Downward Creep: Bush Tax Panel Brings Out Old Friend For Halloween
Through his tax reform panel, Bush is floating tax hikes in the form of reductions to the home mortgage interest deduction and a cap on the deduction an employer receives for providing employee health care benefits. The Daily Kos has an excellent breakdown of these nnspecific tax reform items.
The initial marketing campaign for these proposals is to suggest that they will only affect the rich and not the middle class. Not true for the health insurance cap which is close to what employers now pay on many employees comprehensive health care packages. Once the cap is exceeded, the cost of the coverage increases to the employer thereby decreasing the incentive to provide comprehensive coverage and making it more problematic to provide coverage at all.
More importantly, these proposals are based on numbers that unless annually adjusted will result in a downward creep that will ultimately engulf the middle class. As an example, one only need look at how the alternative minimum tax is casting a greater net year by year.
If the media were to use the standard they applied to John Kerry, it would be screaming --- TAX HIKES. But even without that explosive rhetoric, I find it extremely unlikely that Republicans in our Republican-led Congress are going top be signing up for this program, especially just before an election year.
One thing this issue does expose is the fallacy that Bush is a leader. He has obviously formed this panel to float ideas for popularity before signing on to them. The only issues in which he even attempts to show leadership on are those with huge payouts for his political benefactors but not for the American people, e.g. Social Security reform.
The initial marketing campaign for these proposals is to suggest that they will only affect the rich and not the middle class. Not true for the health insurance cap which is close to what employers now pay on many employees comprehensive health care packages. Once the cap is exceeded, the cost of the coverage increases to the employer thereby decreasing the incentive to provide comprehensive coverage and making it more problematic to provide coverage at all.
More importantly, these proposals are based on numbers that unless annually adjusted will result in a downward creep that will ultimately engulf the middle class. As an example, one only need look at how the alternative minimum tax is casting a greater net year by year.
If the media were to use the standard they applied to John Kerry, it would be screaming --- TAX HIKES. But even without that explosive rhetoric, I find it extremely unlikely that Republicans in our Republican-led Congress are going top be signing up for this program, especially just before an election year.
One thing this issue does expose is the fallacy that Bush is a leader. He has obviously formed this panel to float ideas for popularity before signing on to them. The only issues in which he even attempts to show leadership on are those with huge payouts for his political benefactors but not for the American people, e.g. Social Security reform.
posted by Macswain at
9:45 AM
2 Comments:
With popularity numbers plummeting, the chimp's handlers will float whatever idea they think might stem the flow.
As for "leadership," it makes me chuckle to even see that word in reference to the chimp.
By
Anonymous, at 10:58 AM
I hope Bush will work to improve health care as we are in major crisis with over 45 million lacking health insurance.
By
Anonymous, at 11:11 AM
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