Oh, I See - It's Neither Taxes Nor Federal Spending If The Government Forces You To Do It

When is a tax not a tax?  When is federal spending not federal spending?  When the government mandates individual spending subject to penalties, apparently.  Cato explains this dodge and how it was employed by Sen Baucus to bring down the "cost" of his CBO-scored health care plan.

Hmm - the Feds could cut the Social Security tax to zero if they mandated private savings accounts.  But what am I saying?

Comments

[bgates]

the Feds could cut the Social Security tax to zero if they mandated private savings accounts

They could even not take our money and not tell us what to do with it.

Well, they could.

[hit and run]

bgates:
They could even not take our money and not tell us what to do with it.

Well, they could.

And Obama could go three sentences without using the first person personal pronoun.

And Michelle coud go three minutes without scowling.

And Biden could go three thoughts and remain silent and be thought a fool instead of opening his mouth and removing all doubt.

Well, they could.

[bad]

when hell freezes over....

[Ranger]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/10/80-marginal-.html>80% Marginal Tax Rates After Health Care Reform?

Which is based on this http://www.thenewatlantis.com/blog/diagnosis/a-70-percent-tax-on-work>base calculation, then adds the other taxes to it.

According to CBO, family coverage in 2016 is likely to cost about $14,400 under the so-called “silver option” in the health-care reform plan sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. In the Baucus plan, a family of four at the poverty line (about $24,000 in 2016) would have pay to about $1,400 toward coverage, with the federal government paying the other $13,000 on their behalf. In addition, the government would also provide $3,500 to reduce the family’s deductible and co-payment costs for health services. Thus, the new entitlement provided by the Baucus bill would be worth a whopping $16,500 for a family at the poverty line.

As incomes rise, however, the Baucus bill cuts the value of the entitlement. A family with an income at twice the poverty line, or $48,000 in 2016, would get $9,072 in federal assistance for coverage — still a substantial sum. But it’s $7,400 less than the family would get if they earned half as much. The Baucus plan thus imposes an implicit marginal tax rate of about 30 percent ($7,400/$24,000) on wages earned by families in this income range.

[Extraneus]

In the Baucus plan, a family of four at the poverty line (about $24,000 in 2016) would have pay to about $1,400 toward coverage, with the federal government paying the other $13,000 on their behalf.

One possible benefit no one seems to be talking about is the increased reporting of our fellow citizens who work for cash.

Do you have a lawn guy who might only show $24K or so in income? Or maybe less? A house cleaner you pay in cash?

If we have to give them another $13K/yr out of our own taxes, we'll be motivated to drop a dime we wouldn't have otherwise dropped.

[Semanticleo]

"But what am I saying?"

I think you're saying that the cooked books which left the cost of the Iraq adventure out of the Budget is A-OK.

But that was Your Majority and Your Fave Presidunce, so what were you saying?

Kevin Drum:

"but we basically have on the table a plan that's budget neutral (or better), covers most of the population, saves a considerable amount of money, and ought to be roughly acceptable even to the most timorous of the centrists. That's more than anyone's ever managed to do before. And remember: it took most European countries decades before they had more than 94% of their population covered, but they all got there eventually once they had a starting place. There's plenty left to do, but as a starting place this isn't too bad."

[Semanticleo]

I wonder if Kevin Drum is stupid enough to want to be my imaginary son?

[Kevin B]

In the Baucus plan, a family of four at the poverty line (about $24,000 in 2016) would have pay to about $1,400 toward coverage, with the federal government paying the other $13,000 on their behalf.

Except of course that the Federal Government has no money and steals it from it's citizens.

[Gregory Koster]

Dear 'cleo: Better for the gene pool your children remain imaginary...I point out to you that with Congressional majorities far thinner than The Once's, Geo. W. managed to get much of his agenda through in 2001 before 9/11. How does The Once's record compare? Hahahahahahaha...

The way I read this, the "taxes" start immediately, but the bennies not until 2013. Does this mean that the nation has three years to chew off its leg to get out of this trap and throw the fuse-lit bomb into the river, extinguishing it? Or is my optimism leading me astray?

[PeterUK]

OK you fashion fanatics - what about this.

[PeterUK]

Calling the gene pool cleaner!

[centralcal]

PUK: The dress is lovely and so is the fit. Not to mention the price!

[clarice]

Good for Mrs C...Nice look at a very fair price..Mrs Brown always looks dreadfully slobby.

[Original MikeS]

The campaign to sell ObamaCare to the public has relied on deception from the beginning. The only surprising thing about the Baucus effort at deception is the intricate planning it required.

[MayBee]

Ex- that's a good point.

[Jim Ryan]

Drum: we basically have on the table a plan ...[that] saves a considerable amount of money

I knew it! I knew someone would say this stupid thing! It costs $1T but since we will pay more than enough for it in taxes and in forfeited Medicare, it saves us money? Duh.

[Jim Ryan]

I took $1000 from my friend at gunpoint. I bought him a shit sandwich with $900 of it and gave it to him along with the remaining $100. Saved him $100 there.

[Semanticleo]

Insight: Crisis breeds short memories

By Stephen Roach

Published: October 6 2009 15:13 | Last updated: October 6 2009 15:13

"Hope always seems to spring eternal in liquidity-driven financial markets. That is very much the case today in the aftermath of the biggest liquidity injection in modern history.

