& BRIEFLY NOTED: FOR 2022-02-23 We: The remarkable thing about Rick Scott’s culture-war Republican campaign document—the only thing that the Republican Party has put out about what its legislative program might be—is that in order to achieve his culture-war objectives, Rick Scott did not have to call for raising taxes on more than 100 million people. All he would have had to do was drop the word income from the phrase “all Americans should pay income tax to have skin in the game…”
The US personal income tax is not nearly progressive enough and we should be collecting more in taxes from high income earners. Some of this should come from structural reforms like changing deductions into partial tax credits, but higher rates will be needed too. But if we are going to reduce the structural deficit to free up more resources for investment and pay for useful transfer programs like a Child Tax Credit, some of us less than super rich are going to have to pay more too. Shifting from a capped tax on wages to a VAT for funding SS and health insurance subsidies would help, too.
The US personal income tax is not nearly progressive enough and we should be collecting more in taxes from high income earners. Some of this should come from structural reforms like changing deductions into partial tax credits, but higher rates will be needed too. But if we are going to reduce the structural deficit to free up more resources for investment and pay for useful transfer programs like a Child Tax Credit, some of us less than super rich are going to have to pay more too. Shifting from a capped tax on wages to a VAT for funding SS and health insurance subsidies would help, too.