Republican View

Caleb Duke
October 1, 2012
Filed under Opinion

While campaigning for his first presidential election on Oct. 4, 2008, then Senator Barack Obama said, “I believe that every single American has the right to affordable, accessible healthcare.” He said this healthcare “should never be purchased with tax increases on middle-class families.” Obama promised during his 2008 campaign to not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year.  On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, Obamacare will raise taxes on approximately 6 million Americans by 2016. This tax will be a penalty paid to the government for being uninsured. Middle-class families will account for about two-thirds of the receipt for this penalty.

President Obama has also supported increased taxes on wealthy Americans, specifically through his support of the “Buffett Rule.”  He wants to increase the capital gains rate and raise the top tax bracket 4.6 percent by ending the Bush era tax cuts on Americans making more than $250,000.  We have a low capital gains rate for a reason: to encourage job creation and investment.  America does not need its president raising taxes on job creators when unemployment has been above 8 percent for 43 straight months.

Governor Mitt Romney has a very different vision concerning taxes. He believes money should be left in the hands of the individual rather than the government. Romney has proposed decreasing marginal tax rates to encourage entrepreneurship, job creation and investment. He wants to eliminate capital gains taxes on those making an adjusted gross income less than $200,000 to stimulate middle-class savings and investments.

Romney has also proposed cutting corporate tax rates to make American businesses more competitive globally while encouraging job creation at home.  Our current 35 percent corporate tax rate is among the highest of industrialized countries, significantly higher than the United Kingdom and Canada. It seems clear that while Obama wants to burden the middle class and increase taxes on job creators, Governor Romney wants to grow our economy through tax reform. Once again, President Obama’s policies have made the choice clear.