Fiscal Commission Co-Chair recommendations

[KrazyHorse]

1) Because the mortgage tax deduction distorts between home ownership and renting, while the insurance deduction distorts between insurance and out-of-pocket health care consumption

2) In addition to these distortions, they both encourage overconsumption of their products

3) Hollowing out the tax base through this type of deduction reduces revenue in a way which can only be made up by increasing marginal rates. Marginal rates are the most important determinant of the deadweight loss of taxation at the work/leisure frontier

[Jon Miller]

The fact that you think so demonstrates how much you need to learn. The best arguments against capital gains are, in order:

I think I might understand our differences.

What do you think about estate taxes?

What do you think about gifts?

JM

[Jon Miller]

Insurance deductions increase costs for health care due to employers being the purchasers but not the consumers. Health Care in the US is bought based on how much is paid, rather than on the health care received.

JM

[Arrian]

Also: they proposing cutting farm subsidies. BFD. Cut ALL subsidies to industries. All.

-Arrian

[Tupac Shakur]

Actually, though, what the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class. They suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.

It will take time to crunch the numbers here, but this proposal clearly represents a major transfer of income upward, from the middle class to a small minority of wealthy Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/12krugman.html

[Kuciwalker]

Oh noes teh poor middle class.

[Tupac Shakur]

Have you won a pseudo-Nobel prize in Economics?

[Kuciwalker]

[Hauldren Collider]

Getting rid of the mortgage and health insurance deductions would be so beautiful.

QFT

[Hauldren Collider]

Have you won a pseudo-Nobel prize in Economics?

IMO, Krugman's writings seem to have gotten pretty retarded lately. He's gone from being an actually interesting writer on economics to echochamber for the Democratic platform.

[Tupac Shakur]

What are you two laughing about? I was simply pointing out that the Nobel Prize in Economics is not a true Nobel Prize.

[KrazyHorse]

Comments:

1) **** the "middle class", e.g. the 60th to 90th percentile in income. They are by far the most spoiled group in the US (and in most other developed nations). I hope the "middle class" gets raped and dies of AIDS. The top 10% work their asses off and pay all the taxes, the bottom 60% are brought up in ****ty conditions and struggle day to day. The "middle class" is composed of people who were born into well-adjusted families, were too lazy/stupid to actually succeed in life and feel entitled to **** like publicly-funded tertiary education, the mortgage interest deduction and other giveaways to the relatively privileged.

2) **** Paul Krugman. He used to be a serious economist. Every time I see him screeching about Chinese currency manipulation I think about finding him and punching him in the face

3) I stopped making fun of the Nobel Prize in Economics when Adam Smith died. Adam Smith

[DaShi]

Comments:

1) **** the "middle class", e.g. the 60th to 90th percentile in income. They are by far the most spoiled group in the US (and in most other developed nations). I hope the "middle class" gets raped and dies of AIDS. The top 10% work their asses off and pay all the taxes, the bottom 60% are brought up in ****ty conditions and struggle day to day. The "middle class" is composed of people who were born into well-adjusted families, were too lazy/stupid to actually succeed in life and feel entitled to **** like publicly-funded tertiary education, the mortgage interest deduction and other giveaways to the relatively privileged.

Come now KH, be fair. We need the cows to feed the economy.

[DinoDoc]

Yeah, I get a stiffy for those too

I honestly don't understand the protectiveness toward the mortgage deduction given that you (Canadians) don't have it and have a higher home ownership rate than the USA. Also it's absence seems to have been one of the things that helped your country avoid a mortgage meltdown if this editorial is to be believed.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't understand why home ownership is such a positive in the first place. It reduces geographic mobility of the labor force, reducing the diversification benefit the US enjoys due to having the biggest market in the world (Euroland doesn't count as a truly integrated labor market IMO)

Also, it's not just us; very few countries allow mortgage tax deductions.

The deduction serves to encourage leverage, along with the existence of FNM and FMCC