Howard Dean's Plan to Dramatically Raise Taxes on You

Don't get me wrong, I am not for universal health care, but are you actually trying to equate health care (a necessity) with a Lexus or 5th avenue apartment (luxuries)???

I agree that I should not fund someone else's luxuries, but health care is a need. The way the system works now, it costs the taxpayers when people without coverage go to the hospital or emergency room. We already foot the bill, it is just that now the bill is monstrous because hospitals and emergency rooms are far more expensive than preventative medicine would be if those same people were covered by insurance.

As I said, universal health care (administered by the government) is a bad idea IMO, but I don't think it would be a bad idea to try to get more businesses to cover their employees with insurance.

 

Everyone seems to get confused about universal coverage and nationalized care.

I'm not for nationalized care, but I am for universal care where the government handles the premium payments to the health plans. Our current system sucks. That employer groups ended up paying for healthcare was an accident (more like a car accident).

 

Don't most cities have health care available at free clinics? I never understood why people want more programs when it is apparent that the ones we already have are not being used to their potential. We have food kitchens, people want to have food stamp programs. We have shelters, people want to provide free homes. We have free clinics, people want universal health care. Homes, your choice of foods, and your choice of doctors ARE luxuries. That is what we are paying for. Anybody in this country has access to food, shelter, healthcare, and a K-12 education. Only in very well developed countries like America would someone with all of that be considered poor. What you NEED to survive is available for free in this country already. We don't need to raise taxes if we would just cut the unneccessary spending.

 

I am astounded that you and I apparently agree on a subject, T_J. I would absolutely support a flat tax with no deductions, exemptions, or any other loophole.

The key difference between Europe and us is that they are trying to revamp their tax system with a flat tax while Bush wants to lower taxes on the rich while leaving flat or increasing the tax liability for the middle and lower classes (remember that tax liability includes much more than just income taxes).

 

If we had universal health care (remember, I do not support any system that has been proposed so I am only playing devil's advocate), uninsured people wouldn't go to the emergency room (the most expensive health care option in America) for treatment, they could be treated in less expensive settings. In addition, those indigent who go to the emergency room are already costing us money because they default on their bills, leaving the rest of us to absorb the cost.

 

You (as the Bush bobble head) are the one being disingenuous, not me.

Relatively minor benefits to the lower and middle classes while the rich make off like bandits. Payroll taxes aren't included in the tax cut and as such, the lower and middle classes get the shaft (when you look at the percentage of income ACTUALLY paid to the government) while the rich laugh all the way to the bank (where their money sits in an account and does not add to the economy like it would if spent by the working classes).

Both of which add up to a negligible difference (percentage wise) in tax relief as opposed to the HUGE reductions in the tax bill to the rich.

Which is a BOLD FACED GIVEAWAY to the rich as the inheritance tax doesn't even kick in until the estate is over $3 million.

So that the people who don't itemize (the middle and lower classes) can deduct the $50 they can afford to give away every year. Woo-hoo!

So that already rich corporations can avoid even MORE of their tax liability.

The rich are the ones who received far and away the VAST majority of the tax cuts. Bush gave dividends to the rich and threw the crumbs to the rest of us so that idiots like you could claim that the tax cuts benefited us all. Bush claimed during the campaign that the "vast majority" of his tax cuts would benefit the lower classes. Now that this has turned out to be the BALD FACED LIE that you tried to pin on me, you and the other right wing fanatics just claim that "everyone had their taxes lowered" when you know damn well that Joe Middle Class got a tax cut of $100 while Joel Rich Kid had his taxes slashed by $100,000.

All the while, this money could have been used to help out the states (who suffered their own fiscal crises over the bubble burst and 9/11). You ask who had their taxes raised. Every college student (and their parents) have had an effective tax raise due to the unprecedented HUGE increases in tuition and fees. Every state employee who has taken cuts to their insurance, wages, or other benefits has had an effective raise in taxes.

Basically, everyone who cannot afford to pay for it has had their taxes raised so that Bush's campaign contributors could have dividends paid to them by the Treasury Department.

