Taxing Ideas

The Barry, in his press conference today, was sticking to his guns about the need to increase taxes in order to reduce our government's crippling deficits ... otherwise cancer research will disappear, weather forecasting would be crippled, no more food inspections, and our children won't get college scholarships.  Now he does have the bully pulpit and a nation full of fiscal dunces who are easily deluded by such demagoguery ... so such tried-and-true scare tactics are likely to work ... particularly when, in the latter part of July, many Americans start getting letters threatening to stop their Social Security checks and food stamps.

Now assuming that the Republicans will eventually have to blink and cave-in on tax increases in order to get meaningful government spending cuts (which somehow will never happen), I offer what might be acceptable (to me) "reductions in revenue spending" (the new Democrat euphemism for tax increases):

- Offer U.S. corporations a year-long opportunity to repatriate overseas profits at one-half our statutory corporate tax rate.
- Lock in the Bush tax cuts forever but then concurrently beef up the alternative minimum tax provisions in our tax code so that corporations, "millionaires and billionaires," and even ordinary taxpayers must effectively pay income taxes at no less than five percentage points below the statutory rate that would otherwise apply to their gross income.  Consequently, many of the tax loopholes (such as "It Pays to Work" and mortgage interest payments on McMansions) now utilized by such parties might lose much of their effectiveness.  And this would be the first step toward a flat tax (wherein across-the-board tax rates could then be reduced further).
- Eliminate the earned income tax credits entirely (essentially welfare payments through the tax system).
- Increase the upper ceiling on the income to which the FICA tax applies by say 20% and then have it automatically adjust upwards annually by our rate of inflation.
- Double co-pays for Medicaid and Medicare doctor visits (a backdoor tax)

I have no idea as to the amount of increased revenues that such provisions would engender, but I bet it would be substantial ... but not nearly enough to balance the budget.  Therefore, we need to talk about meaningful spending and entitlement cuts (haha) ...

Afterthought:  I was lucky enough to see Mark Halperin's original comment on Morning Joe this Thursday AM about The Barry's performance in yesterday's news conference.  After being egged on and assured that any scurrilous comment would be bleeped out (it wasn't), Halperin said that The Barry was being "a dick."  He later apologized and said he might have made a career-limiting quip.  I hope not ... he is my current left-leaning hero.