Tax hikes - Yay or Nay?

[11B4V]

 

[garbon]

Good ol' race-obsessed Seedy

Seriously. I'm actually black and I never cry that hard.

Don't worry;  I cry for you. 

Why you got your nasty ol' face all up in mine?

[HVC]

I'm conflicted. I'm in the picture, but I'm black. I mean not even garbon want to be black

[Eddie Teach]

Simple misunderstanding, but I think we've gotten it all cleared up now.

I thought CC was saying Canada didn't have government health care.

[Admiral Yi]

CC was saying everybody used to get free money, then they only gave it to poor people.

I think we should:

Eliminate all deductions, including home mortgage and health insurance.  Keep the standard deduction.

Eliminate payroll taxes.  Raise everyone's marginal tax rate to the Clinton rates, maybe adjust up from there to compensate for lost payroll taxes.

Means test Social Security and Medicare.  Private, mandatory retirement accounts.

Tax dividends and interest as income.  Tax *real* capital gains as income.

Reduce corporate taxes to something approaching the world average.

[grumbler]

I am done.

Smartest thing you've said in the discussion.  Just move on.

[The Minsky Moment]

In the US when we talk about "universal entitlement programs" we are really only talking about 2 things.  Social security and medicare. 
On a macro level, SS and Medicare basically do the same thing - namely take some money from people under 65 and give it people over 65.
Of course everyone hopes to reach the age of 65, and everyone who reaches 65 and collects evenutally keels over and (eventually and most of the time) leaves their assets to people under 65.
Looked at that way it is kind of wash - people who die young and whose parents die young kind of get screwed and there is a rich --> working poor subsidy built in (not exactly a huge screaming problem IMO especially given the regressive nature of the tax used to fund it). otherwise not such a big deal.

Microeconomically however it is kind of crappy, because the transfer is accompanied by a corresponding tax on labor, which is not hugely desirable if as a country you value things like having people employed over having them unemployed. 

On SS - going to means testing and mandatory private accounts as Yi suggests is tempting but involves either putting a good amount of faith in the public spritedness and fundamental decency of the private wealth management industry or a crapton of regulation.  One advantage of SS as a program is that it is pretty simple to administer - you need a system to perform relatively simple benefit calculations and cut checks.

otherwise the Yi proposal above is pretty solid.

Medicare of course is a whole another can of worms which could be best solved the way most everyone else in the world does it - some variant on single payer.  But that ain't going to happen here so we are just screwed.

[Admiral Yi]

There's also a built-in subsidy from single to married earners.

[merithyn]

CC was saying everybody used to get free money, then they only gave it to poor people.

I think we should:

Eliminate all deductions, including home mortgage and health insurance.  Keep the standard deduction.

Eliminate payroll taxes.  Raise everyone's marginal tax rate to the Clinton rates, maybe adjust up from there to compensate for lost payroll taxes.

Means test Social Security and Medicare.  Private, mandatory retirement accounts.

Tax dividends and interest as income.  Tax *real* capital gains as income.

Reduce corporate taxes to something approaching the world average.

If you eliminate payroll taxes, how are taxes paid?

Otherwise, I agree with most of what you have here.

[sbr]

I believe payroll taxes are something a business pays, not the personal income tax.

[Admiral Yi]

If you eliminate payroll taxes, how are taxes paid?

"Payroll taxes" are FICA and FUTA, SS and Medicare taxes.  As distinct from income tax.

[derspiess]

Wimmenz

[CountDeMoney]

Why you got your nasty ol' face all up in mine?

One love, dawg.  :peace:

[garbon]

Why you got your nasty ol' face all up in mine?

One love, dawg.  :peace:

Get a tic tac.

[Scipio]

I believe payroll taxes are something a business pays, not the personal income tax.

Erroneous. Half of payroll tax is employer paid, half employee paid. Currently capped at first $110k.