DEM HEALTH RX A POI$ON PILL IN NY TERRIFYING 57% TAX LOOMS FOR BIGGEST EARNERS
Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.
New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week.
The top rate in New York City, home to many of the state's wealthiest people, would be 58.68 percent, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said in a report yesterday.
That means New York's top earners, small-business owners and most dynamic entrepreneurs will be facing new fees and penalties.
The $544 billion tax hike would violate one of President Obama's ironclad campaign promises: No family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s.
Under the bill, three new tax brackets would be created for high earners, with a top rate of 45 percent for families making more than $1 million. That would be the highest income-tax rate since 1986, when the top rate was 50 percent.
The legislation is especially onerous for business owners, in part because it penalizes employers with a payroll bigger than $400,000 some 8 percent of wages if they don't offer health care.
But the cost of the buy-in to the program may be so prohibitive that it will dissuade owners from growing their businesses -- a scary prospect in the midst of a recession.
Obama took to the airwaves yesterday with ads and TV interviews promoting the need to reform health care.
As a Senate health committee passed a different version of a health-care reform bill - a milestone for the issue - Obama said on NBC, "The American people have to realize that there's no such thing as a free lunch."
And in a Rose Garden speech, he said the "status quo" on health care is "threatening the financial stability of families, of businesses, and of government. It's unsustainable, and it has to change."
Asked if Obama supports the surtax on wealthiest Americans even though it would break a campaign pledge, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said only, "It's a process that we're watching."
Republicans in Washington and small-business defenders in New York said the House legislation would effectively place a stranglehold on businesses while running off top earners.
_____________________________
This is the messed up part:
"Under the bill, three new tax brackets would be created for high earners, with a top rate of 45 percent for families making more than $1 million. That would be the highest income-tax rate since 1986, when the top rate was 50 percent.
The legislation is especially onerous for business owners, in part because it penalizes employers with a payroll bigger than $400,000 some 8 percent of wages if they don't offer health care. "
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
without searching this? you could never guess who it was that said this, he was considered one of the biggest "liberals" ever in this country
things are not what they seem cash.
Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by glassman: without searching this? you could never guess who it was that said this, he was considered one of the biggest "liberals" ever in this country
things are not what they seem cash.
Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.
Al Gore? LOL
-------------------- Let's Go METS!!! Posts: 3317 | From: CT | Registered: Dec 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
NYC has some serious problems and their ideas for taxes are getting out of hand.
Why is it that raising or creating new taxes is the only solution to these elected officials? How come they cant run the govt better.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Right-Wing Escalates Fear-Mongering Rhetoric: Warns Americans Will Die If Health Care Passes Yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed a health reform plan that includes a public option. Meanwhile, on the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rolled out “a bill worth fighting for.” Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra predicted that Congress will soon pass a comprehensive health reform bill.
Fearing that health reform is getting closer to passage, the right-wing is escalating its rhetoric by issuing dire warnings of its consequences. Interviewed by the Washington Times, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) was asked if “government-run health care” will “end up killing more people than it saves?” Coburn responded, “Absolutely.”
A couple of right-wing congressman voiced similar doom-and-gloom rhetoric on the House floor yesterday:
Rep. Steve King (R-IA): “They’re going to save money by rationing care, getting you in a long line. Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they’re in line.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX): “One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine! … I would hate to think that among five women, one of ‘em is gonna die because we go to socialized care.” “Many Americans are under the delusion that we have ‘the best health care system in the world,’” the New York Times editorial page wrote in 2007, but “the disturbing truth is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care.”
Comapred with Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States that ranks last in all dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives. The United States currently ranks 50th out of 224 nations in life expectancy, with an average life span of 78.1 years, according to 2009 estimates from the CIA World Factbook.
Canada, Great Britain, and many of the other countries that the right-wing enjoys beating up on actually like their health systems and wouldn’t want to trade places with an American. Moreover, Americans don’t get a good bang for our buck. A Business Roundtable study found that compared to France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, U.S. workers and employers receive 23 percent less value from our health care system than the citizens of these other nations.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by glassman: without searching this? you could never guess who it was that said this, he was considered one of the biggest "liberals" ever in this country
things are not what they seem cash.
Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.
