Dan Froomkin: Second Group Of Deficit Hawks Calls For Regressive National Sales Tax

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




WASHINGTON -- The nation and its workers remain in grave economic distress, but it's a bull market for alarmist Washington insiders coming up with draconian solutions to projected fiscal problems that might or might not arise years from now.

A second group came out with a deficit reduction plan Wednesday, exactly a week after the two chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission floated their controversial draft recommendation. (A third group also has some advice as well.)

This latest group hails from the Bipartisan Policy Center, and its signature proposal may end up being a whopping 6.5 percent national "Deficit Reduction Sales Tax" -- just the sort of thing that is devastating to people who live on a budget while not really mattering so much to the rich.

In its quest to control health care costs, the group also recommends significant increases in Medicare premiums in the short term. And after 2018, Medicare beneficiaries would either be forced to pay out of pocket for any and all cost increases more than one percent greater than the growth rate of the economy -- or they would be invited to leave the government program entirely and find private insurance instead. That would no longer be Medicare as we know it -- or as future retirees expect it. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/17/second-group-of-deficit-h_n_784907.html

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. So if they basically trash the Medicare program, are they going to cut the Medicare taxes?

We are much too meek of a people anymore. Pity.

[denverbill]

2. Jesus, those proposals are even worse than Simpson's bucket o'crap.

These 'deficit hawks' somehow think cutting taxes on the rich and increasing taxes on everyone else is a sound plan.

I'd love to see how freepers react to this plan. They usually lap up everything the extreme right says, but eventually some of them are going to wake up to the fact that their elitist leaders want to soak them.

[zbdent]

3. "cutting taxes on the rich" ...

as I understand that, the Bush tax cuts are still in place ... but "the rich" (how many times have you heard "when was the last time a poor person gave you a job?"?) weren't employing anybody for the last 3 years ...

[subterranean]

4. A national sales tax? Well, that's one way to kill an economic recovery.

Voting for a sales tax plus shifting more costs onto Medicare beneficiaries is also a good way for a politician to get un-elected.

[WinkyDink]

5. " not really mattering so much to the rich."~~~~"NOT REALLY"?! Not AT ALL.