Ah yes Earned Income Credit. Way back, George McGovern talked about a guaranteed income for everyone as a negative income tax and some of us thought it was a good idea, just like Europe. Then while I was asleep it must have passed the Congress and we have EIC. I forget the numbers now but essentially if you make too little, you get a huge $8000 plus check from the government to make up for it. I have to admit, I never knew about this and just thought it was another couple hundred dollar credit like child care or something. Shame on me.
So while its a nice idea and we all want people to be supported, what are the cultural results? First we take a group of citizens out of the taxpayer role which means they have no dog in the race. Second we subsidize businesses that then are allowed to pay substandard wages (Walmart?). I just think in the long run, this is bad policy. Even in high school when I made very little, I still paid some federal and state tax. It was very little but I still paid. Everyone should pay and contribute something if you are a citizen benefiting from this great country.
Just a story: I was in charge of a scout fund raiser some years ago and did a program and asked for contributions at our banquet. I collected quite a bit of money that night including one $500 check and another one of about $1.50 in change. I commented on the big check and the small change to my wife and she asked if I knew who put the change in. I said no and she told me it was the lady that pretty much had nothing but still emptied her purse. The insurance agent got his thank you and wall hanging for his $500 but that lady that emptied her purse contributed far more. Should we deny this opportunity to people just because they don’t have much?
Most certainly Wal*Mart is the largest single beneficiary of welfare entitlements in this country. There are millions of Wally World associates who fine tune their work schedules to make certain that the total of their wages each year does not surpass the EIC limit. If you want to see “welfare Cadillacs,” “Welfare Maserattis,” “Welfare BMWs” and “Welfare Aston Martins” take a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas.
Retail in this country hire very very few full-time associates. They don’t want to pay any benefits. You’ll find MANY people working in retail for well over 40 hours…but NOT at one place. The assistant manager at Spencers also works 20 hours a week at WallMart.
This is the danger confronting our states from the Budget Control Act of 2011, which cuts $1.2 trillion from the budget over 10 years starting Jan. 2, 2013. Nearly half of that will come from automatic defense “sequestration,” which is on top of $487 billion already being cut from defense through the appropriations currently underway. The rest will come from other discretionary – but critical – spending at such agencies as the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA.
I hope that minimum wage is increased significantly and immediately. “they” (the owners of retail stores) don’t want to pay more but let them want in one hand…
If the increase in minimum wage enable the poorest to afford the bread the rest of us will just have to get over it. Of course, the Walton family might just take a cut in profits and not raise the price of bread while paying their associates a living wage. Did the Waltons ever take a cut in pay to keep prices down?
The good ole wage price spiral. I don’t think you’ll see the Waltons wanting to cut their profits any. They’d just try to squeeze it out of the suppliers some more. There was a downturn in sales last month and they are freaking out. They really would have a problem with increasing wages. Increase the wage, increase prices since they have already bottomed everyone out, loose the only advantage they have in the market. Maybe not a bad thing.
I believe that increasing the minimum wage does what is intended and has little effect on hiring. Otherwise, even $7.25 would be excessive. If increasing it would hurt employment and profits, then decreasing it to say, $5.00 must help according to that logic. $3.00 would be better still and working for nothing is optimal. I think that’s called tyranny.
I have another suggestion when it comes to minimum wage, but it involves the whole pay scale of the federal government. Right now there are separate pay scales for the military, civil service (GS), government workers (WG) and Congress/President/Supreme Court. The annual cost of living raise for each is voted separately along with separate votes for retiree’s and Social Security.
The only one not voted on is the Congressional/President/Supreme Court, that one is automatic. I think there should be one unified pay scale for the whole federal government. Retirees would get a fixed percentage of the pay for their retirement rank as they do now. The federal minimum wage would also be attached to the pay scale. Then there would only be one annual vote for a cost of living raise and everyone gets the same percentage raise, including the minimum wage or NO ONE gets one, including Congress.
Congress etc must also participate in any programs that they force on the American people, including Social Security, Medicare and Obama Care. Any pension they enjoy should be based on the same criteria as civil service, including years of service before becoming vested.
