handouts for survival, or work for government or unions).

As a bonus, he gets to bankrupt the group (small business) that contributes virtually all the money to his political opposition. This is truly a “Marxist Triple Play.” Consider a few highlights of Obama’s reign of destruction:

1. The biggest income tax increase in America’s history will take effect on January 1. The new tax increase falls almost 100 percent on small business owners and high-income taxpayers (whose contributions happen to fund Obama’s political opposition). As a result, many more jobs will be lost and more businesses will be closed.

2. A dramatic 60 percent capital gains tax increase (from 15 percent to 23.8 percent effective rate, including new universal health-care taxes) will accompany the big income tax increase. More jobs will be lost, more businesses closed.

3. Taxes on dividends will increase from 15 percent to 39.6 percent, and then another 3.8 percent by 2013 for Obama’s new health-care taxes. Stocks will be crushed and older Americans will be devastated (because they live off dividends, investments and bank interest). More lives ruined, more jobs lost.

4. New taxes on income, investments, and even tanning-bed users soon take effect to pay for ObamaCare. Worse,18,000 new IRS agents will be hired to enforce these taxes (at a cost of billions annually in new government employee salaries, pensions, and benefits). More jobs lost.

5. The pending cap-and-trade legislation threatens dramatic new taxes on anyone who owns a business, a home, an auto, or buys products manufactured or delivered through the use of energy. Once again, the more you own, the more you’ll be taxed. More jobs will be lost, more manufacturing jobs sent overseas, more homes foreclosed.

6. The pending financial reform bill threatens onerous new rules, regulations, and taxes on banks and Wall Street. More jobs will be lost and more banking and financial jobs sent overseas.

7. The pending new jobs bill threatens gigantic new taxes on every Sub Chapter S corporation in America. More jobs will be lost and more small businesses ruined.

8. The threat of a gigantic new national sales tax (VAT) on everything manufactured, bought, and sold in America looms large. Fewer jobs, reduced consumer spending, more businesses closed forever.

9. Obama is pushing for the reduction or elimination of tax deductions (such as mortgages and charitable contributions) for high-income earners (mostly small business owners). More jobs lost, reduced charitable contributions, and the real estate industry damaged beyond repair.

10. The threat of bans or restrictions on offshore oil drilling are being put permanently into place. More jobs lost and more jobs sent overseas where drilling is welcomed. As a bonus for Obama, he gets to ruin the Texas economy.

11. All signs indicate that Obama will soon propose to take the income cap off FICA (Social Security) taxes. If this happens, a successful small business owner (if there are any left) could see his or her FICA taxes go from an already bloated and burdensome $15,000 per year to an unimaginable $150,000 or more. In U.S. history, no taxpayer has ever seen a ten-times tax increase in one year. This devastating nightmare will wipe out small business and cause people whom Obama calls “rich” to lose their homes and businesses.

12. A new IRS law (with the passage of ObamaCare) requires business owners to file thousands of new forms each year documenting virtually every expenditures made by their businesses. As a result of this blizzard of new paperwork, small businesses face ruin.

13. Let’s not forget the gigantic tax hikes on the state and local level for income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and new taxes disguised as “user fees.” Local taxes are already at levels that taxpayers and small businesses can no longer afford to pay.

14. Finally, Obama refuses to consider lowering the second highest corporate tax rate (40 percent) in the industrialized world. As a result, more businesses will choose to leave the United States and more jobs will be sent overseas.

Each of these taxes and proposed taxes is a job killer. Taken together, the Obama regime’s policies are the equivalent of General Sherman’s march to the sea – leaving a tragic path of destruction in its wake. Obama has launched an unprecedented, overwhelming, death-by-tax assault on the groups that fund fiscally conservative causes and candidates: taxpayers and business owners.

And you wonder why there are no jobs? You wonder why there is no recovery? This is the “Teleprompter Depression.” Every time Obama steps in front of a teleprompter, another thousand businesses die.

Wayne Allyn Root, the 2008 vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, is the author of The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution With God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts. For more of Wayne’s views and commentaries, and to watch his many media interviews, visit his website at www.ROOTforAmerica.com)

This article is a reprint from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

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