Free Republic

Republicans want tax reform, but their refusal to cut spending forces them to look into all sorts of revenue raisers. Some are good, such as eliminating the deductions for state and local taxes. Others are counterproductive, such as the threat to significantly decrease the tax deduction on 401(k) accounts, potentially reducing the overall levels of savings for the millions of Americans using them. Instead, they should keep the deduction intact, hence encouraging savings -- and in addition create universal savings accounts. There are rumors that they are considering such a move. First, let me complain about the no-good proposal to...

As I have noted previously bond yields continue to go lower, and Investment News reports that it has some bond managers worried that it means that the country will suffer a bout of deflation this year, which mean that the economy, might be, could be, holy cow, a little weaker than expected. Wow. You donÂ’t say? Investment News reports that bond yields are a pretty accurate predictor of which way consumer prices will be going. And in this case the yields are saying consumer prices will be going down. ThatÂ’s good news for those of us who still buy things...

Newsmax Watch Out! Feds Could Seize Your Private Retirement Savings Saturday, May 21, 2011 04:58 PM By: Greg Brown How long before Uncle Sam hits private pensions to balance the public budget? It’s quickly becoming a reasonable question to ask. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is ringing alarm bells across Washington, D.C., warning of a disastrous outcome if an agreement to raise the debt ceiling is not made soon. “A default would call into question, for the first time, the full faith and credit of the U.S. Pensions, Federal Government, Debt Ceiling, Retirementgovernment,” Geithner wrote in a letter Friday to Sen....

Aren’t low short-term interest rates wonderful? If you are a bank, the answer is yes, particularly because the low rates are accompanied by somewhat higher longer-term rates. If you are a saver, however, your view might be very different. This month some interest rate spreads have reached record levels. The difference between what the Treasury pays on a one-year bill — less than half a percentage point — and what it pays on 10-year bonds — a little below 4 percent — expanded to the largest on record this month. In banking jargon, that is a very steep yield curve....

Bryan Caplan of EconLog has an interesting blog post on Singapore’s Health Care System. In the post, he reviews Ghesquiere’s “Singapore’s Success,” analyzing Singapore’s health care system. Harford finds that Singapore spends a third of what the U.S. does on health care (as a percentage of GDP) yet has better health indicators. Of course, much of this may be attributable to lifestyle differences rather than a superior health care system. Nevertheless, the Singapore system has some very interesting characteristics: * There are mandatory health savings accounts: “Individuals pre-save for medical expenses through mandatory deductions from their paychecks and employer contributions…...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Wednesday for tax-free learning savings accounts for every student in the country as part of an ambitious package of anti-poverty initiatives developed by a mayors task force he chaired. The plan was to be formally unveiled Thursday at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but Villaraigosa gave a preview during a speech at the National Press Club. "This is a downpayment on America's future we can no longer afford to postpone," said Villaraigosa. The main points of the plan included: -A tax-free learning account for every student, with the government chipping...

GALVESTON - While President Bush and other politicians argue the benefits and pitfalls of tinkering with the national Social Security system, employees of Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda counties already have done without Social Security for more than 20 years But despite so many years of experience with an alternate retirement system, opinions still are divided as to whether people fare better or worse than if they had participated throughout their working years in the federal program spawned by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Either way, Bush is planning to highlight the so-called Galveston plan today at the University of...

Take a few minutes, please, and freak out. Run in circles, scream and shout. Panic if you are so disposed. And then, when the hysteria subsides, we should talk. Whatever Social Security once was — and it never was insurance, funded by contributions kept in a trust fund — it has been fundamentally altered by generations of vote-grubbing politicians into something distinctly different. It's an entitlement, onto which other entitlements, like Medicare, have been heaped. It is, as actuaries told trustees last week, unsustainable as structured. It's silly, actually, to talk about trust funds as though they exist as anything...

Expanding Access and Increasing the Affordability of Health Insurance Through Health Savings Accounts http://www.gop.com/news/read.aspx?ID=4529

For Immediate ReleaseJanuary 24, 2004 The President's Address to the Nation      Audio Good Morning. In my State of the Union address, I spoke of a great priority for our nation, to confront the rising cost of health care, and make sure that more of our citizens can afford the health care they need. Health care costs are rising too fast for many families and businesses. It is time to address this problem directly, with five clear steps that Congress can take this year. First, we can help control rising health care costs by cutting down on frivolous lawsuits against doctors...

States make 'unclaimed' asset grab Idle accounts target of cash-hungry treasuries By Brendan January, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 6:55 PM ET Nov. 9, 2003 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Have you ever had that sudden feeling that you've lost touch with someone for a long time? If that someone is a mutual fund or a bank, it's best to reestablish contact. In the past two years, states have been aggressively pursuing "unclaimed property" -- savings accounts, stocks, insurance policies, safety deposit boxes, retirement accounts -- that can be seized if an account is unused for several years or the owner cannot be...

Treasury officials portrayed the proposal as a streamlining move, but a wide range of analysts said it could represent a significant retreat from a central tenet of the nation's tax system: that the rich should pay a greater share of their income in taxes than those who make less. But even some conservative analysts said that, together with President Bush's recent call for a dividend tax cut and the administration's already-enacted income tax rate cuts, the new proposal would undermine the progressiveness of the tax system by placing a substantial share of the money made on savings and investment --...