Obama makes "ideological declaration of war" against private schools

It is surprising that private schools are only realizing it now Obama doesn't like private institutions.  I thought that originally the Obama administration was only to originally go after professional schools, but "programs like a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University, a law degree from George Washington University Law School, and a bachelor's degree in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University would all be penalized."  From the Hill newspaper:

A group of private colleges and universities is blasting the Obama administration's effort to tackle burdensome student loan debt, because they say it would force them to turn away low-income students, and in particular, minorities. 

They also charge the proposed law unfairly targets private institutions while leaving their public counterparts unscathed. 

Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), said the move was an "ideological declaration of war" against private schools by the Obama administration.   

"Millions of prospective students — particularly working adults, minorities and people with scarce financial resources — will see their access to higher education and prospects for better employment dramatically reduced," Gunderson added. . . . .

The Obama administration says this is part of an effort to push back against schools that saddle students with unreasonably high debt only to graduate and find a low-paying job, or no job at all. . . . 

But Gunderson said the new rule would provide a "perverse incentive" for private colleges and universities affected by the rule to restrict access to educational opportunities for low-income and minority students, who often depend on loans to go to college. 

The private schools also say it could create divisions within a single college or university among students who will graduate into high-paying jobs and those who will not. These schools might even be forced to scrap programs that train students for initially low-paying jobs. 

"Individuals interested in careers with lower starting salaries, such as communications, psychology, visual and performing arts, and social work will be barred from receiving the same federal aid as their classmates choosing more lucrative fields," Gunderson said. . . . 

Obama on how the working poor can be organized to push for government programs

Starting at 14:10 into the audio: ". . . The new immigrant population is much less skilled, is much more apt to be in this category of the working poor that we talked about, is having the same problems that people who have been here for a while are having, and what that means is that it gives us the opportunity to do organizing that we couldn't do before."

Obama wants to organize welfare recipients and those receiving government assistance so that he can get them more government assistance.

The average tax rate for the top 1% rose during Obama's first year in office at the same time that their after-tax incomes plummeted

Average Federal Tax Rates, 1979 to 2009 By Income Group    

You might have heard about incomes falling during the recession.  Well, the people who experienced the biggest drops were those at the top incomes, and the drop was pretty brutal.  After-tax income for the top 1 percent fell from $1,120,500 in 2008 to $866,700 in 2009 -- a 23 percent drop.  It had already fallen from $1,373,700 in 2007, so from that point there was a 37 percent drop.  Yet, despite this big drop in income, they also were the only ones who faced an increase in their average Federal tax rate.  Of course, Obama raised marginal tax rates for the lower income groups, even as he lowered their average tax rates.

The after-tax income for the highest income 20%, fell by 9%.

By contrast (see Table 3), after tax income rose slightly for the bottom 20% of households and fell slightly for the second and third quintiles.  The income for the 3rd quintile fell by 0.25% between 2008 and 2009.

Some hard numbers from the report regarding the first figure above.

For the lowest income group, the average rate fell from 7.5 percent in 1979 to 1.0 percent in 2009. Almost two- thirds of that decline came between 2007 and 2009, largely as a result of new refund- able tax credits, as discussed earlier. Declines in earlier years were mainly caused by increases in the earned income tax credit, especially in the 1990s. Payroll tax rates rose steadily for the lowest income group, offsetting some of the decline in their individual income tax rates.
Households in the middle three income quintiles saw their average tax rate fall by 7.1 percentage points over 30 years, from 19.1 percent in 1979 to 12.0 percent in 2009. That decline was due primarily to declines in individual income taxes. The average tax rate for that group fell somewhat in the early 1980s and then fluctuated within a fairly narrow band through the 1980s and 1990s. Between 2000 and 2003, the rate declined by 3.1 percentage points, reflecting numerous changes in law enacted in 2001—such as the expansion of the child tax credit, reductions in tax rates, and increases in the standard deduction for married couples—that lessened taxes for households in the middle quintiles. The average tax rate on the middle quintiles then rose slightly over the 2003–2007 period, before falling 2.8 percentage points from 2007 to 2009. 
The average tax rate for households in the 81st to 99th percentiles of the income distri- bution also reached a low point in 2009, about 4 percentage points below its 1979 level. That rate fell in the early 1980s and then crept up over the remaining part of that decade and the 1990s, so in 2000 it slightly exceeded its 1979 level. The average tax rate for that group fell 2.9 percentage points between 2000 and 2003, crept up from 2003 to 2007, and then fell another 1.7 percentage points from 2007 to 2009.

Obama In 1998: "I Actually Believe In Redistribution"

John Lovitz on Hannity

"What I find is he's hypocritical with saying, you know, 'the 1% don't get us,' and he's a multi-millionaire now. 'You know, they're not paying their fair share of taxes, now I'm going over to George Clooney's house to get money from millionaires and billionaires,' and he collected $15 million." "Instead of making people victims of people who are successful, we should be telling people look you are having a hard time I feel bad for you, let's look at how you can succeed, let's give you the tools to succeed. Instead of turning everybody into victims. A victim mentality is what he is selling."

Obama's inner circle

Rove: Bush's 2004 campaign was aimed at convincing non-Republicans to support Bush

I already knew that this was true, but it explains a lot about the problems that Bush created while he was president.

[Charlie] Cook asserts all those gains occurred because the Bush campaign focused on its base rather than throw “huge amounts of resources” at swing voters. . . .
Much of the Bush re-election’s massive volunteer effort was aimed at persuading non-Republicans to support Bush. So was its advertising, . . .