Poor public policy from the new president is about to get even worse.
The productive, the business owners, those who’ve worked their behinds off to achieve for their families – in other words, the very people who create obs, buy products and services, and adopt new technologies at high prices, which pushes prices down for the rest of us – are about to be punished for their contributions and productivity.
From the New York Times story (emphasis is mine):
The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers.
Administration officials said the president would propose to reduce the value of itemized tax deductions for everyone in the top income tax bracket of 35 percent and many of those in the 33 percent bracket — roughly speaking, starting at $250,000 in annual income for a married couple.
So who are these “rich” people the administration is going to punish? Fortune magazine calls the $250,000+ familiy the “HENRYS” — High Earners, Not Rich Yet.
Obama and the congressional Democrats frequently refer to households earning over $250,000 as the “rich” and the “wealthiest Americans.” But whether the HENRYs are truly “rich,” or ever will be, is debatable. In Fortune’s interviews with two dozen HENRYs from Charlotte to Concord, Calif., what emerged was a portrait of families a world away from the private jets, luxury vacation homes, and heated garages with Bentleys and Porsches lined up headlight to headlight that typically represent America’s vision of “rich.”
What a shame.These people are role models, but in the eyes of the new president, they are simply targets.