The last I heard, Obama care IS an attempt to offer the American public similar benefits to that offered to members of congress. Obama care, like Social Security, like Medicare, like Medicaid are all programs designed to help those who cannot afford to help themselves. Not everyone, especially the old, can afford to pay for private health insurance and retirement plans. This includes investing in the stock market. If anyone has a better solution short of, letting the old and the poor young go homeless and destitute or insisting they die early, please…step forward and promote it.
Social Security or Medicare NOW does not contribute one cent to the deficit and even the Bush administration by offering to use Medicaid payments to help fund Romney’s Obamacare like plan, realized that it was a more efficient and cost effective way to offer healthcare for all. Healthcare for all COSTS LESS then the healthcare for the privileged few does now. It’s hard to believe but for profit private carriers of insurance like Farmer’s which recently sponcered a major pro golf event, IS NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF HELPING THE POOR and elderly if it doesn’t result in enough profit to pay winning’s shares to Tiger Woods.
Why Social Security and Medicare have to be a topic of conversation by conservatives to avoid the sequester is a political and not a practical measure. ANY of you now retired recipients of both who are conservative and go along with these cuts by your own support, do so at the risk of cutting YOUR OWN benefits. I did not know so many of us were that independently wealthy.
We are retired and between my wife and I we pay about $900 a month for health insurance. Its going up $50 a month due to the additional provisions of Obama’s plan. Now that’s OK, but it seems to me it could be done cheaper. I’ve been trimming costs all my life and I would have liked to have seen a plan with major medical coverage with a high deductible that could be offered to the general populace for several hundred a month. Then add on packages for pharmaceuticals plus the health savings accounts. Just think a more streamlined plan could be offered is all.
The reason though that everyone needs to be included though is not to help the poor but to get the healthy to help pay into the risk pool. Same as any other insurance, the more people pay in that have fewer claims, the lower the cost is.
@bing
You are retired and not on Medicare ? How has it gone up because of Obamacare ? The reason everyone needs to be include is so “everyone is included” Tens of thousands die each year due to lack of healthcare. Why wouldn’t that help the poor who can’t afford insurance ?
Btw, even the healthy need health insurance. Name me someone under thirty who has never seen a doctor. Having children is very expensive. The healthy younger and uninsured go to emergency rooms for very expensive treatment that must be reinsured by Medicaid. So your taxes are already paying for them !!! That’s the reason they are included…they are already as a group, a drain on the system. It’s not only to lower the insurance cost to everyone else, it’s to pay their own way as well !!! The healthy uninsured are a big drain on the healthcare system too. They make claims…on our taxes…
The younger uninsured will now get preventative care which Obamacare stresses so they enter their retirement years healthier, thereby cutting costs of Medicare. Unlike private insurance there will be a maximum you can pay when implemented…as a percent of your income… Unlike private insurance now, there is a maximum limit to their profit margin and the rest has to go back into coverage.
Other then forcing every one to take part, is saving tens of thousands each year worth it ? What is the plan form the other side ??? The biggest reason Obamacare was past was…there was nothing from the other side and Obamacare according to the CBO CUTS medical costs.
I’m not old enough for medicare so we pay full freight. The notice just said “premiums are being adjusted due to the etc. etc.” Never gave a list.
Sorry but I disagree that people are not receiving health care. Those without coverage go to the emergency rooms and are treated instead of going to a clinic. This has been a main issue with hospitals having to cover the more expensive care in the ER because of the lack of insurance. No one is turned away in Minnesota or South Dakota. Now dental care is something else again but there is a movement to add dental care.
“Sorry but I disagree that people are not recieving healthcare…treated in Emergency rooms”
I don’t think we disagree on that. But, it is totally inadequate healthcare. Without a primary care physician, which is much cheaper both short and long term, and being part of a referral chain and on going health screen monitoring system, these people get sub standard healthcare. And even the few visits over time most importantly, financially off sets the uninsured being healthier. It is a high cost to the system. In our area, the cutbacks in overall hospital staff just to keep up with the emergency room costs for the uninsured is affecting care for everyone.
