« September 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
October 12, 2005
Proposal to Cap Health Insurance Tax Deductions
President Bush's Federal Tax Commission yesterday unveiled their recommendations that include an $11,000 cap on employer-sponsored health insurnace tax incentives.
Currently, there is no limit on the amount of tax deduction a buisness can take on health-insurance for their employees. According to the OMB, that amounted to $112 billion in lost-revenue for the federal government in 2005 alone.
Posted by WorkerBee at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
Fair Tax Gets the Ax
The President’s Panel on Tax Reform killed the Fair Tax at their Oct. 11 meeting. The meeting—-the last before they deliver their findings on Oct. 18-—was presented in a roundtable-type discussion forum. After mulling proposed changes to deductions for employer-sponsored health care and mortgage interest deductions, the panel turned on the Fair Tax.
Ed Lazear, the panel member heading the Fair Tax study group, started off well by listing the positive aspects of a consumption tax: encouraging savings, simplified administration, reduced tax burden, etc. Lazear also presented Treasury estimates of what the consumption tax rate would have to be to replace the government’s current income, a range of 22-26 percent.
Then he woke-up the dozing crowd. According to another set of numbers Treasury had run--figuring that Congress would eventually exempt huge swaths of the economy from taxation—-Lazear announced that the final rate would end up somewhere between 64 and 87 percent. Yes, 87 percent!
Expect to read that in the papers from this point forward.
After the bomb, panel Chairman Connie Mack (R-Fla.) went through the motions of inquiring about Fair Tax administration, but it was clear the game was over.
The President’s Panel on Tax Reform will not recommend a National Retail Sales Tax to replace the current code. While positive changes to the code may still come from the panel, an opportunity for fundamental reform has been squandered.
Posted by at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2005
The Future of Social Security Reform
In a wide-ranging policy address, President George W. Bush had the following to say about Social Security reform:
"As you know, I’ve advocated the need for people to come together to address the Social Security issue. It’s an issue that’s not going to go away. And I’ll continue to talk about it. There seems to be a diminished appetite in the short-term, but I’m going to remind people that there is a long-term issue that we must solve, not only for the sake of the budget, but, more importantly, for the sake of younger workers who are going to either have to pay a ton of money in order to justify current benefits, or to take a look at the underlying causes of the growth of benefits and do something about it, show some political courage."
Some reporters wasted no time interpreting this as a Bush retreat from reform. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What is true is that Grow Accounts are increasingly being seen as the only way to achieve some form of Social Security reform.
Grow Accounts do not fix Social Security as they don't address solvency. But they may be necessary as a first step down the road to reform.
Posted by at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Improvements for Health Care Quality
The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), in conjunction with the U.S. News and World Report released a report announcing improved performance of HMOs. According to The State of Health Care Quality 2005, as many as 67,000 deaths have been prevented over the past six years due to increased reporting and quality standards. Unfortunately, voluntary reporting nets only 21.5 percent of the industry publicly reporting on performance.
Posted by WorkerBee at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)