dmv wrote:
] Insight into where the tax system may actually go (rather than
] the wet dream of national sales tax replacing income tax)
]
] ] Pamela F. Olson, a former Bush Treasury official in close
] ] contact with administration tax planners, said the
] ] president will pursue a tax system where all income --
] ] whether from wages, dividends, capital gains or interest
] ] -- is taxed only once. That would mean eliminating taxes
] ] on dividends and capital gains paid out of fully taxed
] ] corporate profits. Most investment gains are currently
] ] taxed at 15 percent.
]
] From an idealistic standpoint, that's not necessarily bad...

Its a loophole you can drive a truck through. The corporate tax rate is low because you pay capital gains taxes on anything that comes out of there. If you no longer get those taxes then properly managed companies can simply issue stock to all their employees and pay out dividends instead of salaries. The people who get paid this way won't have to pay tax!

] ] The administration will also push hard for large savings
] ] accounts that could shelter thousands of dollars of
] ] deposits each year from taxation on investment gains,
] ] according to White House economic advisers who have been
] ] involved with the planning.
]
] And these are probably a Good Thing...

I agree.

] ] To pay for those large tax cuts, the administration is
] ] looking at eliminating both the deduction for state and
] ] local taxes,
]
] Uh oh...

OUCH.... There goes California.

] ] and the business tax deduction for employer-sponsored health
] ] insurance.
]
] Oh shit.

SWEET! As if the healthcare system wasn't fucked up enough as it is!

] Eliminating state and local deductions has a substantially
] disproportiate effect on the blue "United Cities of America",
] because the local and blue states provide a lot of services
] that cost money -- we pay more in Pittsburgh than rural PA,
] because Pittsburgh has to spend more (ok, bad example).

Bingo.

] Eliminating Health Care benefits means that all the talk of
] improving healthcare was bullshit, because now whatever
] government or private program is going to have to take on a
] great deal more customers; when business gets a tax break,
] they might have still had an incentive to provide private
] health care even in the presence of a public option; with no
] legislation and no break, only the elite employees and
] non-profits will bother.

I agree. Furthermore, the "uninsured" people in this country are people who have pre-existing conditions and aren't getting employer healthcare. Pushing more people out of employer healthcare will simply result in increasing numbers of uninsured people.

At AT&T in the 70's they deployed phones onto every desk in the company. They had long cords. They left the phones there for a week, and then went around and shortenned the cords by an inch. Left them there for another week, then went back an did it again. They kept shortening the cords until the complaint threshold reached an unsustainable level. Thats how they set the standard for phone cord lenght.

Guess what their doing with Healthcare?

RE: Bush Plans Tax Code Overhaul (washingtonpost.com)