There might be a few of us old enough to remember who this is. I won't give it away but once the answer is out, those that are shocked should read the whole speech and put a very soft pillow below their jaw to avoid injury.
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
An excerpt from correspondent T.R. Reid's upcoming book on international health care, titled We're Number 37!, referring to the U.S.'s ranking in the World Health Organization 2000 World Health Report. The book is scheduled to be published by Penguin Press in early 2009. Related Reading Q&A With T.R. Reid There are about 200 countries on our planet, and each country devises its own set of arrangements for meeting the three basic goals of a health care system: keeping people healthy, treating the sick, and protecting families against financial ruin from medical bills.
But we don't have to study 200 different systems to get a picture of how other countries manage health care. For all the local variations, health care systems tend to follow general patterns. There are four basic systems:
The Beveridge Model Named after William Beveridge, the daring social reformer who designed Britain's National Health Service. In this system, health care is provided and financed by the government through tax payments, just like the police force or the public library.
Many, but not all, hospitals and clinics are owned by the government; some doctors are government employees, but there are also private doctors who collect their fees from the government. In Britain, you never get a doctor bill. These systems tend to have low costs per capita, because the government, as the sole payer, controls what doctors can do and what they can charge.
Countries using the Beveridge plan or variations on it include its birthplace Great Britain, Spain, most of Scandinavia and New Zealand. Hong Kong still has its own Beveridge-style health care, because the populace simply refused to give it up when the Chinese took over that former British colony in 1997. Cuba represents the extreme application of the Beveridge approach; it is probably the world's purest example of total government control.
The Bismarck Model Named for the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who invented the welfare state as part of the unification of Germany in the 19th century. Despite its European heritage, this system of providing health care would look fairly familiar to Americans. It uses an insurance system -- the insurers are called "sickness funds" -- usually financed jointly by employers and employees through payroll deduction.
Unlike the U.S. insurance industry, though, Bismarck-type health insurance plans have to cover everybody, and they don't make a profit. Doctors and hospitals tend to be private in Bismarck countries; Japan has more private hospitals than the U.S. Although this is a multi-payer model -- Germany has about 240 different funds -- tight regulation gives government much of the cost-control clout that the single-payer Beveridge Model provides.
The Bismarck model is found in Germany, of course, and France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, and, to a degree, in Latin America.
The National Health Insurance Model This system has elements of both Beveridge and Bismarck. It uses private-sector providers, but payment comes from a government-run insurance program that every citizen pays into. Since there's no need for marketing, no financial motive to deny claims and no profit, these universal insurance programs tend to be cheaper and much simpler administratively than American-style for-profit insurance.
The single payer tends to have considerable market power to negotiate for lower prices; Canada's system, for example, has negotiated such low prices from pharmaceutical companies that Americans have spurned their own drug stores to buy pills north of the border. National Health Insurance plans also control costs by limiting the medical services they will pay for, or by making patients wait to be treated.
The classic NHI system is found in Canada, but some newly industrialized countries -- Taiwan and South Korea, for example -- have also adopted the NHI model.
The Out-of-Pocket Model Only the developed, industrialized countries -- perhaps 40 of the world's 200 countries -- have established health care systems. Most of the nations on the planet are too poor and too disorganized to provide any kind of mass medical care. The basic rule in such countries is that the rich get medical care; the poor stay sick or die.
In rural regions of Africa, India, China and South America, hundreds of millions of people go their whole lives without ever seeing a doctor. They may have access, though, to a village healer using home-brewed remedies that may or not be effective against disease.
In the poor world, patients can sometimes scratch together enough money to pay a doctor bill; otherwise, they pay in potatoes or goat's milk or child care or whatever else they may have to give. If they have nothing, they don't get medical care.
These four models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand because we have elements of all of them in our fragmented national health care apparatus. When it comes to treating veterans, we're Britain or Cuba. For Americans over the age of 65 on Medicare, we're Canada. For working Americans who get insurance on the job, we're Germany.
For the 15 percent of the population who have no health insurance, the United States is Cambodia or Burkina Faso or rural India, with access to a doctor available if you can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time of treatment or if you're sick enough to be admitted to the emergency ward at the public hospital.
The United States is unlike every other country because it maintains so many separate systems for separate classes of people. All the other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is much simpler than the U.S. system; it's fairer and cheaper, too.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've got three problems with these doom and gloom tax assessments.
