A couple of kind e-mailers contend that the president’s math skills are not faulty, because the one half of 1 percent tax applies only to the amount above $1 million earned by millionaires. Fully understood. And that’s a problem. If the tax on millionaires generates, as the president claims, just $500 per millionaire patriot, then that amounts to just $120 million in total revenue — or about $300 per job “created or saved.” But if (giving the benefit of the doubt), as set forth in the original post, the tax is applied to the total aggregate 2010 income of those millionaire patriots, the revenue generated would only fund the 400,000 jobs to the tune of $4.50 an hour without benefits.
At those wages, the folks seeking to recall Governor Walker might also have a slight issue with the White House.
1) OBummer may be "technically" correct in that he means the person making EXACTLY $1.1M will pay $500 extra (0.5% x $100k, the amount above $1M)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse2) Of course, this is very deceiving since it uses the example of someone making just over the cutoff. It implies every millionaire will only pay $500, which is patently false
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour dunderheaded inability to understand how marginal tax rates works really merits a full-on mea culpa. We all have our bad days. But in trying to gracefully cover up your own terrible math: (1,100,000 - 1,000,000) * .005 = 500, as a middle schooler could figure out, you instead just start spinning uncontrollably.
He never said it would generate $500 per millionaire. He said it would generate $500 for someone making $1,100,000 (because of the math laid out before). For Bill Gates, it would generate an additional $18,454 (which is what he makes in about a day).
Just stop, Kirsanow. This stuff is not hard to grasp, and your difficulty in understanding a concept that I have easily explained to middle schoolers before is a bit embarassing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePeter, I think you're still leaving out part of the President's analysis: that he's "asking" the millionaires and billionaires to continue "giving" that extra 5% for ten years. The money gets spent in the first year, adding $40 billion to the deficit, minus 1/10th of the fat cats' ten year "gift." Then the additional 9/10ths subtract from the deficits over the succeeding nine years.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs this supposed to be a Mea Culpa of some sort? Apparently you aren't very good at those either.
This is the worst excuse for a non-admission that you screwed up - badly - that I've ever seen here at NRO. You would have been better off simply to write that you made an error in math yourself, and probably shouldn't have attacked the president for not making an error with his.
You stated in your original post:
"As every Corner reader who graduated from 4th grade determined immediately upon reading the above quote, one half of 1 percent of $1.1 million is $5,500, not $500. But, hey, even though he said it three times, cut the president some slack — he’s off only by about factor of ten."
I guess you want the same slack cut, eh? Look in the mirror next time you're tempted to insult someone's math skills or analytical abilities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTheFish - Obama's plan isn't for those earning over a million to pay .5% more in taxes. It's a hell of a lot more than that! So why does Obama state it at a fundraiser? Because he doesn't want to scare anyway his rich liberal donors.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLook, Fish, the point is that Obama *did* say that he can save 400,000 public-sector jobs by slapping a .5% surcharge on (either -- he wasn't clear) the income of people making more than $1 million, or people's income over $1 million.
There's about $500 billion of income above $1 million to tax. Tax that at .5%, and you get $2.5 billion. Divide that by 400,000 jobs, and you're paying your public servants three bucks an hour. Slightly less than the going rate. Like by a factor of five.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's a 1-time boost to public-sector funds coupled with a permanent 0.5% tax hike via a new marginal bracket for income over $1 million. Obama's saying that this tax will pay for the teacher/firefighter/whoever money after 10 years; beyond that, it'll decrease the debt/deficit.
When did Obama claim that a 0.5% surtax on income over $1 million would fully pay 400,000 workers annually? He's pushing for temporary stimulus paid for by a longer-term increase in revenue.
And obviously Obama's not calling for a 0.5% tax on all income of folks making over $1M, as it's sort of wasteful to have folks calculating whether or not they're accidentally going to wind up with between $1.0 and $1.005 million in income.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs our brainiac in chief might put it, "oh lets just not fuss over all these distractions".
Really, how many Jeremiah Wright racist diatribes can you fit on the head of an empty suit?
