What the candidates aren't telling you....VAT Tax

JJ Husker

JJ Husker

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The odds are excellent that middle class Americans will get hit by a giant value-added tax (VAT) in the next decade. The arrival of a VAT would move the U.S. much closer to the fiscal policies of Europe and Asia, whose nations place a lot more of the burden for funding the government on autoworkers, secretaries, nurses, and the rest of the non-affluent. Says Brian Riedl, an expert on fiscal policy at the conservative Manhattan Institute: "If America wants to spend like Europe, and it does, America will have to tax like Europe."
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https://fortune.com/2020/02/18/middle-class-taxes-value-added-tax-2020-candidates/

I found this article interesting.....and a bit scary.

 
Crap! I didn't realize you had to register to see the bulk of that article.

It basically says that Trump will explode the deficit or any of the Dems will bury us in new spending and the only way out is a new VAT tax and increasing the rate on payroll taxes. Raising taxes on the rich is not near enough to cover our level of spending and to keep up with soaring Social security and medicare expenditures. Drastically cutting military spending could help but we all know how little will really get cut.

The one item they focused on was M4A costs if/when that ever comes to fruition. They're predicting something like 30 Trillion in new spending for M4A. Their point is that will have to be paid for somehow (obviously) but they didn't take the next step to figure in what savings we might experience in reduced healthcare costs and premiums.  Either way we're likely headed towards the middle and working classes having to shoulder an ever increasing share of the tax burden. Not great news imo.

 
What about the plans put forth by some of the Dem candidates that will bring up the tax rate on the top 1-5%?  The funds we would see from that would cover a great deal of the proposals for healthcare changes as well as public education.

I struggle to accept that the accusation that "Dems will explode the deficit" is based on anything - look at the last couple Dems impact on the deficit vs. the GOP and it's simply not what has happened since Reagan.

http://goliards.us/adelphi/deficits/index.html

On a side note, I'm not neccessarily opposed to a VAT tax.

 
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NM11046 said:
What about the plans put forth by some of the Dem candidates that will bring up the tax rate on the top 1-5%?  The funds we would see from that would cover a great deal of the proposals for healthcare changes as well as public education.

I struggle to accept that the accusation that "Dems will explode the deficit" is based on anything - look at the last couple Dems impact on the deficit vs. the GOP and it's simply not what has happened since Reagan.

http://goliards.us/adelphi/deficits/index.html

On a side note, I'm not neccessarily opposed to a VAT tax.
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I think you misread my summary.  I (they) said Trump, not the dem candidates, would explode the deficit. The knock on the dems was massive new spending would have an even more dire effect than cutting taxes, particularly in light of projected entitlement spending increases. And they also make a compelling point as to why raising the tax rate on the top 5% won’t generate the needed revenue. I believe they stated upping the top rate to 70% wouldn’t even cover half of what is needed.

Im not sure how I feel about a VAT tax. It’s a pretty regressive form of taxation that hits the lower and middle classes relatively harder than the rich. The whole gist of the article is that it will be needed even with significantly higher taxes on the rich. And it seems to me that when our government needs money the definition of “rich” just keeps creeping lower and lower. So of course no candidates will tell us the whole truth of what their plans will cost the average taxpayer.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article ( if the registration process is free and easy). I got the whole article on my phone with Google News. Not sure why when I linked the same article it was limited.

 
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