Obama Bodysurfing

Some days (actually most days) it seems like President Obama hates me.  It almost like he is personally looking at all that I’ve been trying to accomplish financially, and then he totally tries to derail my efforts!

Sadly, most of my efforts have taken years to accomplish!

I feel this way because of the following:

• The President (and current administration) gave up to $8,000 dollars to first time home buyers of my tax money.  This one still has stumped me?  After all, if they don’t have a home to begin with, they won’t lose it to foreclosure…
• Later, existing homeowners were given a $6,500 tax incentive to become more in debt?  That is exactly what happened to my neighbor (the Joneses).  They went on to buy a house worth double the old value of their previous home.  I hope their jobs are secure!
• Obama is working to get some of the debt on existing home forgiven?!?  The people that he is targeting aren’t even the people who had their homes foreclosed already or currently.  What kind of bizarro logic is this?
• Now I heard that he is going to raise the taxes on dividend yielding investments.  I always though that taxing dividends was pretty unfair to begin with, and besides, it hits the boomer generation hardest.  For someone (like me) starting down the road to becoming a dividend investor, this hurts!  There are workarounds (moving all dividend stocks to Roth IRAs), but they require effort and additional tracking.
• Speaking of boomers, they shouldn’t be very happy either.  Most of their mutual funds in their 401ks and IRAs held financial firms as prime assets.  And most of these have been handcuffed and dividends stripped away.  This will directly put a lot of retired boomers in a bad predicament that they wouldn’t be in otherwise.

I have to admit, the housing policy from this administration is a big slap in the face for me.  To me, it seems that if you went beyond your budget and got a house too big, the government will take my tax money and help you live your too rich lifestyle.  So if you make bad financial decisions, I’ll be paying your bill.

Am I wrong on how I interpret the actions of the government?  What say you?

-MR