Posted by
Defend America on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:43:23 PM
The Deep-Pockets Mirage
House Democrats would have us believe that the rich can pay for it all.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
THERE IS a serious case to be made that the U.S. income tax system
should become more progressive. The average rate paid by the top 1
percent of households shrank from 33 percent in 1986 to about 23
percent in 2006. At the same time, the share of adjusted gross income
claimed by that highest-earning sliver of American society doubled,
from 11 percent to 22 percent. So, in principle, higher taxes for the
well-heeled could make sense -- as part of a broader rationalization of
the unduly complex tax code.
But there is no case to be made for the House Democratic majority's
proposal to fund health-care legislation through an ad hoc income tax
surcharge for top-earning households. The new surtax would hit
individual households earning $350,000 and above. It would start at 1
percent, bumping up to 1.5 percent at $500,000 in income and to 5.4
percent at $1 million. The new levy would begin in 2011 and is supposed
to raise $540 billion over 10 years, about half the projected cost of
health-care reform. The rest of the money would come from reduced
spending on Medicare and Medicaid -- though the surtax for the lower
two categories would jump by a percentage point each in 2013 unless the
Office of Management and Budget determines that the rest of the bill
has saved more than $150 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071403075.html