First off inflation hits everything. In order to keep budgeting on par with costs one has to adjust yearly for inflation. The income tax is suppose to do that by automatically adjusting to wage increases. The problem is that wage increases for the lower and middle class have not been keeping up with inflation so consequently tax revenue from the lower and middle classes are not keeping up with costs. If the wealthy (job creators) want the lower and middle to pony more to the table they have to make sure that wages outpace inflation.
Secondly there are so many loopholes, deductions, incentives, and write-off written into the tax code that I no longer trust that anyone who can afford to hire a personal accountant is actually paying their fair share. It wasn't that long ago that someone here (by default I will say it was probably Glass) posted an article about how some of the biggest corporations in America get away with paying little to no tax year after year. I have no sympathies about a high rate on groups that try to game the system.
Thirdly, everyone who is against raising taxes acts like the Bush cuts were just bringing things back down to par after a period of excessive tax rates. It just ain't so. The Bush cuts took us down from par to an unsustainably low level and we are now only bringing thing back up to par.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It wasn't that long ago that someone here (by default I will say it was probably Glass) posted an article about how some of the biggest corporations in America get away with paying little to no tax year after year.
yes, we have an advertised tax rate of 35% yet the treasury dept shows an actual corporate tax collection of 27%.
the more money they make? the lower the percentage. the same goes with individuals.
the argument is just another paper tiger.
our tax revenues collected are about 28% of GDP.
About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
In 2005, after collectively making $2.5 trillion in sales, corporations gave a variety of reasons on their tax returns to account for the absence of taxable revenue. The most frequently listed included the cost of producing their goods, salary expenses and interest payments on their debt, the report said.
A greater proportion of large corporations pay taxes, according to the GAO. In 2005, about 28 percent of large corporations paid no taxes. Of the 1.3 million corporations included in the study, 998 were categorized as "large."
quote:Originally posted by glassman: bigger liberal than even him
Hubert H. Humphrey?
JFK
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
delivered 14 December 1962 I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incenitives [sic] for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkeconomicclubaddress.html
point being that economic principles, particualrly as they relate to Keynesian principles are not an exclusive domain of the "conservaitves" as some blathering fools want everybody to beleive.
in fact? there is no one size fitall solution to economic problems.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Must not be a lot of small business owners on this board.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: Must not be a lot of small business owners on this board.
small business owners that practice tax planning do quite well. there are so many strategies to cut your taxes that it's a full time job "discovering" them for tax planners, who are also small business owners.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’
(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.
“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”
“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’
(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.
“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”
“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
quote:Originally posted by glassman: small business owners that practice tax planning do quite well. there are so many strategies to cut your taxes that it's a full time job "discovering" them for tax planners, who are also small business owners.
Yes, they do. Posts: 1802 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged |
Hello, Tex. Two unrelated questions for you. First, how are you doing? And second, several months ago you mentioned reading a book about native american teachings about 'walking with beauty' if memory serves. Do you remember the title\author?
Posts: 1802 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged |
Hello, Tex. Two unrelated questions for you. First, how are you doing? And second, several months ago you mentioned reading a book about native american teachings about 'walking with beauty' if memory serves. Do you remember the title\author?
Sure. Most likely I referenced Tony Hillerman, who wrote mysteries from the point of view of two native american police/detectives. In that culture--which I try to emulate as much as possible--the high road is not "how many toys can we accumulate?" but rather how far can we enjoy the path with beauty.
To answer your first question, I'm doing well: I have a new home that we call "La Querencia" and as I much as I can I hew to the path that Don Juan described: a path with heart, down which I go...looking breathlessly...at new wonders, every step of the way.
