Baucus Bill: A 70% Tax on Work
This is Jim Capretta writing at National Review Online’s Critical Condition:
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 its $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.
And that would come on top of the high implicit taxes already built into current law. Low-wage families with children also get the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC boosts incomes for those with the very lowest wages, but it is also phased-out as incomes rise. Past a certain threshold (about $21,400 in 2016), the EITC is reduced by $0.21 for every additional $1 earned. Throw in the individual income tax rate (15 percent) and payroll taxes (7.65 percent), and the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent – not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers.
Hey, Jim. These people don’t believe in supply side economics.
Keep in mind that people earning between 100% and 200% of the federal poverty level will (apparently) be considered “rich” — thus warranting the 70% effective tax rate. That way President Obama will not have broken his pledge to only raise taxes on the rich.
they are doing everything conceivable to retard economic recovery.
I get the sinking feeling that the Baucus bill won’t solve any problems, it will only subsidize them…
$9,072 + $7,400 = $16,472 seems like a lot of coverage, even for a family. Almost $1400/month? So much for cost-shifting.
Ah yes, the problem is costs so our government’s solution is to increase costs.
Cutting a deal with PhRMA to keep our drug prices twice as high as the rest of the world where 80% of the drugs are made for the next 10 years is insane!
So rather than Medicare going broke in 8 years, we can see it going bankrupt in 4. And most of the states will go bankrupt sooner as Medicaid costs increase by a third in all states, where education struggles with Medicaid for decreasing funds. And adding another entitlement plan where we pay for healthcare for those under a certain poverty level doesn’t add any providers, so we simply cut the suppliers to get more value out of a deminishing dollar?
All citizens can have insurance cards that say they have coverage and can insist they have this as a right, but this doesn’t produce any providers nor does it require any to accept the insurance.
Citizens are best advised to determin their own medical needs and take care of themselves, for costs will just increase while service takes a dive. Demand doesn’t always increase supply.
What will Obama run on in 2012 whne no more citizens have healthcare access which will by then be 22% of GDP!