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View count:28,524
Likes:1,638
Comments:494
Duration:05:11
Uploaded:2012-08-08
Last sync:2024-02-24 01:45
Hank plays with a tax calculator from the Obama campaign working with Romney's proposed tax plan and is not pleased.
I'm Hank Green, and I was just uh checking out - uh I don't even know where I found this. Probably Reddit is probably the answer to that question. I uh, I was just looking at - uh, I mean the, the Obama campaign has its act so together on the internet, it's kind of ridiculous. And I'm a little bit upset, in general, by the fact that Mitt Romney has been able to raise so much more money than Barack Obama, and that's clearly because he is raising money from a very few, very large donors who uh want certain things. For example - I mean - there, there are a lot of reasons to be conservative in this country; there's lots of reasons to be, um you know, Republican and I, I do not begrudge that. Um, but as far as the tax code goes, I mean, we're in s-you know, not the best situation, financially in this country. We need revenue, and we also need people to have enough money to like 1) to stimulate the economy but also like, you know, pay for things like health care, and, and food, and schools for their children. Uh because we need people to be well-educated. And when I'm looking at this, it's just sort of amazing. So I figured I was going to come to this tax calculator, and I was going to see that people who make like $50,000 would get more money like more, like tax savings is what they - the term that they use. And I don't know how I feel about that term, but that, that's what they use. The people who make $50,000 a year and have zero dependents would uh save money under Barack Obama and not under Mitt Romney, and that is, that is the case. Um but I figured as I like moved up - so now we've got $150,000 for, for two people; um this is, this is a married couple, so if we go to single, it's different. But this is - so this is two, two married people. And, and to be clear, um a lot of people think that $50,000 for a married couple is really not a lot of money, but it is in fact um... Um, let me check my... Sorry, I had to take a phone call; now I am back. Um, the - so I, I thought as I. Oh, I was saying that $50,000, to some people, seems like a tiny amount of money for a married couple, but it's actually, you know, fairly average. Uh, and yeah. I think that poverty is like $20,000 for a family of four. So we're way above that right now; um way into middle class. If we, um - so I figured that if we start, that Romney's tax plan would start being helpful at like six figures. But it's not; under Obama, you still make way, you still save way more money than you do under Romney. And I'm like, 'I'm confused.' So I keep upping this number. So we're a married couple with no children right now, and we still get more tax savings at $150,000 a year under Obama than Romney. And ugh. So I went to $250,000 and I thought, 'Then, then! Certainly at a quarter of a million dollars per year, you would save more money under Romney than Obama.' But no! So $350,000, which is officially the top one percent of Americans, you're still saving more with Obama than Romney. I'm like, 'When does the transfer happen?' At $450,000? No, not $450,000. Five-hundred and-$500,000, I think is where it happens. It happens at $500,000, then suddenly, you save $36,000 under Mitt Romney. So you have to be making a half a million dollars per year, for this guy's tax plan to benefit you. It's just... And then, I'm like 'Okay. Well, what if we just really bumped this up?' At, I think it's at $1,000,000. At $1,000,000 you're saving, if you're making $1,000,000 a year, you are saving a quarter of a million dollars under Romney's plan. This, I mean, to me, it's just clearly fundraising. It's like, 'Okay, let's put together a tax plan that will help us raise money for television advertisements. We'll use the television advertisements to convince the populous that Mitt Romney is right for them. And then uh, and then we'll use the tax code to raise money for the television advertisements.' I mean is that - I dunno. I could, I - maybe there is, maybe there is a better like explanation for this, but it, it seems to be very frustrating. Because it seems to me, like this is why Mitt Romney - and I'm sorry that I'm such an, you know, uncloseted liberal here - but this is why Romney can raise so much more money than Barack Obama because he's saving people who make more than $1,000,000 a year a quarter of a million dollars a year. And you're gonna pay for that guy to get into office, right? you're, you're going to give him at least - you like, it'd still break even for you, if you gave him two-hundred, $200,000. It's break even. It's, you're making a profit; you're making a $50,000 profit if you pay $200,000 to get Mitt Romney into office. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is why; this is Hankschannel because it's Hank here. And that does not make me happy.