The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?
“A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives.” -- Charles Wheelan, "Naked Economics"
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For more than a year, politicians have been fighting over whether to raise taxes on high-income people. They rarely mention that affluent Americans will soon be hit with new taxes adopted as part of the 2010 health care law.
The new levies, which take effect in January, include an increase in the payroll tax on wages and a tax on investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains. The Obama administration proposed rules to enforce both last week.
Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate.
Exactly the problem Obama-care is designed to fix.
Insurance is a cost saver. The reason one subscribes to insurance is because it stabilizes costs. $100 a month is more stable than a surprise $120,000 medical bill, ending your economic history as you know it.
47 million do not have insurance. They are not turned away when they seek emergency treatment. That cost can be handled three ways; the hospitals absorb it, and shorten their dividends to their investors, the hospital raises other prices across the board, so the wealthy pay for it anyway, or the hospital, can require insurance to reimburse it at a higher rate for all other services to keep it afloat from taking care indigents.
In all three ways, the wealthy subsidize the running of the hospital.. The question then becomes, is it cheaper to pay $1000 more in taxes, or to pay $10,000 more in yearly higher insurance premiums?
Obviously the $1000 in increased taxes is the cheaper option...
Those against the employment of any tax increase upon the wealthy to fix the broken pieces of America. have an agenda that is not in any way, related to mathematics....
Increasing taxes on the wealthy is good for America, it is the cheapest option for America, and the original tax cuts, are simply why America today is not the prosperous nation we were destined to be, or believed we would be 12 years ago.....
Simply raising taxes 5% on the money you could never find time to spend, isn't going to hurt anybody....
The GOP has a problem with the former. The Democrats have a problem with the latter. Good luck to all of us in the current negotiations.
Sure it's related to mathematics. You could tax everyone making over $66K/year at a 100% rate and it still wouldn't solve our debt problem. And since that in no way will happen (obviously), then how in the world will merely raising the rate on the top 2% do so?