Tag Archives: taxes

National Debt

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Kevin Williamson, writing in the National Review Online, is not optimistic about our 2023 national debt, projecting our interest costs on the assumption that interest rates won’t rise over the next 10 years (OK, he’s pessimistic; he holds rates at their current near-zero levels only to make a point).

Williamson projected the interest payments on the $26 trillion debt projected for 2023 to be $763 billion at today’s rates.  That works out to an interest rate of 2.9%.  Those $763 billion would be more than what the Federal government spent on Social Security, national defense, or all nondefense discretionary spending in 2011, Williamson noted.

But suppose interest rates rise as lenders decide our sovereign debt just isn’t all that valuable, our ability to repay that debt just isn’t all that assured?

First a rounding exercise: let’s say our interest rates rise to 3%.  That runs our 2023 interest payment to $780 billion.  That’s not so bad, eh?  However, nearby historical treasury rates, dating back 1990, have run around 5%.  That runs the interest bill to $1,300 billion.  If rates run to 7%, where they were during the Vietnam War, the interest bill gets over $1,800 billion.  If it spikes to 14%–the Carter Recession—the interest bill explodes: $3,600 billion. That’s what the Federal government spent—on everything—in 2012.

Who wants to bet lender confidence levels in our debt will keep our interest rates from rising above that historical average?

Taxes, Again

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The Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution has had time to go over President Barack Obama’s budget “proposal,” and they’ve

found that the budget plan would raise roughly $1.1 trillion over 10 years….

Their graph below illustrates from where those trillion dollars would come.

Notice that.  Those at the bottom of the economic totem pole—a strait contributed to in no small way by Obama’s rather cynical wealth redistribution policies—will see a larger drop in their take home pay from Obama’s tax increase than will his highly touted middle class.

So much for Obama’s promise of not raising taxes on those making less than $250k.  But that promise went by the boards long ago.

Then there’s the sin tax bump on tobacco:

The White House proposes raising the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes to $1.95 from $1.05.  It estimates this would raise $78 billion over 10 years, and it plans to use the proceeds for expanded preschool education.

The White House has defended the proposal by saying it would both discourage smoking and fund an education initiative that low-income families would benefit from the most.

But apparently the sin tax shouldn’t be used to deal with the health-related outcomes of this particular sin.  Never mind that “low-income families would benefit most” from this alternate use.  This is one of the contradictions inherent in Progressive attempts to use our tax code to achieve their social goals.

There’s more; RTWT.

2014 (and 2016) aren’t coming soon enough.

The Buckley Rule

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…applies to Federal funding and getting bills passed, also.

Bill Buckley’s originally espoused recommendation was to find the most electable conservative candidate and support that candidate.  Notice that “electable” part.  It does conservatives no good at all to find the most ideologically pure candidate and support that one, when he cannot get elected in the venue in which he’s running.

Now there are Obamacare and Health and Human Services’ health care insurance exchanges.

Health and Human Services Department has already burned through all the dollars appropriated by the Affordable Care Act for implementation.  HHS is now demanding an extra $5.9 billion to set up the law’s insurance exchanges—$2 billion more than it estimated it would take last year—but both Senate Democrats and the House denied the request last month.

HHS responded by announcing that it would simply steal however many dollars it needs from a separate ObamaCare slush fund.  Supposedly devoted to “prevention,” this cash has been funneled to everything from bike-path signs to patronage for liberal pressure groups lobbying for fast-food taxes.  Now HHS is reaching into this till for at least $454 million this year, with no accountability.

House Republicans are planning to remove the remaining $5 billion from that slush fund and transfer the monies to an existing fund that supports insurance for Americans with preexisting medical conditions, a fund that’s currently broke and closed to new insuree wannabes.  Yeah, that fund is idiotic and ought to be done away with, too.  However.

The zeroing out and the transfer have a number of pluses.  For one thing, it would defang a far larger travesty of Obamacare—those government-run exchanges that are a precursor to an American version of Great Britain’s disastrous NHS.  For another thing, it would block another of President Barack Obama’s end-arounds of the expressed will of Congress, this time though his HHS, by leaving those Federally created…insurance exchanges…unfunded and un-set up.  For a third thing, it would force the Democrats in both the House and the Senate, as well as Obama himself, onto the record with their choice between covering sick people now (albeit it badly) or that long-duration HHS waste.

Finally, it comports with the Buckley Rule—it’s the most conservative move that’s actually doable.

Unfortunately, groups like Club for Growth and Heritage Action (the latter is the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, who really should know better) are doing their best to block even this much.  These chuckleheads want the conservatively pure full repeal of Obamacare or nothing.

Of course, in today’s environment they’ll get the nothing option.  They know this, but purity is more important to them than the most doable conservative option.

I wrote about chuckleheads before in another context.  It seems we still have too little shortage of them.

