We need to remove the most unfair, most anti-work, most anti-saving provisions of the tax code – ones that burden the middle-class. These include a social Security earnings penalty that can push senior workers into a 95% marginal tax rate, a tax on nonsocial security income that even hits tax-exempt bonds, and unfair restrictions on part-time workers and the self-employed.
We need to remove the most unfair, most anti-work, most anti-saving provisions of the tax code – ones that burden the middle-class. These include a social Security earnings penalty that can push senior workers into a 95% marginal tax rate, a tax on nonsocial security income that even hits tax exempt bonds, and unfair restrictions on part-time workers and the self-employed.
Uncle Sam’s fiscal gap (promises minus expected revenues, looking indefinitely into the future) is now $239 trillion. That’s ten times the size of our Gross Domestic Product. Eliminating our current fiscal gap requires either a 50 percent immediate and permanent hike in all federal taxes or a 33 percent immediate and permanent cut in all federal outlays, apart from debt service. The longer we wait, the more painful the solution gets.
Written with Larry Wedekind, Goodman writes: The treatment of choice, almost everywhere, is called Medication Assisted Treatment (M.A.T.) and it involves substitute drugs. It has an 80% failure rate. There is a treatment that involves microcurrent neurofeedback and a recovery support team. It costs one-fifth as much and has a high probability of success. What the Trump administration can do: create CPT (payment) codes for this new method of treatment. What Congress can do: reform the Obamacare exchanges.
Do you have a mortgage on your house? And instead of paying off the mortgage are you investing money elsewhere? If so, then you are borrowing (from a mortgage company) at one rate and using the funds to invest at a lower rate – after adjustment for risk. Larry Kotlikoff says it makes more sense to pay off the mortgage – especially under the new tax law.
The amount you will save by paying off your mortgage rather than investing in securities amounts to more than one year’s income. If the alternative is to invest by means of a 401(k) – with the advantage of tax-free growth – it’s a closer call. But even here, many families will be better off if they pay down the mortgage.
In its February 2018 report, Social Security’s Inspector General formally accused SSA staffers of reducing the benefits of thousands of widows — to the collective tune of $132 million. Here’s how the fraud, intentional or not, works. SSA forces, cajoles, suggests, or simply permits widows to unwittingly simultaneously file for both their survivor’s (widow’s) and retirement benefits. Doing so prevents widows from taking one of these two benefits early and the other later, after it has grown dramatically.
Surprise medical bills arise when hospital patients discover that certain fees are not covered by their health insurance. The reason for the surprise is that the patient’s insurance company and the hospital itself list the hospital as “in network.” Then, when the bill is presented, the patient discovers that certain doctors or certain services were “out of network.” As I wrote previously, in a free health insurance market this would rarely happen. Do you know of any other insurance market where this is a problem? I don’t.
Nearly 150 House Republicans have signed on to a health plan that matches very closely the Goodman Institute plan developed for Donald Trump. It includes personal and portable health insurance, 24/7 access to a personal doctor, telemedical care in the patient’s own home, flexible Health Savings Accounts and a real market for the chronically ill.
Our reform framework was developed from extensive market research into demonstrated patient preferences. It draws on inputs from more than 25,000 patients, doctors, and health care professionals to determine what
stakeholders instead of politicians want from a health care plan. It is the first health care reform plan that comes directly from people rather than from Washington backrooms. Written with Alfredo Ortiz.