Romney Must Hit Obama On Obamacare Taxes

Taxmageddon is right around the corner. On January 1st the Bush tax cuts will expire. The result is that marginal rates will increase for everyone. The average middle class family will pay $2,500 more in taxes next year because Bush’s cuts will no longer be in effect. Capital gains taxes will increase to 20% and taxes on dividends will triple to nearly 40%. These tax increases would be devastating to our economy. In fact, any tax increase in an economy as fragile as ours is right now will be devastating. Obama and company want to pretend the tax increases are only on those earning over $250,000. The fact is, the tax increases are on everyone.

The expiring Bush tax cuts are but one problem facing us on January 1st. The majority of Obamacare taxes will also start being collected on that day. Obamacare is already taxing tanning beds, much to John Boehner’s dismay. Beginning January 1st Obamacare will start taxing medical devices 2.3% based on gross sales. So not only will the cost of medical devices such as crutches, slings and the like increase at the consumer level, the tax is really going to hurt small businesses. This is a hidden excise tax that will negatively impact the over 400,000 people employed in the medical device industry.

There’s the special needs children tax which absurdly caps Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) at $2,500/year. Apparently families of special needs children have been using FSA’s to pay for school tuition, which at some special needs schools costs over $14,000 a year. By capping FSA’s, Obamacare increases taxes on these families and pays off the government school teachers unions by forcing a lot of these special needs kids back into the failing government school system. The unions will be thrilled but taxpayers will now be on the hook for these kids because Obamacare taxes make their specialized private schools cost to much.

If you currently pay more than 7.5% of your income in medical costs you may claim a deduction on your current income taxes. Beginning January 1st, Obamacare increases that percentage to 10%. Thus Obamacare is increasing taxes on the sick and injured who can likely least afford a tax increase. Obamacare is also hiking Medicare taxes and investment income taxes on those making more than $250,000. While the left might cheer mightily over this, the fact is that with regards to the Medicare tax that will disproportionately hit small business owners. Any tax increase on investment income will create a huge problem for our economy. Don’t forget, our second quarter growth was just under 1.3%. We can’t afford to take money out of investments to throw at government.

Where is Mitt Romney on all of this? We never hear him talk about any of these taxes. It’s understandable why he might not want to tackle any of the tax increases on those “rich” people making more than $250,000 a year. But why isn’t he talking about the medical devices tax or the special needs children tax? It’s great that Romney says he wants to repeal Obamacare but he needs to make clear to voters what not repealing Obamacare will mean on January 1st. Yet here we are in October and he continues to talk about Obamacare and everything else in vague, broad terms.

Romney has a chance to change all of this at the first debate on Wednesday. The only way he can win the debate is by hammering Obama on specifics. He has to systematically lay out the argument against Obama in detailed terms. General terms don’t matter anymore. It isn’t enough to oppose Obamacare, Romney has to lay out why he opposes Obamacare and he has to lay out what, if anything, he would replace it with. If Romney cannot do this on Wednesday he will have lost the debate and the election. The country simply isn’t going to elect a challenger for no other reason than then economy stinks. We want to know what the challenger will do as President. So far Romney has been short on details which is why he’s losing. If he wants to win, his chance is Wednesday. He has to hammer Obama’s record and offer a hopeful alternative in detail.