Unfortunately, along with that hope comes an acute sense of short-term memory loss – notably, a failure on the part of the broad consensus of investors to grasp the toughest lessons of the Great Crisis and Recession of 2008-09. This is a dangerous combination for increasingly frothy financial markets.

This crisis was, first and foremost, about the unsustainability of macro imbalances – imbalances within and between nations – as well as about the egregious flaws in policies, regulatory structures, and risk-management practices that allowed these imbalances to take the world to the brink.

Repeatedly, we were told by the apostles of yet another New Era that imbalances were to be ignored – whether they took the form of an unprecedented build-up of current account deficits and surpluses around the world or an increasingly virulent strain of asset- and debt-dependent growth in the US.

A year after the world’s near-death experience, there is broad acceptance that there must be a safer and saner way to grow.

As someone who warned of the imperatives of global rebalancing as long ago as 2002, I draw comfort that the authorities are now looking back on the era of excess with a more jaundiced view."

Wonder just whom he is referring to?

Hint: DEE-regulators. You know, the last gasping remnants of the New Whigs.

[clarice]

Who do you suppose bailed out the dollar yesterday after Fisk floated that nonsensical story? I think it was the Chinese who have a great deal to lose if the dollar tanks.
They are like the rich father of a neer do well only son who feels if he doesn't keep bailing the kid out, he'll end up in jail and leave the old man heirless.

[Rick Ballard]

Prolly the vampire squid, Clarice. We're so far through the looking glass that I hesitate to guess anymore. The California bond auction failure over the past few days seems a reasonable foreshadowing of the fresh hell to come.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

OT, but meet the guy who is paying for Levi Johnston's career pitching pistachios.

And, apparently a lot of other things to harass Sarah Palin:

We have previously talked about Barack Obama’s Alaska Mafia and how Obama and Pete Rouse, his former campaign chief-of -staff and now White House adviser, not only played an active roll in the failed “Troopergate” smear on Sarah Palin, but also actively coordinated the many attacks on Sarah post election, including encouraging the filing of all of the phony-baloney “ethics complaints” against her that would eventually cost the Alaskan taxpayers around $2 million.

[Extraneus]

If they understand how our own racial politics (CRA) led to the finacial crisis, it's no wonder that others in the world would question the wisdom of using the dollar as the world currency. Our MSM has worked hard to obscure the root cause, but it's hard to believe China would be swayed by that whitewash.

[Captain Hate]

Can you imagine the impossibility of explaining CRA to an intelligent being from another galaxy?

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Support for your premise. Asian tigers, ex China and Japan for the moment. We need a tach on this carousel.

[clarice]

Thanks, Patrick, I blogged that Cypress article.

[clarice]

Rick, you and I know that China is far weaker than most people think and we are there best hope as an export market, necessary to keep it going.

I'm waiting for the Chinese to use their considerable skills to help us unseat the Democrat majority.

It would be simple for them--Obama showed them the way to get around the laughable Campaign finance restrictions on foreign money.

[Pofarmer]

And they wonder why we don't trust them?

[Pofarmer]

And remember: it took most European countries decades before they had more than 94% of their population covered,

O.K.

The latest numbers are indicating maybe 7-12 million uninsured who want it and can't afford it.

So, figuring a population of 300 million, that's 96 to 98% coverage. Hell, we ALREADY better off than Europe.

Let's call the whole thing off.

[clarice]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just give that 7-12 million a couple hundred thou each and just call it a day?
(Get Summers and his calculator)

[narciso]

No, Clinton showed them that, but Obama did perfect it.

[PD]

I think you're saying that the cooked books which left the cost of the Iraq adventure out of the Budget is A-OK.

Refuting an argument by bringing up something irrelevant to the argument's not terribly persuasive.

[JM Hanes]

PUK:

You are such an enabler! Mrs. Cameron was a sight for sore eyes. £65 dress, £29 shoes, and a discreet little tatoo, just in case you might think she's stuffy.

[JM Hanes]

Patrick R. Sullivan:

Pete Rouse, "Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor," is also Tom Daschle's former Chief of Staff. He and Axelrod booted the two Deputy Chiefs of Staff out of their traditional windowed offices next to the President's private sitting room. Rouse shares the top of the West Wing salary heap too.

[narciso]

Rouse, the coordinator with the Alaskan bloggers, on the Wasilla project, to file
all these ethics complaints, to damage the
person featured in the LUN

[Gregory Koster]

Clarice, Fisk's article is less ill-informed as opposed to being ahead of its time. You are bang right that China needs the US for its exports badly. But with a couple trillion in hard-for-the-moment foreign currency, that's not an insuperable problem. If you were the proverbial man from Mars, which economic problems would you rather have, China's or the United States's? If only we could figure out how to disintegrate the leadership in the manner of the Soviet leadership 1980-90. There are plenty of internal problems in China, not least racial animosity.

[daddy]

Another Day, another ">http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/966061.html"> ADN story trying to destroy Sarah.

[narciso]

I Posted this on another thread, in the LUN.
Wnhen Quint and Sheriff Brody sent after the Shark that was a smaller fishing expedition