Posted on 02/18/2012 11:26:25 PM PST by JediJones
An antitax advocacy group zinged Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s tax plan, giving him a grade of “D+” grade and the dubious honor of proposing what “may be the worst idea of any of the Republican candidates.”
”The good news is Santorum has gotten more specific about his tax plan since last month when we gave him a D+,” economist William McBride wrote on Thursday. “The bad news is… he’s gotten more specific.”
Mr. McBride said the biggest problem with Mr. Santorum’s proposal is the sharply different corporate tax rates he would establish. Mr. Santorum would halve the corporate tax rate to 17.5% from its current top rate of 35%. Manufacturers, however, would not have to pay any corporate taxes.
Mr. McBride said the idea is “grossly unfair,” and unlikely to gain traction in Washington. If it did, he said, many businesses would “suddenly claim to be a manufacturer.”
The tax group also took aim at Santorum’s suggestion to triple the tax deduction families can take for each child. “This is obviously a big tax cut, and might spur growth, or it might just spur child making,” Mr. McBride wrote. The Tax Foundation echoed concerns expressed earlier this week by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center that tripling the child tax deduction could push more low-income families off the tax rolls.
While the Santorum campaign has filled in some of the details in recent weeks, big ones remain missing, Mr. McBride wrote. The plan would collapse the current six rates to just two — 10% and 28% — but it doesn’t specify who would pay those rates, he said, adding: ”That’s kind of important.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
“This proposal of Santorum’s is about which kind of children we want: children of payers v. children of users.”
Santorum is right for wanting to make things easier on middle class income tax-PAYING parents.
“Which kind of Children.” That is discrimination.
Make ALL Children - Children of Taxpayers is how you make it easier on the middle class. Put the Freeloading parents to work through welfare reform.
How exactly do you think Santorum can give something to the taxpayers but not to the Freeloaders.
However, ....The Tax Foundation echoed concerns expressed earlier this week by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center that tripling the child tax deduction could push more low-income families off the tax rolls .... is what concerns me about this assessment, from either organization.
One organization (TF) may be concerned about the expense (although why someone at TF thinks a low-income family pays Federal Income tax is completely ludicrous -- what they should have said is that it will allow more middle income real-tax payers to keep what they earn) ), while the other (TPC) is just plain concerned that their constituents somehow won't be able to get the credit AND EITC (and whatever other credit they can get) if their AGIs are too low. If the TF were totally non-partisan, they should have opposed the proposal on its own demerits. The should have taken great pains to separate themselves with TPC....
What's the %? What's Santorum explicitly endorsing (s/b demanding)? Funny how that never gets talked about even though it's a HUGE issue. If the big government folks, whose numbers seem to be increasing all the time, get their way, they'll just bang the "balanced-budget" drum so loud that enough people won't require a "cap." Without sufficient pressure for a "cap" there most certainly will not be one or else it will be accompanied by a million exceptions.
I wholeheartedly support a BalBud Amendment
Why would you support that instead of a SPENDING LIMIT AMENDMENT? All a balanced budget amendment would do is shift government's total irresponsibility onto the backs of the American people. Do you think these career politicians care about balancing a budget? All they care about is a guaranteed lifestyle, and they get that by SPENDING (and taxing when they can get away with it).
A balanced budget amendment doesn't address the core issue which is OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING. The budget problem is a byproduct of the core issue. We need a spending limit tied to some % of the GDP that reasonably would allow balance or surplus at a 15% or so SIMPLE flat tax rate. We had something along those lines not too long ago in the 90's before Bush and Obama pushed the Government Spending Economic Mayhem Button.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The reason you'd have hell to pay trying to get a spending limitation through is what I alluded to earlier. These guys have no intention of cutting spending or government. That's why you could probably get a BalBud Amendment, but not a LimitGov Amendment, passed. It would guarantee the Socialist state we're headed for where the budget is balanced alright and everybody works for the government.
As Cyrano de Bergerac was quoted, "No thank you! No, I thank you! And again I thank you!
“I also don’t believe keeping half the population “barefoot and pregnant” can sustain our economy.”
Seriously? You sound like Robert Gibbs.
There’s a difference between a distinction of race, and treating different classes of business differently.
