Medicare would just morph into a different issue. Anyways I don't care to debate the merits of a Single Payer system vs reforming our current.Ryujin wrote:QUOTE (Ryujin @ Sep 29 2012, 06:15 PM) However, I am in favor of social programs honoring those who need it,.. ie:
Social Security
Medicare
Both of which require either income tax or sales tax.
As sales tax is regressive (higher income people pay a smaller portion of their income in sales tax than lower income people), I am more in favor of income tax. Preferably a progressive one that isn't too skewed as to discourage entrepreneurs and innovation.
Although with a true universal health care system, medicare would cease to be an issue.
Social Security can be reformed into a true pension system, with sound monetary policy, it should generate sufficient revenue to keep itself solvent for a bit longer.
I actually favor simplification of the tax system as follows:
-Elimination of credits & deductions
-Elimination of different tax brackets for different types of income (i.e. dividends are taxed at the same rate as capital gains which is taxed at the same rate as wages)
-Elimination of payroll taxes (Highly regressive taxes - funding for Social Security & Medicare will come from income taxes)
-Elimination of gasoline taxes (regressive taxes)
-Elimination of business taxes (tax costs are just passed onto the consumer anyways, it is essentially a highly regressive tax. Corporate profits will be taxed when paid out in dividends and salary)
-Somewhat flat progressive tax structure with a 1% tax rate as the bottom tier spiraling up to whatever brackets needed to balance the budget
That way these people end up paying much less in taxes (as they have no payroll taxes) but still have to pay something. 100% of the population will be paying income taxes.
Basically, if you make X from whatever source, then you pay Y. End of story. No loopholes. No tax accountants needed.
Also Ryu, sound monetary policy can have a detrimental impact on the ability to fund Medicare and Social Security. Sound monetary policy would make current inflation rates high enough that the government would have extreme difficulties in funding itself without a gargantuan tax hike... which I would favor if it meant balancing the budget.