You and I pay for now through Medicaid which reemburses hospitals for the uninsured. That some how the uninsured automatically get adaquate healthcare for free is a fallacy which makes your statement technically true but incomplete. It is true in your state like every state.
Medicaid often doesn’t cover the full expense so as you know, hospitals charge exorbitant costs for all other procedures for the insured.
(Again Medicare part D is a huge expense that just adds to the coffers of drug companis. Obamacare addresses that too. )
There are other valid reasons for Obamacare…it’s not a socialist prank, anymore then Medicare which nearly every American, perhaps even you, looks forward to being covered by.
And you trust the invalidated reason your for profit provider gives you to adjust premiums upward. These adjustments have been going on regularly before Obamacare without explanation. Now they have fake reasons. OBamacare restricts profit and is only partially implemented. It does not increase private care costs.
@Bing
My neighbor and friend’s lovely mid twenties daughter with her life ahead of her, just recently went to a hospital in NY for Emergency room treatment for abdominal pain. She had no primary care there available with no follow up. She was missed diagnosed and sent home. She was re admitted a few days later and died on the operating table with a burst appendix.
This senereo is repeated to a varying degree, over and over again. So saying that emergency rooms give people adaquate healthcare in and of itself, is a fallacy. They are set up to make sure you are alive when you are released. The second doctor who performed the emergency surgery was in tears and shocked by the outcome himself. The situation these doctors are put into to provide follow up care in emergency room situation is traumatic to the whole system. These emergency room doctors face situations that have escalated making them unmanagable and too common for the uninsured !!!
There’s a BIG difference between going to the Emergency room and health care. With health care you can get checkups and have certain preventative procedures done. Not the same as going to the emergency room for trauma care only. Then what happens when you go to ER and they find that you have Cancer…then what. Do you get treatment??? Do they operate?? In most cases NO.
There have been many studies done that have shown that regular health care is far cheaper then ER room visits that cost THOUSANDS just for a basic visit.
Right @MikeInNH. Not that the analogy is accurate but you would call a tow truck in an emergency for your car, but you wouldn’t expect the towing business to change your oil and do preventative long term car maintenance care, repair body damage and replace a transmission. There is so much more to healthcare then what could possibly be done in a triage emergency room situation.
In the worst case situation, some one doing triage might even decide you were expendable because too many resources were required to save you.
Consider going into ER with abdominal pains that you let go too long because of lack of healthcare coverage and then competing with accident victims for treatment. Who knows how acute your situation is until you get the treatment which may be too late. This and what @MikeInNH had to say happens regularly and are prime reasons why many thousands of those WO coverage, even having the ER available STILL die unnecessarily EVERY YEAR.
In a small town it is somewhat easier to recognize the growing chasm between the haves and have nots in many situations, healthcare especially. Those who are financially well off and those who wish to be accepted by the well off go out of their way and pay the premium co-pays, etc., to see physicians and dentists who refuse to treat Medicare and Medicaid recipients. It amazes me that a local dentist has parlayed his “exclusive” practice into a $million enterprise in less than 6 years. Women at the Country Club brag about what they pay for the plastic that aligns teeth. And the only general practitioners in the area are salaried, working for the only hospital in the area and their primary function is to funnel walk ins to the hospital for tests and treatments. The well to do use specialists for their primary care provider. And that single full service hospital in the 5 county area has bragged that they can make Medicaid care profitable. They do so by isolating the haves from the have nots in most areas of care and a new wing was just opened that offers ‘suites’ to the in patients who insist on being indulged and out of site of the Medicaid crowd. I saw my brother being treated like royalty, even having nursing students assigned 'round the clock with him to wait on him hand and foot but an old family friend who was on Medicaid was left at the front door the day after surgery and told to call a cab.
And, the most disturbing comment made by the well to do is that which refers to America as a “welfare” state as a derogatory term. If welfare as defined; is a “govt. responsibility to provide assistance to those in need”, then yes; I am a proud member of a welfare state Just wish those who do horde money to the detriment of everyone else, felt the same way.