Obama's deficit plan a jobs killer extraordinaire
Hard to top what he's done previously, but take a look at all the tax increases - besides the tax on the "rich" - that the president has crammed into his deficit reduction plan.
It's not just millionaires who'd pay more under President Barack Obama's latest plan to combat the deficit.
Air travelers, federal workers, military retirees, wealthier Medicare beneficiaries and people taking out new mortgages are among those who would pay more than $130 billion in government revenues raised through new or increased fees.
Airline passengers would see their federal security fees double from $5 to $10 for a nonstop round-trip flight and triple to $15 by 2017, raising $25 billion over the coming decade. Federal workers would face an additional 1.2 percentage point deduction from their paychecks to contribute $21 billion more for their pensions over the same period. Military retirees would pay a $200 fee upon turning 65 to have the government pay their out-of-pocket Medicare expenses. They'd also pay more for non-generic prescription drugs.
And it'll cost corporate jet owners a new $100 fee for each flight.
There's more - much more. A little here, a little there:
Another new fee would increase by one-tenth of a percentage point the fee that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge lenders to guarantee repayment of new mortgage loans. The administration says the fee increase would add $15 a month to the monthly cost of an average new mortgage. Even without existing mortgages being affected, the fee increase would raise $28 billion over 10 years.
Some of the fees tilt toward the arcane. There's a plan to save $3 million a year by developing an electronic records system for hazardous waste shipments. Another would produce $7 million more a year by giving the federal government a 50 percent share of receipts from geothermal leases on federal lands instead of 25 percent, with the remainder going to the states.
Another proposal would charge $4 an acre on non-producing oil and gas leases on federal lands, raising $1 billion over a decade. The idea is to prod energy companies to get their leases into production or give them up and allow others to develop them.
They are calling most of these increases "fees" - a dodge politicians are fond of using when they don't want to be seen raising taxes. No matter how you look at it, people are going to be paying more to the federal government than they would without the increase. And the result will be the same - less economic activity and fewer jobs.