 

LMFAO, I see you added that last disclaimer after your serial ownage last week in that department...who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Briefly, here's just a few of your lies that I feel like dispelling off the top of my head:

I love how you threw "Familes that own stocks (50% of American families)" in there. Unfortunately for most of those families, the vast majority of those "Families that own stocks" do so via 401k's or IRA's, which were already tax exempt

Similarly "anybody that died" doesn't get the benefit of the estate tax repeal. As you well know, the estate tax kicks in oly for super high income earners, so the only effect it had was for that favorite oppressed minority of the right: the top 1%.

You probably have more lies in there too, I didn't bother cutting through it all, I'm sure somebody else will do a decent enough job of showing you up.

 

I guess since it has been a couple of months since the Bush Tax Plan has undoubtly been proven to be nothing but a give-away for the rich, T_J thinks he can roll out his distortions again.


Half of all Americans will receive less than $100 from the tax cut in 2003

Americans making $1 million or more will receive $93,500 from the tax cut

Over the next four years, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers will receive just 9 percent of all the tax cuts, while just the top one percent receives 39 percent of the tax cuts. The tax cut benefits flowing to the top 1% far outpace the 23% share of federal taxes they now pay.

The distribution of tax cuts do not get better with age. The tax cuts targeted at middle- and low-income families sunset, or disappear, after 2004. As a result, in 2006, 52 percent of the Bush tax cut goes to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans

Over the next few years, the projected combined state budget deficit is $180 billion and rising. Most states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets. So, in order to close their budget deficits, state legislatures will have to either cut spending or raise taxes. By cutting spending, they will layoff public sector workers leading to further declines in demand. Most states rely on the sales and property taxes for revenue, which most directly affect middle- and low-income families. If states raise sales or property taxes, they will take will take money out of the hands of those who received the least from the Bush tax cut. As a result, by failing to adequately address the state budget crises, the Bush tax cuts counteract any possible stimulus that it could provide to the economy.

Only half of all Americans own any stock at all. Most of the stock owned by middle class folks is tied up in 401(k) plans, which will not benefit from the dividend tax cut. Any short-term boosts in stock prices in middle-class portfolios will likely be offset by higher interest rates

 

Trader_Jorge has now conquered the world of ART! Does anyone know if his drawing accurately represents his real hair? I would suggest a comb-over before the bozo-like remnant perm.

 

sp T_J, I suppose you are just going to ignore the whole Bush tax cuts force state budget crisis which forces states to slash benefits and / or raise consumption taxes (which it is a given that these tax the poor and middle income familes FAR more unfairly than the rich) aspect of the Bush tax cuts?

 

Exquisite flat-fronts with the cashmere turtleneck... the Fab 5 would be very pleased. Hope your shaving with the grain!

 

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LOL, that's right, I forgot to mention the that the vast majority of stocks are owned by pension funds, which are already tax exempt or tax deferred (There are tax exempt retirement plans, for a fuller look at the issue, see Gregg A. Esenwein and Jane G. Gravelle, “The Taxation of Dividend Income: An Overview and Economic Analysis of the Issues,” Congressional Research Service, October 7, 2002.

 

First of all those free clinics are rarely truly free, those do exist. But I can tell you from first hand experience they don't always work, aren't productive to getting the people who need them to wok etc.

I know this from firsthand experience. I was working anv living fine. Because I was part of the actors unions my insurance depended on how much work I got as an actor that year. If work wasn't coming in that way I would find other jobs to suplement. At one point I was not on the inusrance and discovered I had Type 1 diabetes. It was odd for someone who was my age to get type 1, but it happened. It wasn't long though before I was able to get enough work in that I qualified for insurance. The program for diabetes I had been on wasn't so great. Then with the insurance I was able to switch to a more expensive pump process which totally had my bloodsugar under control, enabled me to have felexibility with what and when I ate, etc. It worked.

However the insurance ran out, and my medical bills were big, in part because insurance only paid like 80% of the total costs. I started working not one but multiple jobs. None of them offered benefits, though. The staff at my endrocronologists were great, and have me free samples of stuff when I could, but eventually I ran out of pump supplies.

