For the day on which we celebrate the founding of our commonwealth, Matt Bruening, at Demos:
In the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, numerous writers have noted that we shouldn’t have employer-provided health care at all (I, II). Instead, they argue, it should be done publicly. These arguments don’t go far enough though. We shouldn’t move just health care away from employers; rather, we should take away the entire employer-provided welfare state.
The phrase “employer-provided welfare state” might seem to be a contradiction, but it’s an apt description of what we have in this country. Employers don’t just pay out cash incomes to workers, but are instead tasked — whether by law or not — with running complex social insurance schemes among their workforce. They pay people to take time off of work for leisure (vacation), take time off of work to have children (parental leave), put away money for their retirement (pensions, 401ks), provide short-term disability leave, provide health care, protect them against unemployment (severance), and so on…
The sensible move here would be to liberate the entire welfare state from private employers as much as possible. It makes no sense to have a patchwork of millions of different corporate-administered welfare states throughout the country. If you think it is good to have labor-tax-funded welfare benefits, then we should go for it. Impose higher labor taxes (to replace the implicit labor taxes employers already impose) or maybe tax something else like consumption. Then, with that revenue, provide universal paid vacation, universal parental leave, universal healthcare, universal severance, universal pensions, and so on. Instead of having each little corporate unit running its own tiny social insurance pool funded with its own internal labor taxes, use the entire country as a social insurance pool that is funded with labor (or some other) taxes…
Graphs and reasoned arguments at the link.
***********
In the mid-sixties and raining here, which I consider good news, because the last several days have been oppressively humid and way too hot. And the closest local fireworks display had already been rescheduled till tomorrow, anyways.
How’s the celebrations (if only of another Friday evening) going in your neighborhood?
Belafon
Interesting idea. The screams of misunderstood soshulism would be heard on Fomalhaut b (25 light-years away) even through the vacuum of space.
Litlebritdifrnt
I am enjoying Elon James White’s twitter feed right now. He was eating brunch somewhere and there was Cricket on the tv, which he thought was some tiny, archaic niche sport. Lots of people are educating him on the game and it is really fun to watch.
Baud
So much for the principle that workers earned those benefits.
Thomas F
“…or maybe tax something else like consumption.” Let’s have pies in the sky as well. And universally-subsidized unicorns & cupcakes. Yawn.
Villago Delenda Est
But that would be…the word is on the tip of my fingers…um…SOCIALISM!
Villago Delenda Est
Dupe self nuked. Stupid fingers.
NotMax
Shall have to get back to you on that, as we haven’t even yet reached noon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Thomas F: Better idea…let’s have a tax on wealth, for at least two reasons: first, it’s where the actual money is, and second, the accumulation of it over generations leads to feudalism, which we basically declared our independence from some 238 years ago.
Keith G
Well, maybe things do indeed need to get worse before there is an increase in the necessary energy to make things better.
There are sufficient voting blocks in place right now that could weaken the grip that the GOP has on many state governments. Even in many of the gerrymandered House districts, there could be voter turn outs that would chasten many of the voices for retrenchment. I guess when younger, single women and Hispanics care enough about the damage done to them they will summon the energy and the focus to vote for their interests.
Felonius Monk
I see by the Newsmax headlines at the right side of the page that Joe “Shithead” Lieberman broke some wind again, but I don’t have the stomach or the inclination to click the link.
Derelict
Right idea, wrong mechanism. About all this would accomplish is completely demolishing the social safety net while allowing employers to cash in big-time. If you think they’d be giving any of those bucks back to the employees that would otherwise have gone to administer the “welfare states” as described, I have a barnyard full of unicorns for you.
Instead, let’s impose a 35% tax on all corporate profits–no deductions, no shenanigans. It’s the flat tax Republicans are oh-so-excited about. Only now, we’re going to apply it to those corporate persons. General Electric is, of course, free to go pray to whatever god it worships.
Villago Delenda Est
@Derelict:
That would be Mammon, the same one the Hobby Lobby assholes worship.
Baud
@Derelict:
Fair enough, but I’m skeptical whether that alone would raise enough money to fund the recommendations in the post.
Villago Delenda Est
Noisemax strikes again:
America, How Do You Rate Your President?
