I heard that disgusting blowhard Novak on the other blowhard's show Judy Woodruff this a.m. saying bush is interested in the concept of a "consumption tax" in other words a national sales tax. I wonder how happy those "Wallmart republicans", as they are being referred to now, will be with this concept. It's my opinion they won't be able to figure it out. God help us all after reading the following article.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publ...nter_5654.shtml
Bush's Second Term: Hold on to Your Wallet
By MARY DEIBEL
Scripps Howard News Service
Nov 5, 2004, 07:25




President Bush's call for an "ownership society" in which you make your own choices on such economic issues as retirement and health care comes with a price tag: It will require you to assume more responsibility - and more risk - for your financial security.

Here's what the election will mean to your pocketbook:

Taxes. Bush campaigned on the promise he would make his tax cuts permanent, including lower rates for income taxes, capital gains and dividend income. Republican gains in Congress, especially in the Senate, should help him win permanent repeal of federal inheritance taxes.

Bush used his victory speech Wednesday and a news conference Thursday to call for a simpler tax code, too.

Some Bush aides propose taxing consumption instead of investment income, and House Speaker Denny Hastert likes a national sales tax, which the non-partisan Tax Policy Center says would require 26 cents on the dollar to replace the income tax.

Many in Congress won't take kindly to streamlining the tax code when they have invested in tax breaks for favored constituents. But Bush recognizes the problem. In calling for a fairer tax code in which "loopholes wouldn't be there for special interests," he said that overhauling the tax code will "take a lot of legwork."

Permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts will lead to $4 trillion worth of deficits in the next decade, warns Economy.com analyst Mark Zandi.

Zandi worries Bush and Congress lack the discipline to control the deficit and slash spending on popular programs. The upshot, he says: higher interest rates for consumers and business.

Retirement. Bush wants to make you responsible for retirement savings and used Thursday's press conference to announce that "we'll start on Social Security now."

Bush has campaigned since 2000 to let younger workers put some Social Security payroll tax into private investment accounts. He said the Social Security commission he appointed to study the idea developed "a good blueprint."

But the commission couldn't agree on a plan, and neither it nor Bush said where they would get $2 trillion to cover the 10-year cost of the changeover or how they would solve Social Security's long-term solvency problem.

The commission agreed that workers would not trade in Social Security accounts like they do a brokerage account. As co-chairman Richard Parsons explained it, workers would choose among a few stock and bond funds and would be limited to changes once a year to hold down costs.

Bush also told the press conference that a simpler tax code should "encourage people to invest and save." He is expected to renew previous budgets proposals for tax-free Lifetime Savings and Retirement Savings accounts. These are more generous substitutes for 401(k)s and IRAs, and as originally drafted, would let you invest $5,000 each year tax free, or $25,000 for a family of four.

Pensions are another question mark. The quasi-public Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is $10 billion short of what it needs to pay benefits to pensioners whose private plans go belly-up.

Like the savings-and-loan bailout that wasn't debated in 1988, pension problems went unspoken in the 2004 campaign. But the day of reckoning may come for the 30,000 traditional pension plans that cover 44 million Americans, especially if bankrupt airlines dump their pension liabilities.

Education savings. Bush proposes to make permanent the 2001 tax cuts that turned so-called 529 college savings plans into tax-free investment accounts if the money goes to education. The same cuts also paved the way for education savings accounts for younger students and allow private colleges to set up pre-paid tuition plans like state schools offer.

Health care. Be prepared to pay more out-of-pocket for medical care.

Tax-free Health Savings Accounts tied to high-deductible insurance policies were enacted last year to make patients cost-conscious. For 160 million Americans who get health coverage through work, the change gradually will shift the burden from our employer to us although business has been slow to adopt these accounts.

Medicare's prescription drug plan will replace those confusing drug cards in 2006 for people 65 and older, and efforts are under way to reform Medicare hospital insurance, which exhausts its reserves in 2019 under the weight of 76 million retiring baby boomers.

Energy. Whether it's drilling in the Arctic wildlife preserve or other proposals, don't expect Bush's energy plans to lower the price of $50-a-barrel oil. The pressure that costly gasoline, heating oil and natural gas puts on business profits and consumer wallets likely will dramatically slow growth and job prospects.

"The basic reality facing the economy is that we'll have a recession next year if oil stays at the current price," warns John Makin, a Wall Street trader and energy economist at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Worse, Makin predicts, Americans won't adjust: "Households will run up their credit-card balances at the gas pump filling up their SUVs, and businesses won't adjust products on the assumption the problem goes away, but postponement just makes crisis inevitable later."

And so it begins.. the price of moral values

I mean.. even the evangelicals must have known there was a hidden price for all this somewhere, right? <_<

Those Bush Republicans deserve whatever Bush gives them! I'll quit buying. I want to boycott a few corporations anyway.

I honestly believe they (making a gross generalization here) don't think things through. They have one issue only. For heavens sake and I say this as a Catholic, I saw on television a man in the bush group watching the returns and showing his elation when bush was announced taking Ohio, with his rosary clutched in his fist, other arm held up like they do at the evangelical meetings. I think their minds are completely closed. They'll find soon enough when the discover they've been hijacked. If it wasn't going to affect me too, I'd sit back and enjoy the disaster.

The saddest part of all this is that as our senior citizens begin dying in droves Cheney's stooge will not show them any more compassion than he has for all the young people who have died in Iraq. The republicans symbolize greed, predjudice, intolerance and a complete lack of concern for those less fortunate than themselves. It's all about "Hooray for me and screw you".

I hope those that voted for Bush remember, the Lord giveth with one hand, and taketh away with the other.

I can't believe corporate America isn't going to worry about a national sales tax. Who's going to shop at Wall-mart when all the prices suddenly go up 20%? People have a pretty good idea what things cost. They basically have no idea what they pay, though, by percentage, in state and federal taxes/ FICA. They just know a hunk's gone from the paycheck. If they get that bi-monthly bump in pay that comes from dumping the IRS, it's not going to register like the bump in cost they'll see EVERY time--several times every day--when they buy something.

Democrats need to start calling this the LIFE TAX.

I wonder how the rich are going to make it through the gates of heaven with all their loot? You know, the camel and the needle.... Of course their kids will be happy to get all their loot tax free in six years(?)!!! So... let's get rid of the "gift tax", why wait until you die to pass on your possessions? (like any of us have that kind of cash to pass around..... but it is the SAME issue.... death tax = tax on "free" unearned money. )

So... we are going from slightly progressive tax (if you don't use any loopholes) to absolutely regressive with no loopholes ...

Can someone post some plans for Victory Gardens?

A list of corporations that should be boycotted would be great!!!

I'm still in shock that anyone voted for this guy. We'll be lucky if we're not a third world nation in four years.

Well we are like BROKE now.