The House of Representatives just concurred with the Senate amendments to H.R. 8, legislation that favors liberal tax ideology and includes no spending cuts. The bill passed by a vote of 257-167 at 11:00 PM eastern time. Tonight is a sad evening for conservative Americans. We have just seen Republicans in the House cave to the minority Democrats, some of whom did so on their way out the door. The 113th Congress opens at noon this Thursday, and I hope this is not a prelude to what is to come.
If the Democrats were so bent on letting taxes increase on those who are the most successful, then they would be willing to make some serious cuts in spending, as well. The Republicans should have given the Democrats in the House of Representatives an ultimatum, calling for serious spending cuts before giving them what they want regarding taxes. The plan the House just passed lets taxes balloon to 39.6% for those individuals making at least $400,000. It also cancels the sequestration of spending cuts, and extended unemployment benefits. The extension of unemployment benefits is the most liberal part of this legislation. This means Americans who are out of work are going to continue to receive their free ride, without any incentive to look for work. I believe allowing the unemployment benefits to expire would give some folks a little more motivation to find work. Instead, the House just reinforced the hammock that has been created out of what was originally intended to be a safety net. I am with the 167 members who voted against this legislation, of them is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Hopefully the new class of conservatives in the 113th Congress will not be so quick to fold to Democrats' demands.
I agree this whole budget and taxes process is a mess and a joke. I would like to see the fair tax and a balanced budget, but the influence of money on congress will not allow it. Using political donations as a way to get favors and tax breaks is too powerful for people running for office to resist. Even NASCAR got tax breaks in this deal
ReplyDeleteOzarkey
PS I love Texas, fun state to visit
You're correct, my friend. A balanced budget and an alternative revenue method would be better. We need to make tax cuts and breaks more "across-the-board," so to speak. The deal passed last night favored those who aren't working and living on government welfare, and punished those who have been the wisest with their money and are now successful. It is a shame, and I hope the 113th Congress will reconsider this unhelpful plan.
DeleteThe bill also gave breaks to some very successful groups and corporations ie Hollywood and NASCAR, so I'm not sure it just favored those on welfare. Congress completely ignores those people that work hard and don't make a lot and don't take from the taxpayers. I once worked for a major corporation ( a giant pizza company) that helped people get on medicaid and food stamps when they hired them in order to keep their labor costs down. The corporate policy was then to fire them after one year instead of giving them a raise no matter how good of an employee they were. People that work hard should be more valued in our society.People that don't work should get little or nothing
DeleteOzarkey
I don't believe this happens often enough for it to be considered the norm. I would ask you this question: have you ever been employed by someone who wasn't more wealthy than you? Taxing the wealthy accommodates only an negligible portion of the government's spending, and it discourages employers from raising salaries and hiring employees. Employers will adjust to change. For example, if a business with 53 employees is going to be required to provide health care if it has 50 employees or more, the business will probably lay off four of them. We cannot assume employers will not change their ways to accommodate tax increases.
DeleteI was employed by a very wealthy man that hired illegal aliens to do much of the work for the business.
DeleteI don't want 1 dime of the tax increase to go to the gov't. Instead i want business investment to increase because it would be better to invest money, and take the tax deduction, than to just stick it in an IRA or an offshore account. If a business lays people off to avoid insurance, who do you think will pick up the tab for their healthcare? The taxpayer! People don't seem to understand that the feds pay well over 50% of the healthcare costs in the country now and we all pay higher premiums because of uninsured people. Everyone should pay something toward their own healthcare. No free rides. Isn't that a conservative principle? "Obamacare" was proposed by Richard Nixon and endorsed at one time by every republican that ran for pres. last time. Hardly a liberal bunch. Thanks for your time. Hope your web page does well
Ozarkey
Thank you very much, we are a relatively new organization and I am pleased with the momentum and dialogue.
DeleteI'm not sure I understand completely what you are arguing, but I get the idea. I don't believe it is the government's place to invest. The Constitution does not give Congress that authority. So, the best way for the government to solve an economic crisis is to monopolize less of businesses' money.
Regarding health care you state the taxpayers absorbs the cost of folks who don't have insurance as if it ought to be so because it is so. I don't believe it is the government's responsibility to provide health care. It certainly does not have that authority by the Constitution, and moreover it doesn't have that authority ethically. When the government steps out of the issue, people must provide health care for themselves. That is the type of personal responsibility I want, not a requirement to purchase health insurance. Regarding businesses, if a business wants to be more attractive to potential employees, it will provide quality group health care insurance. If the government was to step out of the equation, there would be competition. Instead, the government monopolized the system and now all businesses with 50 or more employees will be required to purchase the best health care insurance for their employees, thus eliminating competition. Those laid off to avoid this requirement will fall back on the Medicaid program, draining state government's coffers and creating demand from the public treasury. This does not sound like a good plan - it sounds like national socialism. I prefer to apply the same free market principle to the health care insurance market as we have in place for the fruit market, or numerous other industries. It works, so why not apply it to health care?
Thank you again for your kind remarks.
In perfect world everyone would take care of themselves without gov't help. But what about children who's parents would not buy insurance, or people that cannot work, or older people. Would you propose we just let people that can't pay go without or die? You are correct about business, they will turn this into a socialist healthcare system. In fact I think most businesses would just assume have a socialist system and be out of the healthcare provider all together.
DeleteWhat's the fruit market insurance idea?
Ozarkey
Well, Ozarkey, we can change the subject if you'd like but I thought we were talking about everyday, working folks. Since silence is concession you have conceded that the individual mandate is a bad idea for working, able-bodied individuals as I argued. Now, the issue of children, the disabled, and seniors is a different argument altogether.
DeleteWhen a person is legitimately unable to provide health care insurance for himself, that would be the time for private organizations and philanthropists to assist him. As for children, organizations such as Shriner's Hospitals for Children are dedicated to providing health care for children. Also, I believe if we had true freedom in the health insurance market, there would be very few situations in which parents could not provide health care insurance at least for their children (e.g. health care insurance provision competition in the work force).
As for seniors, suppose a 21 year old just entered the work force and decides he is going to plan ahead for retirement. Instead of paying a tax of 1.45% or more annually for 40 years, suppose he invests $100 a month for 40 years in a growth stock mutual fund yielding 12% compounded interest. He could retire at age 61 with a grand total of $1,176,477 to pay for his health care costs. Suppose he invested $300 a month for 40 years using the same figures, he could retire at age 61 with $3,529,431 to finance his health care needs. By the way, he could make either of those investments for all that time without any subsidization from the government. I'm sure the government would gladly tax his investment, because at that point he would be one of the "wealthiest among us," to borrow a phrase from our liberal friends.
My "Fruit Market Doctrine," so to speak, is that the government doesn't require fruit producers to sell oranges at a certain price, so it shouldn't force health care insurance providers to sell insurance at a certain price. The government doesn't require businesses to provide an apple a day to its employees, so it shouldn't require businesses to provide health care insurance to its employees. These are just a couple examples. Basically the point is the health care insurance market should only be regulated with the intent of maintaining ethical behavior such as in any other market, not with the intent to try to give everyone everything all the time such as is the intent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - which is a misnomer, by the way.
You know, eventually they're going to run out of road to kick the can down.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha. That's right. Personally I am tired of that figure of speech. They should come up with a new one.
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