Did you know that businesses already get hit with different levels of taxation? Hotels have all sorts of taxes, phone companies pay a different set of taxes, airlines have different taxes, oil companies, car companies; there are different deductions, different taxes, different treatments for all sorts of things.
In the end, I wouldn’t think doing different tax rates would be all that workable, and a single tax rate is preferable; but there is a fundamental difference between a company engaged in manufacturing, and a company engaged in retail marketing.
The real problem is when we pick winners and losers — giving one company in an industry a tax break for doing what government wants, giving them a competitive advantage. A steel company isn’t competing with Target. So the steel company having a different tax rate isn’t really going to distort the market.
Like I said, I can’t imagine that a 0% tax rate for manufacturing could be opposed by conservatives. In the end, I can’t imagine too many conservative saying “Well, if we can’t give Walmart a 0% rate, we’d rather Alcoa pay 12.5% as well”.
[A balanced budget amendment doesn’t address the core issue which is OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING.]
Let me suggest the way to control spending is to yank the printing presses away from Bernanke. That is the real control lever.
Well, of course, the out-of-control FED is a HUGE problem that facilitates the rest of our out-of control federal gov't.
Yet your analysis requires assumptions based upon their construction. You omitted those facts, making it a deeply flawed analysis when considering the pure impact of the magnitude of a child credit, which is the topic of the thread, because your assertion depends upon it entirely. I promise you: practically every parent in my area would still be paying plenty of taxes no matter what child deduction Mr. Santorum is contemplating.
My post was strictly about your suggestion that tax-PAYERS should have more children, but the article is clear about Santorum wanting to drastically increase the tax exemptions for children, thereby turning tax-PAYERS into tax-FREELOADERS.
Your example relied upon wildly inflated assumptions re the number of children that would result, particularly because tax-paying families are now having kids at below a replacement rate (which should concern you). In fact, the US birth rate is now lower than it has ever been. Few would choose to grow their family from one-to-two to seven kids upon the basis of a a tax deduction. That was just silly. Just the housing requirements alone would make that virtually impossible.
Santorum would increase the exemption to $11,000 per dependent which would quickly eliminate all tax liability for a majority of those tax-PAYER parents you talked about.
Sounds like a lot eh? Human Events reports an average American cost of raising a child at between $10,000 and $14,000 per year.
First, you have supplied no analysis that supports your assertion. Second, it would be true only if the rates and brackets remain the same, which is what I said, which is why I brought up rates and brackets believing just as you do that all able bodied adults should pay a tax. That Santorum does not propose an adjustment there is, in my judgment, the real fault of his plan, not the magnitude of the child deduction he is proposing (and we'll get to that). Right now, the tax code penalizes marriage and child-rearing, which, in my opinion, is a bad thing. I never said I was happy with his plan; I was merely talking about the principle of increasing the deduction for dependents, to which I wish to add another point in a bit.
It costs our family a lot more than $14,000 a year to support a child, particularly when marginal housing, and transportation expenses are included, never mind higher education. And remember, even if we got $11,000 as a deduction, it would not anywhere near cover the cost because of our marginal tax rate. Hence, those who are not raising the kids are currently FREELOADERS on the investment of the parents for the reasons I stated above. They're getting the returns of taxes paid by the children when they become adults without having born the costs, yet those without kids are getting the same return as the parents on the tax receipts and productivity of those kids once they become adults.
Now, as to that other bit, there is another class of dependents from which we as taxpayers would gain a great deal if the deduction for dependents was increased and this cuts directly to the demand side for government spending on this question, something that you are ignoring totally: making it more affordable for more families to educate their children at home and care for the aged in their homes.
Care for the aged and public education are where the real bulk of government spending at all levels really is. And that money goes almost entirely to Democrats.
An analog of this proposal has a good shot at reducing that demand, especially if it is structured as a credit instead, something that is entirely up to Congress. Yes, I think you would agree that society would benefit immeasurably both fiscally and socially if more people could home school and care for their dying parents.