Now the clinics were able to give me some things, but not the pump stuff that I needed for the best control. My blood sugar was not in the target range. It was lower than it would have been with nothing, but it was no longer in the target range. But because I was working more than one job and making some money, I didn't qualify for any of the programs targeted for low income people. It didn't mater that I was poor because all of my money and now credit card debt were paying for my medical expenses.

In addition any of the 'free' clinics that I went to recquired an extensive wait. It literally took as long as six hours sometimes. That can't be done and work at the same time. So it was either make money or get the treatment I needed on some days.

Plus free clinics rarely have access to things like nutritionists, and the kind of monitoring with the same doctor which is recquired for people with ongoing treatments.

So contrary to what Bamma might think I was out of luck, not because I was lazy(I was working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs). I still was not getting the proper treatment.

My insurance has been steady lately, and I've worked hard to pay off the credic card debts I racked up for my medical treatments.

I know what I went through is just one of countless other stories out there. I know a girl who had lumps in her breasts and was working many jobs as well, but didn't have insurance and it was more than a year before she was able to have them removed. Do you think all AIDS patients are getting the same drug cocktails that Magic Johnson gets? No way, the poor AIDS patients are screwed. The list of problems like this are extensive.

Meanwhile I know a friend in England who gets appointments either the same or next day for medical visits. If the govt. needs to do a procedure or something and their facilities are booked, then they pay for the patient to fly to another country that has the space. It all costs the patient absolutely zero and the problem gets fixed. This guy's grandfather also recquires ongoing treatment for a number of things and recquires some really costly meds. But he always gets what he needs.

I can just tell you that it is really disheartening to be working multiple jobs, not have healthcare, and when you know that there is a treatment that works, but you can't get it, and have to settle for a patchwork - not so hot - solution.

Having discussed this stuff in past threads, I'm leaning toward a solution similar to what Cohen has talked about.

 

from William G Gale, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Brookings Insitution - Tax Policy Center

testimony before the US Senate in 2003

FYI - Job and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA)

"JGTRRA will boost aggregate demand in the short term and thereby generate higher short-term levels of income and employment than would occur if no policy were enacted. But this is a very minor accomplishment. Almost any increase in spending or cut in taxes would boost a sluggish economy. JGTRRA was not the only policy option: policy makers could have provided more progressive tax cuts, increased federal spending or transfers to the states, and extension of unemployment benefits. In comparison to those other policies, JGTRRA is a poor way to stimulate the economy in the short-term: the same or bigger stimulus could be obtained with a lower long-term cost, simpler rules, a more equitable distribution of benefits, and less deterioration (or stronger preservation) of basic social needs. The two principal components of the plans—acceleration of the 2001 tax cuts and dividend/capital gains tax cuts—are regressive. This implies that they will be less effective in stimulating current activity, holding the size of the tax cut constant, than more progressive options, since high-income households are less likely to spend available resources immediately than would low- or moderate-income households."

"Although the tax cut is called a "Jobs and Growth" package, this moniker is extraordinarily misleading. The Joint Committee on Taxation has analyzed the tax cut passed by the House of Representatives (which is essentially JGTRRA with the sunsets removed). This analysis explicitly incorporates macroeconomic feedbacks, as tax cut advocates have demanded for years. Using a variety of models and assumptions, the JCT shows that the House plan would reduce the size of the economy in the second half of the decade, and by implication would reduce the size of the economy by increasing amounts after that. The reason why JGTRRA, extended, would reduce growth is that the impact of the tax cuts in raising individuals' after-tax income holding work constant, the increase in the stock market, and the increase in the deficit, will reduce net work, raise consumption, and reduce national saving. In the long-term, all of those effects reduce the size of the economy. In the case of JGTRRA, those effects outweigh the positive impacts on incentives to work and save. The acceleration of EGTTRA would reduce marginal tax rates for fewer than one-third of all tax-filing units and so is unlikely to have substantial supply-side benefits. Despite claims suggesting sizeable benefits for small business, only about one-third of small business returns would receive marginal tax rate cuts and only 2 percent of all small business returns would benefit from the reduction in the top tax rate. The cuts in dividend and capital gains tax rates will do little to improve the allocation of capital."

http://www.brookings.edu/views/testimony/gale/20030609.pdf