That’s the sound as we march towards one of the biggest tax hikes in history under a President who said:

“I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses that create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow. I will cut taxes–cut taxes–for 95% of all working families. In an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raising taxes on the middle-class.” – Speech at 2008 Democratic National Convention Aug 27, 2008

For those in the audience that doubt citations:

If Congress and President Obama continue to do nothing about the expiring tax cuts, the top personal income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

– The 10% bracket rises to 15%
– The 25% bracket rises to 28%
– The 28% bracket rises to 31%
– The 33% bracket rises to 36%
– The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

The “marriage penalty” will return starting from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care tax credit will be cut.

The “death tax” will return next year. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million.

There will be higher tax rates on investors at a time when investing is key. The top capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The top dividends tax rate will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

The AMT needs to be adjusted but if Congress doesn’t index the AMT, it will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level.

The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.

And there’s others – click here for a list of expiring tax cuts.

So what is the State of the Union speech going to be when President Obama gets up in front of Congress in the winter after these expire?  I’ve been there (remember: time-traveling robot) and it goes something like this: “well, uh…worse than we thought….inherited from Bush….some in Congress blocking our efforts….uh….umm….”  Maybe he should go listen to his campaign stumping about a new way of doing business in Washington with bipartisianship and hope & change.  Because the regular old democrat way of doing things doesn’t seem to be working so good.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.