At about midnight Friday I was listening to conservative talk radio - can't remember which show! A guest host threw out a statistic. IIRC he said that 115,000 households pay 20 percent of federal income tax revenue. One caller said he'd put $2,500 toward federal income tax and got a check back for $7,000. I assume this is from some mix of the earned income credit, the offset for Obamacare premiums and maybe something to do with having kids. Since Hillary claims her budget won't raise taxes for the middle class, she is probably on board with those credits, as well as a mortgage-interest deduction for families making less than $250K a year.
On the revenue side: I don't disagree in principle with raising taxes for the wealthy, but how much would that revenue really come to? How much is gained by closing various loopholes? I assume Trump has some plan for recouping revenue from a lowered corporate tax rate; maybe from domestic job growth.
On the spending side: How much can be realistically cut, anyway? Absent single-payer universal health care, how could the U.S. unleash market forces on health care? Allow insurance companies to cross state lines? Allow some people to buy only catastrophic coverage? I tried to shop around last year when my premiums went up, but there were few choices in my state. Also, lack of transparency in health-care pricing has IMO severely affected consumers' ability to compare plans. Not too long ago a hospital would accept $7,000 from an insurance company for an emergency appendectomy but would bill an uninsured patient $35,000 for the same procedure. I hope that's been fixed.
Without getting too ideological I'd like to hear people's ideas - realistic ideas - for tweaking Obamacare and entitlement programs, and perhaps the defense budget, and increasing revenue. I'm talking about things that could actually happen, not blowing up the current system. I'm assuming single-payer UHC is dead in the water unless Hillary wins and Democrats control both the House and Senate.
Sources: Revenue: nationalpriorities.org. Spending: memepoliceman.com.
On the revenue side: I don't disagree in principle with raising taxes for the wealthy, but how much would that revenue really come to? How much is gained by closing various loopholes? I assume Trump has some plan for recouping revenue from a lowered corporate tax rate; maybe from domestic job growth.
On the spending side: How much can be realistically cut, anyway? Absent single-payer universal health care, how could the U.S. unleash market forces on health care? Allow insurance companies to cross state lines? Allow some people to buy only catastrophic coverage? I tried to shop around last year when my premiums went up, but there were few choices in my state. Also, lack of transparency in health-care pricing has IMO severely affected consumers' ability to compare plans. Not too long ago a hospital would accept $7,000 from an insurance company for an emergency appendectomy but would bill an uninsured patient $35,000 for the same procedure. I hope that's been fixed.
Without getting too ideological I'd like to hear people's ideas - realistic ideas - for tweaking Obamacare and entitlement programs, and perhaps the defense budget, and increasing revenue. I'm talking about things that could actually happen, not blowing up the current system. I'm assuming single-payer UHC is dead in the water unless Hillary wins and Democrats control both the House and Senate.
Sources: Revenue: nationalpriorities.org. Spending: memepoliceman.com.
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