Roger Hickey of Campaign for America’s Future has an op-ed in the New York Times today. His message? Don’t tax health benefits. Why?
The Communications Workers of America looked at one proposal (to tax all employer-paid health benefits worth over $13,000 for a family) and found a typical member of its union in Pennsylvania with a working spouse and one child would pay $3,165 more in taxes in the first year, and $27,949 more over eight years. The issue is heating up. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has told colleagues that they should not tax health benefits. But the debate continues.
It is dangerous for politicians to focus the government’s taxing power on the hard-won benefits of middle-class families. Fair and progressive income and wealth taxes are a better way to pay for health reform — and keep workers feeling as though they have a positive stake in achieving good health care for all.
That last sentence is kind of the whole point. The entire idea of reforming health care is about helping the middle class. Why would you then turn around and tax the very people you’re trying to help? Much better to tax those who can afford it, as the House is planning on doing.
Not to mention, President Obama ran on doing exactly not this.
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I’m with Roger Hickey and you, Jason, all the way on this one.
The rapidly disappearing middle working class is being shredded, taxing health benefits would only be another nail in our coffins.
Elimination of jobs, erosion of earnings . . . wealth flowing up. Without a middle class, where DO the 1%’ers think their FUTURE wealth is gonna come from? Each other of the elite? Till Last Man Standing?
Spot on, hoss, thanks for sharing Mr. Hickey with us.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed. Taxing the rich, way more of a progressive solution.
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“Taxing the middle classes” is the ultimate Republican red herring. Just as there is no class warfare by them (according to them) and we are all middle class, taxing the rich really means taxing the rest of us, in Repub-speak. Any thought of taxes, even just on the rich, will be turned against us ad nauseum in the tame corporate media. The real issues of fairness and quality of life will be completely sidetracked, as always.
People have fallen for it for years because the Dem’s are afraid of being labeled “class warriors,” as if it were a bad thing to defend your own against an assault from above. These Dem’s still live in the era of the Red Scare, mentally, as if they’re all terrified of being purged and blacklisted by their own Party for simply being honest and fighting for the rest of us. If they even bother to mount a defense, it will be ineffectual and half-hearted, caught between conservatard concern-trolling about a deficit and scary tax stories. The Dem’s are lousy at defending progressive positions because they don’t believe in them themselves.
If there’s going to be a purge, we the progressive majority in America need to take control of the Democratic Party and purge the DINO’s. Along with their corporatist Republican brothers & sisters, they are the last obstacle to social and economic justice in this country. Nothing will “change” until we do that, and banish corporate money and influence.
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You betcha hoss, and the corps. Not to mention REGULATION of corporations. And FED, and Wall St.
I guess we are working on it all . . . sure as shat is slow though . . . danged pendulum of history swings.
Heavy load.
“Tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no, poor no more.”
Alvin Lee-TYAfter (for you YOUNG pups) *G*
The corporate astroturf media may better be described as docile rather than tame.
The strategery of the Bushlerites was to introduce tax cuts for the rich (and, nominally, the middle class) every fiscal year to fund their wars of choice. The idea was to drown that part of the government having nothing to do with war profiteering in a bathtub. Not only did they not raise taxes to fund their wars of choice, they attempted to kill off all the programs that might have actually benefited society and advanced other more effective means of conflict resolution.
So, it’s bloody cheek to be throwing out this McCain-style funding solution for health care reform that already appears to be heading in the general direction of no change at all.
Yes indeed, taxing the very people you are trying to help is crazy. I might add this insane proposal doesn’t just tax the middle class (unfairly) it also taxes another group unfairly: Those who already have health issues and are paying high premiums.
My wife and I pay $1,500 a month due to my health history and then I read the proposals to tax anyone paying high insurance premiums on the theory they were cadillac plans. Not necessarily. They may just be due to bad health.
Isn’t that like kicking someone while they are down?????????