“I Do Think at a Certain Point You’ve Taxed Enough Money”

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John Cochrane, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor of Finance (among other positions), writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, proposed an Alternative Maximum Tax.  He was on the right track, but he didn’t go far enough.

Here is a partial list of Federal taxes and tax-related limits on our weal which we currently pay:

  • Income tax, to tune of $1.2 trillion as recently as 2007
  • Cap on tax deferred savings: no more than $6,000 (in 2013) on Roth and Traditional IRAs, including catchup contributions if you’re a geezer; no more than $23,000 (in 2013) for 401(k)s, including catchup contributions
  • Tax on dividend income—this money is taxed twice: once at the corporate level where this profit sharing is not allowed to be deducted from corporate income and once at the individual level where the money is taxed as high as 20% in 2013
  • estate tax, as much as 40% on amounts over $5.25 million
  • payroll tax, 7.65% of every paycheck, and both employer and employee pay this—a total of 15.3%
  • Federal communications taxes
    • Federal excise tax of 3%
    • Federal Universal Service Cost Recovery tax of 15.5% of net interstate and international long distance tolls
  • Federal personal transportation taxes
    • gasoline tax, 18.4¢/gallon
    • diesel tax, 24.4¢/gallon
  • Obamacare taxes
    • 0.9% additional payroll tax for Medicare, paid by employees of a certain wage
    • 2.3% tax on top line revenue on medical equipment manufacturers
    • medical expense personal income tax deduction only after expenses reach 10% of income
    • surtax on investment income raises the top dividend income tax to 43.4% and the top capital gains tax rate to 23.8%
  • Obamacare Individual Mandate—by order of the Court, this is a tax: both the premium paid for buying the government-approved policy and the…tax…for not buying health insurance

I do think at a certain point, we’ve been taxed enough.

Instead of an alternative max tax, it’s time simply to eliminate a bunch of taxes and lower the rates on the others.  A straight flat tax, with no deductions, no credits, no nothing would be good.  No redistributionist, no social engineering, froo-froo of any sort.

A Thought on Tax Reform

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I don’t always disagree with Fox Business on tax reform, but when I do, I prefer smaller, flatter taxes.

They start with a bang (although I really couldn’t tell whether FB agreed with this), quoting NYU Law School Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation David Shaviro:

It’s hard to run an income tax properly because you have to know how assets change in value.  In theory, you should be taxed when assets go up and receive deductions when they go down.  But people come up with ways of getting around the rules.  It’s a cops and robbers game.

Nah.  There’s no economic or moral reason to tax income except as income.  Nor need there be differing treatments depending on whether “assets” or income go up or down.  You had an income last year?  You should have paid (let’s say) 10% of that to the Revenooers.  You had a larger income this year?  Pay 10%.  Period.

Here are a few more examples.

Should Go: Home mortgage interest deduction. Shaviro argues, “It’s a tricky proposition, but I say it needs to go,” he says.  “It creates a tax price that favors home ownership.”
[Personal finance expert Jordan ] Goodman says the deduction should stay, but be more limited.  As it stands currently, those with multimillion dollar homes can receive deductions on interest of up to $1 million on their first mortgage, and up to $100,000 for their second mortgages.
“It’s a reverse Robin hood tax,” he says.  “The bigger the house you have, the more of a tax deduction you get.  It would destroy the housing market entirely to take it away, but let’s cap it at $500,000 instead of $1 million.  This is subsidizing rich people getting a big house with a big mortgage.”

I’ll ignore the idiocy of punishing a disfavored group, as Goodman wants to do.  He’s plain wrong on the impact on housing markets.  Eliminating the deduction, as Shaviro correctly wants to do, would be disruptive only until the new equilibrium is reached; it wouldn’t destroy the housing market.

Needs to Go: Corporate debt buying. Our current tax code favors companies who are loading themselves up with debt instead of equity, Shaviro says.  “This gives companies the incentive to have debt,” he says.  “You deduct interest that you pay to shareholders but not the interest you pay on dividends.”

Correct, but for the wrong reasons.  Businesses shouldn’t be paying taxes in the first place.  They’re not the ones paying, in the end, we consumers are because those taxes get passed on as higher prices.

Should Go: Renewable energy tax credits. The credits the government offers for renewable energy items such as buying a hybrid car or installing solar panels is [well]-intentioned, not necessary, says Goodman.  “The actual results in the real world have been relatively minimal,” he says.  “The solar industry is in a depression now, but if the industry is ‘so big’ the government shouldn’t have to subsidize it.  If it’s that good, let people pay for it on their own.”

Again, correct, this time partly for the wrong reasons.  The tax credits—any tax credits or subsidies or deductions—distort the market and mitigate against rational, market-oriented solutions.  Regardless of the target, whether renewable energy, oil and gas, or mortgage interest, all credits, subsidies, deductions, and what-have-you should be purged from the tax code.