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Mr. President: Emergency Deregulation, Please
With coronavirus shutting down a lot of activity, the US economy could use some help from the government. I’m not talking about the federal government doing more — deficit spending, bailouts, etc. — I’m talking about the federal government doing less. Two things that made the economy so strong during the Trump presidency were tax reform and deregulation.
We don’t need more emergency spending and emergency government action as much–if we need them at all–as we need emergency deregulation to keep the economy growing.
Published in Economics
Precisely (except for us poor souls who live in states full of people who think calling it the “Wuhan virus” is racist, and who will damn us all).
The treatment now of the payroll tax issue is a signal to all in understanding which people think the federal government owns us and those who don’t. All know that at this point any notion that FICA is funding the safety net for Americans is false. Projections show that, without changes, at a point in the future funding of SSA payments will come more and more from general revenues.
FICA is the most regressive tax on the books. It needs to go away.
Both Trump and Pence have been exposed. The next 2 weeks could be interesting.
I can see that the whole approach to revamping how we fund the safety net (Social Security) will be changed if we dispense with the payroll tax. The phony social security trust fund concept at the inception of the program was mainly employed to deal with arguments that it was a welfare system. Its existence now only enables the argument that social security is an entitlement that participants have funded. This is the argument that stops legislative consideration for reducing or eliminating social security payments for those with incomes that make such payments unnecessary. It is also a fact that in most cases payments are made to recipients that far exceed justification when attempts are made to justify as paid in entitlements.
Eliminating the payroll tax is a key to getting a legislative redo of how the safety net works,
What we need to deregulate is hospital construction. Right now, you need a certificate of need to build a hospital. This directly discourages having surplus capacity, and could cause people to die if we hit saturation of ICU and Emergency beds. This is utterly stupid and unnecessary.
Repeal it, premptively ban it on the local / state level, and give hospitals a tax break or preference with existing funding for having surge capacity.
What we need to deregulate is hospital construction. Right now, you need a certificate of need to build a hospital.
Great point Omega. Trump needs to deregulate that ASAP.
Good one.
Well! This is very informative. Connections I never made before.
I’ll try to put some of this in my own words; please correct me if I’m getting anything wrong:
Having the payroll tax that funds social security helps to prevent the welfare state reform we direly need if we’re ever going to deal with the debt?
And Trump’s efforts to cut back on the payroll tax might therefore move us closer to the needed reform?
Whenever there has been any proposal to take a deep look into the Social Security system, the first thing on the table is recipients saying ‘don’t mess with my benefit payment’ coupled with their justification that they are entitled because they paid FICA all the time when they worked. The fiscal reality is that the SS Trust Fund does not come close to being funded in a way that would meet benefit payments as they stand now. Those recipients I just mentioned know these facts so their expectation is, if Congress starts messing with their benefits that there will be reductions. So nothing happens.
Since the SS payments are already significantly augmented with funding from the general revenues, elimination of the regressive payroll tax, which applies to the first dollar earned by the people with the lowest annual incomes, would be of great benefit to those earners and to small business employers. This elimination of the payroll tax would eliminate the connection between a recipients viewpoint that they paid for the benefit so don’t mess with it. Then benefits can be appropriately adjusted.
I think President Trump and his advisers read this post. @saintaugustine I hope you heard or read his speech today. He listed a great many regulations that need to suspended, freed up the energy in the private sector, and essentially encouraged everyone to do what they do best. It was a wonderful speech.
Woo hoo!
Well, I finally watched that video. Maybe I missed something, but it looks like he’s talking about emergency targeted healthcare deregulations.
That’s fine. But I was talking about economics.
Boosting the economy is a principal reason, in addition to the simple idea that those operating well below the median household income level should not be taxed, I wrote an OP praising the President’s effort to get relief from the payroll tax to benefit low income earners and small business. Other measures can be taken to make up the deficit created by moving that burden to higher income taxpayers and big business. Everyone seems to want to glom onto the fantasy that the Social Security Trust Fund is a real thing.
In my opinion, one will quickly follow the other. :-)
great idea
deregulate everything!
and a moratorium on all taxes!
wuhan virus is not racist
spanish flu is not racist
chinese drivers are more dangerous than a chinese virus especially if they have been drinking corona
FYI: my heritage is Korean
the certificate of need is total bull shot
https://www.foxnews.com/health/epa-temporarily-stops-enforcement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/19/exclusive-trump-executive-order-regulations-economic-recovery/
This president is so philosophically correct in his instincts. It is a wonder to behold. He must be crushed by the progressives before enough people understand how correct he is.