I don't know how else to state it: It seems that the tax increase Obama wishes to impose on the wealthy (during a recession!) is to pay for a half-trillion dollar slush fund. I kid you not.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/index.html

Obama is also proposing a $634 billion health care "reserve fund" aimed at reforming the system, according to senior administration officials. In order to fund it, Obama will ask wealthy Americans to deal with a tax increase and wealthy seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums.

The reserve fund will essentially be a piggy bank to be used only for reforming the system by cutting costs and trying to deal with the 46 million Americans without health insurance...

The budget will leave the actual details of how to reform the system to be worked out by Congress, and top Obama officials are already acknowledging this is only a start -- it will take more money to get the job done.

So the wealthy are going to pay higher taxes (a bad idea during a recession) in order to fund a blank check piggy bank for a vague program to be worked out later.

As far as I can tell I won't be in a tax bracket that will pay higher taxes, but that's irrelevant. Higher taxes during a recession is simply not a good idea. And while Americans might be willing to sacrifice more if they had some assurance that their tax dollars would be used wisely and would solve the problems they're supposed to, the government has never demonstrated its ability to use tax dollars efficiently or responsibly.

In fact, tax dollars are seldom used wisely even with a specific plan attached to the appropriations. But in this case we're apparently considering a tax hike during a recession to pay for a slush fund to be used for things "to be determined later?" Would it be too much to ask for the details before we raise taxes to pay for it??? Doesn't anyone think a $634 billion government slush fund is a bad idea?

This is insane.