Obama Plan Emerges

This morning Obama submits his budget which will show in some detail his spending and taxing plans for this administration. He seems to be keeping his promise to raise taxes significantly on persons making more that $250,000 per year. What shall I call that group ?

They aren't millionaires, for sure. They aren't even rich. Perhaps some variant of "quarter" fits best. For now, I'll use "quartaires".

One leak this morning suggests he intends to be more severe than expected on quartaires. I refer the denial of mortgage interest deductions to that class. This will raise taxes quite substantially on younger quartaires who live in California and New York and other high home cost areas. So the younger, dual income couple stretching for that McMansion through debt is not going to have as much spending power.

This change is part of a trend that I've mentioned before, viz. that the AMT is the future of the Federal tax code: more specifically, a graduated AMT having no deductions for anything.

I'll think and write more about this as more details come out.

One investment is obviously a winner: municipal bonds. At today's prices, they are a screaming buy for quartaires.

Special Quiz: What is the significance of today's blog title ? (see below for answer - no peeking !)

Word of the Day

"Plangent" - adjective [$10]
Plangent means loud, reverberating.
Sentence: Plangent cries of pain can be expected from New York, California and Washington DC metropolitan areas if Obama's elimination of mortgage interest deductions for quartaires is implemented.

Le Mot du Jour

"Parvenir" - verb, conjugated like "venir"
Parvenir means 1. to get to , to reach, to achieve; (intransitive) to succeed or get on with life, to arrive.
La Phrase: On espère que le plan d'Obama parvienne succès.
Sentence: People hope that the Obama plan achieves success.

Quiz Answer: The three letters that fixated the nut, Gen. Jack Ripper in that great movie, Dr. Strangelove were P, O and E: Peace on Earth, Purity of Essense, etc. The recall code was quodliteral, having three letters only. Today's title contains OPE, which was the correct recall code for the nuclear bombers. Let's "hope" Obama's recall code for economic disaster succeeds better than in the movie.