D'Ohbama!: If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan...

Refman -

I know this is tangential to the main thread topic, but I wanted to share with you that the total tax burden (all levels, all taxes and fees/fines) in the US has been roughly unchanged since the mid 1960s. The exact level depends a little bit on the accounting that goes into it, but the claim that changes in tax burden have been minimal in this period has wide consensus.

For example, here's one figure from the non-partisan Tax Foundation:

 

I completely agree with your perspective on taxes. I believe one of the biggest issues with taxes it the return we get on them. If I actually received more benefits from the taxes I pay in, I would be more likely to accept a higher tax rate. I ask myself now, what exactly am I getting for my taxes? A military who is wasting an exorbitant amount of money, a crumbling infrastructure, subsidizing ineptness, on and on and on. If we are going to compare ourselves to Europe, at least show the benefits we are receiving compared to Europe.

And I also agree, the education bubble will be much worse than the real estate bubble. With the real estate bubble, it was fools buying into the market. The education bubble will effect the generations to come.

 

I think that the overall graph is limited in its informational value unless you break it down by income level. The lower income levels will show a far lesser tax burden than other levels. My suspicion is that you would be very surprised what you would see for incomes between $50k and $150k.

 

Can you provide some statistics on that?

 

I don't know of anybody that has done this exercise. Out of curiousity, do you have any data backing up your suspicion? I'd be interested to see it.

If we look only at income tax, we'd get something like the image below, which again reveals at best a small change since the mid 60s for earners in your range. To interpret: "That’s a line for every year from 1913 onward, sized and colored by the tax burden: the amount of tax due relative to the long-term average at each income level. Above-average burdens appear thick and red and below-average thin and blue."

The real action is at the very top ($1M+, after Reagan's final, drastic cut of the top marginal rate) and to a much smaller extent the very bottom (<$10K, due to the W. Bush tax cuts). The fellow earning $100K doesn't experience much action over time though. Note the scale is logarithmic, so the middle class as you define it occupies a very small region of the x-axis..

To be sure, this is not the whole picture that you were talking about, but I'm dubious that anybody has performed that exercise -- for what it's worth I haven't come across it -- and I'd love to see it if you know otherwise.


http://www.datapointed.net/2011/03/relative-us-income-taxes-1913-2011/

 

I don't have any hard data. However, logically, just look at the additional taxes on telecom services, cable bills, etc. on the state and local level, look at property taxes, the proliferation of MUD districts, vehicle registration and inspection fees and the like. I think that the state and local level is where the action is due to how cash strapped these levels have become over the last decade or so. If you add up enough nickels and dimes, it becomes real money in a hurry.

 

Bill Clinton weighs in.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...onor-health-care-pledge?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

Clinton: Government should 'honor' health care pledge
By Michael O’Brien , Political Reporter, NBC News

President Barack Obama should consider changes to his health care law to honor his pledge to allow consumers to keep their health care plans if they so desire, former President Bill Clinton said in an interview released Tuesday.

Clinton told the website OZY that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has been, on balance, a good thing. "The big lesson is that we're better off with this law than without it," Clinton said. But he also lent some credence to GOP attacks on the law.

"I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got," Clinton said.

The former president was referencing the pledge Obama made repeatedly during his sales job of the health care law that if individuals liked their current health care plan, they could keep it. In an interview with NBC News last week the president apologized for cancellations many individual policy holders are receiving and said his administration is looking at ways to change that part of the law.

Republicans have seized upon instances in which consumers have had their health plans canceled since the opening of the new insurance exchanges on Oct. 1, which effectively forces those consumers into new plans, either with their current insurers or the government exchanges. Those impacted are Americans who purchase their own insurance, accounting for about five percent of Americans. Those who receive their insurance through their employers are not impacted by that part of the law.

Moreover, the price tag for consumers forced to buy new plans has varied. For consumers eligible for subsidies under the law, the total cost of the new insurance plan might actually be lower, and they get broader coverage. For some consumers, though, the cost to them will be higher.

This Friday, the House is set to vote to approve legislation that would allow consumers to keep their health care plans if they so wished, even though those plans are regarded as substandard under current law.

 

Keep in mind though telecom and cable rates aren't primarily determined by governments so while taxes are part of them I don't think they should be counted primarily as part of increased tax burdens. Further cable isn't a necessity and many people are doing fine without it.

In regard to things like cable and telecom if you are comparing what people pay now on those compared to years ago you also need to consider that years ago people weren't paying for things like the internet or cell phone plans. Relatively few had cable either so of course the amount most people pay now for telecom and data is much greater than it was before.

You seem to be including a lot of things that are not necessities or government services as part of tax burden.

Finally as far as other taxes and fees for government services and necessities I would still like to see how those track with the rate of inflation.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363699/truth-about-navigators-john-fund

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BUsUWFANPS8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I think he meant - If I like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.

 

So, you'll believe the guy who was found to be heavily-doctoring videos in order to fit his pre-conceived ideology?

 

Of course, in their world, ideology trumps credibility and even overcomes facts which show the ideology to be wrong.

 

He didn't use heavily doctored videos. If you are talking about the Acorn videos, they were so accurate and damning that most those employees got fired and Acorn lost government funding and had to disband.

 

Even Andrew Breitbart admitted that he was duped by the doctored ACORN videos...

http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/03/02/breitbart-confirms-he-was-duped-by-okeefe-and-t/161084

 

Was Bill Clinton duped by doctored videos? lol nope

Even Bill Clinton said Obama needs to correct his lie

 

That's not at all what Breitbart said.

 

Read the article, that is EXACTLY what he said. O'Keefe was misleading and heavily edited the videos in deceptive ways to lead people to one conclusion when the unedited videos would not have led one to the same conclusion.

Good God, you can't even accept that you've been believing untrue information when a dyed in the wool conservative like Breitbart tells you specifically that you were misled.

I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, partisans will close their eyes to any evidence which proves their beliefs wrong.

 

I alrdy clicked the lines once and read the first few lines. After realizing that it was Media MAtters I closed it and wont click it again. Why don;t you post your totally credible quote

 

So, you will refute the content by disparaging the source, predictably sad.