Spreading the wealth $257 dollars at a time

Salon.com has a wonderful, satirical piece, dripping with irony, by a mythical "Bob the Banker"

"The numbers don't lie. So here they are.* So, as I said, I make $280,000 annually after business expenses. I'm married and filing jointly. Under Obama, my itemized deductions would actually increase slightly — I'd get $49,420 in itemized deductions, while under McCain I'd get $48,975. But my personal exemptions would increase slightly under McCain — he'd give me $6,911, whereas I'd only get $6,132 from Obama. That leaves my taxable income at $213, 766 under Obama, $213,433 under McCain. Now we have to factor in the bracket cutoff, which for 2009 is $208,850. Anything below that figure for married couples filing jointly is taxed at the fourth tier, 28 percent. Any income above it, until you get up to near $400,000, is taxed at the fifth tier. And this is where the raving income-redistribution scheme of Barack Robespierre Obama kicks in. As you can see, my taxable income is about $5,000 higher than the cutoff. McCain is going to tax that $5,000 at the current rate, which is 33 percent. But Obama's crazed plan calls for raising that rate to — get ready for it — 35 percent. And here's what this means. Under McCain, my total tax bill would be $48,254. Under Obama, it would be $48,511. That's a difference of $257. I'll say it again: Two hundred and fifty-seven dollars. That's not two hundred and fifty-seven dollars I, or America, can afford. Things are tough right now. Average working Americans like me are really struggling. They're angry. And when they see the effects of Obama's spread-the-wealth lunacy on an average angry struggling American like me, they'll be even more angry, average, and struggling. Let me lay it out for you. Right now, I take home about $19,000 a month after the government skims off its share. And I don't have to tell you that $19,000 a month isn't what it used to be. Take my Jaguar. Do you have any idea how much it costs just to have that thing tuned up? It's like a BMW repair bill on steroids. We're talking $500 just to open the hood. The hard times are taking a toll on my family life, too. My wife has had to completely cut out having her colors done, and her personal shopper is threatening to walk if we keep cutting back on her hours. We're tightening our belts, but you can only tighten so far before there's no more room to pull. Then there's food prices. All across America, families are angry and struggling as they try just to get by. We're in the same boat. It's getting harder and harder just to put food on the table. We're only eating filet mignon twice a week, and under Obama's crazed far-left regime, we may have to completely give up Maine lobster and Macanudo cigars. And those are just a few examples. I could go on and on. The point is, under Obama Big Government is going to take $21.40 out of my pocket every month — money I could use to start another business, help the economy grow, or watch a couple of softcore porn movies on demand." *All figures about the comparative tax bills under Obama and McCain come from an interview with Gerald Prante, an economist at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

Enough said.