70% of our medical dollar, about 10% of the entire economy is spent on end-of-life treatment. Were the aged cared for at home that number would be vastly reduced both in the cost for services and the quantity of services demanded. I don't think I have to tell you how much the country would benefit were more children home schooled but in addition, both the burden on terribly cash-strapped states and the size of the Democrat welfare state bureaucracy (for both education and juvenile delinquency) would take an enormous hit in short order. You would get back your $11,000 on the cost of public schooling alone.
So yes, I'm all for proposals that strengthen the family, yet I do agree that all able-bodied citizens should be conscious of their responsibilities to all. It is just as (and perhaps even more) important in rebuilding this country to get people to re-assume their familial responsibilities instead of foisting them on government, just as I believe that able-bodied seniors should perform public service such as tutoring and day-care in return for their welfare entitlement, er... "Social Security" (and please don't tell me they've paid for it because we both know that is not nearly true). Taking the transfer of a culture out of the hands of the single moms populating day-care centers would benefit both children, seniors, and society at large.
What is undesirable to me about using income tax deductions is that the case is so hugely different in a high tax State like New Jersey or California compared to, for example Mississippi. In the former case, Santorum's proposed deduction is insufficient, while in the latter it is indeed excessive. Better that it was a percentage than a fixed amount. In principle, I would have preferred an NRST, but the problems with the IRS having its nose in every transaction plus the scale of organized crime that would develop at this rate of revenue demand are untenable. You have no idea the degree to which computerized transactions enable social engineering when those considerations are inserted into a sales tax.
Finally, I don't think I need to add at this point that I regard Mr. Santorum's proposal as half-baked; it is. Yet remember: IT IS CONGRESS THAT WRITES THE TAX CODE. So, I appreciate that Santorum is emphasizing the disproportionate burden parents are bearing in our society, particularly those who pay upper middle class taxes. It means that, should he become elected, this issue will get the consideration it deserves. Our society depends upon it getting fixed.
I can’t believe what I’m seeing here.
First, I saw FReepers attack Sarah Palin for not being “conservative enough”. Then, it moved onto Herman Cain, then, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry. Newt is claimed to be “not conservative enough” and now Santorum is not “conservative enough”. Records are distorted, words are taken out of context, unfair comparisons are made.
As the circular firing squad continues, hopefully, some of you will plainly see, the one left standing is Mitt Romney.
The liberal media is doing a job on each of our candidates and sadly, I’m seeing some of those talking points repeated here.
Some of you are going to be so spent after months of attacking other candidates that when it comes to the actual election and defeating Obama, you’ll feel defeated already, which is, of course, the goal of the media.
This is a particularly egregious socialist subsidy. If you have kids, pay for them yourself.
A tripling of the PERSONAL deduction, for any body that emits greenhouse gases and 310K blackbody radiation (regardless of age) would be acceptable. Specifying who does and doesn’t qualify is liberal social engineering.
Actually, we do, given that part of our defense spending is dedicated to maintaining access to foreign trade (e.g. oil).
Apparently, you found this unsatisfactory. You want to increase the subsidy so that you can pay millions instead of paltry hundreds of thousands....
That, and drop the social-engineering nonsense by advocating a tripled PERSONAL deduction.
This is the dumbest statement I've seen on the Internet this year, and that's saying somethiing.
You're telling us that somebody is just as likely to help a random stranger through a crisis as they are to help their own parents through a crisis.
This statement isn't as dumb as the other one, but only because it's so meaningless.
People who don't serve in the armed forces are FREELOADERS on those who do, getting defended without doing it themselves.
People who don't haul garbage away are FREELOADERS on those who do, getting protected from plague without lifting a finger personally.
People who don't study medicine are FREELOADERS on those who do, having their health taken care of without cracking a single medical book.
Everyone is a "FREELOADER" by this standard, which is thus devoid of significance.
What an insipid post. Next time, I suggest you read the whole thread before replying.
Only because you are incapable of seeing either the analogy or the distinction. Everyone is a "FREELOADER" by this standard, which is thus devoid of significance.
Society PAYS soldiers with tax money.
Society PAYS garbage haulers, and fines people who accumulate garbage.
People PAY for medical care.
Parenting is uncompensated.
Only if you're the kind of parent whose kids want nothing to do with you after you move out, in which case it's your own damn fault.
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