My spanish is a little rusty, but La Querencia translates to something like "place where you want to be" or something similar isn't it? Good name for a home. Posts: 1802 | From: Utah | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hillerman is easy to find--around here we have HalfPrice bookstores that usually have a good selection. Of course, any decent library should have them all.
querencia is kinda tough to pin down, ie, it has nuances of meaning; but you're right about my intended meaning. Just the other day, I asked a native of Guanajuato about it, and she said it covers anything for which you have loving. Te quiero is one way to say "I love you," but more literally is, of course, "I want you." Hemingway uses it as a technical term from bullfighting in Death in the Afternoon. In that sense, the bull's querencia is his preferred spot, that area he will go to, once wounded, to find refuge and to build strength and courage for the remainder of the battle. It becomes the challenge of the matador to lure him from that area, for to carry the fight to the bull inside his querencia is quite dangerous. Cormac McCarthy uses it in one of the border trilogy, referring to a she wolf, in a vein similar to Hemingaway's--which I suppose is his source, although McCarthy uses so much unexplained (untranslated) Spanish that Hem may have nothing to do with it.
In a broader sense, querrencia can also connote, simply, the homing instinct, as for example with birds.
At any rate, yes, it is a lovely word and fits our situation to T...mil gracias
quote:Originally posted by CashCowMoo: Joe Biden: ‘We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt’
(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.
“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”
“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
quote:Originally posted by T e x: Hillerman is easy to find--around here we have HalfPrice bookstores that usually have a good selection. Of course, any decent library should have them all.
querencia is kinda tough to pin down, ie, it has nuances of meaning; but you're right about my intended meaning. Just the other day, I asked a native of Guanajuato about it, and she said it covers anything for which you have loving. Te quiero is one way to say "I love you," but more literally is, of course, "I want you." Hemingway uses it as a technical term from bullfighting in Death in the Afternoon. In that sense, the bull's querencia is his preferred spot, that area he will go to, once wounded, to find refuge and to build strength and courage for the remainder of the battle. It becomes the challenge of the matador to lure him from that area, for to carry the fight to the bull inside his querencia is quite dangerous. Cormac McCarthy uses it in one of the border trilogy, referring to a she wolf, in a vein similar to Hemingaway's--which I suppose is his source, although McCarthy uses so much unexplained (untranslated) Spanish that Hem may have nothing to do with it.
In a broader sense, querrencia can also connote, simply, the homing instinct, as for example with birds.
At any rate, yes, it is a lovely word and fits our situation to T...mil gracias
It's nice to see someone embrace and/or learn hispanic/spanish culture and language unlike the vast majority.
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by T e x: Hillerman is easy to find--around here we have HalfPrice bookstores that usually have a good selection. Of course, any decent library should have them all.
querencia is kinda tough to pin down, ie, it has nuances of meaning; but you're right about my intended meaning. Just the other day, I asked a native of Guanajuato about it, and she said it covers anything for which you have loving. Te quiero is one way to say "I love you," but more literally is, of course, "I want you." Hemingway uses it as a technical term from bullfighting in Death in the Afternoon. In that sense, the bull's querencia is his preferred spot, that area he will go to, once wounded, to find refuge and to build strength and courage for the remainder of the battle. It becomes the challenge of the matador to lure him from that area, for to carry the fight to the bull inside his querencia is quite dangerous. Cormac McCarthy uses it in one of the border trilogy, referring to a she wolf, in a vein similar to Hemingaway's--which I suppose is his source, although McCarthy uses so much unexplained (untranslated) Spanish that Hem may have nothing to do with it.
In a broader sense, querrencia can also connote, simply, the homing instinct, as for example with birds.
At any rate, yes, it is a lovely word and fits our situation to T...mil gracias
It's nice to see someone embrace and/or learn hispanic/spanish culture and language unlike the vast majority.
lol, machster...of course you realize this is nothing new for me. Remember "Nina de Tex"? My oldest child; she's half Mexicana...
quote:Originally posted by T e x: lol, machster...of course you realize this is nothing new for me. Remember "Nina de Tex"? My oldest child; she's half Mexicana...
ahh me forgot... it's good to know I have one hermano on this board at least...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: Thanks, Tex. I'll have to look them up.
My spanish is a little rusty, but La Querencia translates to something like "place where you want to be" or something similar isn't it? Good name for a home.
btw, the reason I was in a position to speak to that native of Guanajuato was because a lady friend of mine graciously took me to their house in order to contemplate the purchase of not only Talavera pottery but also the ceramics of this artist:
I committed to two pieces, a picture frame for my younger daughter, who has been instrumental in helping us design our layout and living space, and another piece that looks a bit like this, but less "pregnant" and with only one cup:
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Were Up]](graemlins/wereup.gif)