The point is this was just another phony Obama political stunt aimed at consumption and amplification by the MSM. On the other hand, the Republican party just might be the stupid one. Looks like a big upcoming debate topic might be whether boys as well as girls will be getting a STD shot in school. Yuk.
As they might say on the tough streets of Chi... Wise up yous dopes.
Its the jobs stupid. Or, "the jobs ma'am, just the jobs."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't let the Anointed One own the jobs.
Indeed, I'm surprised Mr. Kirsanow bothered to respond; apparently the critique of his sloppiness (which of course can be excused as he had political points to score) struck a nerve.
So many who blog and post on NRO take the position that the left is always wrong (they are wrong on many things, but not everything) and that they, by virtue of their political bent, are alway right. So much for constructive political discourse.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI love how the left distracts. The fact that it's a stupid idea is irrelevant, because your math was worse than his! And thus empires fall.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKirsanow was never talking about the idea, though, The entire post was about how Obama's math was bad, and in the post, Kirsanow demonstrated his own horrifyingly bad math. And then, since he's too arrogant to just admit he screwed up (if I were him, I wouldn't apologize, I would try desperately to make the first post go away), he issues a non-apology that just compounds the first bad math with additional bad math.
If you want to say it's a bad idea, make that case. Kirsanow is just stumbling around in circles trying to figure out which end of his calculator is up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA distraction? Peter's original post was a numbers post, and just about every single number in it was wrong.
He still doesn't seem to be aware that Obama was referring to a $35 billion jobs bill just defeated by Republicans -- not a $1.3 billion or $3.6 billion bill, or whatever.
And yes, Obama was being deceptive with his language by implying all millionaires would only pay $500. And yes, Obama's speech was shameless politicking. But Peter didn't attack the speech on either of those grounds -- he attacked it based on a complete misunderstanding of what Obama was talking about.
It's not a "distraction" to point out when someone's argument it entirely erroneous and makes no sense.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet me correct redfake's post (I try not to do this a lot, as I do have a life and correcting liberal lies is a full times job.)
"He still doesn't seem to be aware that Obama was referring to a $35 billion jobs bill just defeated by bi-partisan opposition. Just like his first budget was defeated 97-0"
We now return you to your regularly scheduled liberal fact free rants.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat an Orwellian distortion of the word bipartisan. To be totally accurate, let's say it was blocked by every single Republican and 3 Democrats.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe objectives of the bill:
1) Establish a new millionaires surtax that would begin in 2012 and never sunset (see section 59B of the bill):
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2) Front-end load the payouts to the teachers and first responders so that more than $21.5B (61%) of the $35B total is paid out in FY 2012 - 2013, which just so happens to cover the election year:
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3) Send 86% of the money to the education lobby
The bill would have added $10.4B to the deficit in FY2012 (the current FY ending Sept 30, 2012) and another $5.2B in deficit spending in FY2013.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseobama's giving an example where the extra 0.5 percent tax on the extra 100K (from 1,100,000 income) ends up as 500 bucks - and then pretends that it would be the same for all "millionaires and billionaires".
why doesn't he choose someone who makes 1,000,010 dollars a year? that guy would only have to pay one nickel in extra taxes? surely all those millionaires you know would be patriotic enough to give an extra nickel to the government?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusewhether you call it math or playing with words, the president was being completely dishonest in describing this program.
he chose an example where the 0.5 percent tax (extra 100K in 1,100,000 income) ends up as 500 bucks - and then pretends that it would be the same for all "millionaires and billionaires".
why not choose someone who makes 1,000,010 dollars a year? that person would only have to pay one nickel in extra taxes? surely all those millionaires would be patriotic enough to pay an extra nickel in taxes??
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBtw Peter, did you ever retract your completely bogus story about Obama apologizing for Hiroshima? You haven't had a good couple of weeks with your stories being debunked almost the minute you hit the ENTER key. I do know that ODR causes some to act a bit recklessly when they see an opportunity to attack the President, facts be darned, but perhaps you should vett your articles a tad before they go out on the internets to forever discredit you. Just saying.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBTW Slide, did ever admit that, by your own standards, you have issues with men and black men and women? Just asking.
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