The option of “infinitely superior despite his flaws to anyone with an (R) behind their name” is of course not available.
ruemara
What celebrations? My ass has been glued to this chair, building a 6 month editorial, advertising and event calendar along with a related task list. So far, all I have working is the calendar part. Why, you may ask? Because there is that much to do on a daily basis and the people for whomst I am en
slavedemployed, feel that it is too much to create their own calendar and I need to set alarms and guidelines for their tasks. Which amuses greatly, because after I presented my marketing plan, they were upset because they didn’t understand why a marketing manager would tell them a plan. I shall try to go out and grab a bit of the local festivities for a bit though I know to quit after 5 hours.ruemara
@Baud: It probably would. We’re now getting our lowest portion of US income rate from taxation of corporations, ever.
MikeJ
@Derelict:
GE usually doesn’t have any profits, at least if you believe what they tell the IRS.
I think companies should pay taxes based on what the put in their prospectuses. What you tell investors you earned is what you pay tax on.
Corner Stone
Have spareribs almost ready to go in the oven. Marinated them overnight in a beer/honey/soy sauce imbroglio. Now have patted them dry and rubbed a nice dry seasoning mix onto them.
It’s going to be epic.
Corner Stone
I think we need a 90% graduated tax rate, combined with an estate tax of 50% for everything over a certain level. No bursnpbesq exclusions allowed.
RepubAnon
It’s my understanding that employer-provided health insurance dated back to WW2 wage freezes, where employers were competing for scarce workers, but couldn’t offer higher wages. Insurers quickly realized this was a good way to cherry-pick healthy people to insure (if you’re chronically ill, you probably have trouble holding down a job.) The insurers offered lower premiums to the employers, and the employers got around the wage freezes – win/win – but it was still compensation.
The idea that employer-provided benefits is somehow a “gift” rather than part of the employee’s compensation package ignores basic reality, and all those Human Resources consultants making big money designing “compensation packages” for top executives. Somehow, I doubt the CEOs feel their bargained-for use of the company jet for private travel is a “gift” – even if they think the benefits given to the worker bees are a form of largesse rather than income.
Michael Bersin
Played in the orchestra for the Booms and Blooms concert at Powell Gardens (botanical gardens east of Kansas City) last night. Huge crowd and very pleasant weather. Preset my camera and tripod and got a few photos of the fireworks after the performance. I’m contemplating going to the local display in our ‘burg tonight.
gnomedad
A thousand times this.Once upon a time, employers had a motive to take care of their (lifetime) employees. No more. Obsolete model.
MikeJ
@RepubAnon:
The Supreme Court seems to disagree with you. I always thought it was something employees earned, but they tell me it’s a gift from the employer.
ruemara
Wow, Joan Rivers. Keeping it homo/transphobic & klassy.
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
Rivers was an edgy female comedian in 1962. She never got over it.
Mr Stagger Lee
@efgoldman: Yes the FSM did give us a solid in wake of what happened this week.
FlyingToaster
Well, the Pops put on their shindig last night, which we watched on the TeeVee. WarriorGirl kept demanding an explanation for why we didn’t go there and watch it live, to which the same 3 reasons were given a few thousand times:
a) You’re 6 years old. You’ll fall asleep and I can’t carry you anymore.
b) It’s on the Charles; we’ll be eaten alive by bugs.
c) It was 97 fucking degrees in Watertown this afternoon; it will only be marginally cooler on the Esplanade, and you can’t bring a cooler of icewater into the audience area.
d) There’s a hurricane coming.
She fell asleep during the fireworks; I woke her up for the (taped from last year) 1812 Overture, to be rewarded with “Mom, those are REAL CANNONS!” With the real lightning and thunder in the background.
She’s been playing “hiding from the hurricane” in our bedroom and watching the Mythbusters marathon all day.
I’ve been goofing off and playing sous chef (HerrDoktor Toaster is cooking all the stuff I chopped up) and watching the hurricane send us thunderstorms from a thousand miles south. 10pm should be the closest approach (~400mi SE). And I’ve been doing lots of laundry.
Hope the folks down in the Carolinas and Virginia have made it through okay.
Ruckus
You mean the ongoing (at least the last two months) explosions every night, some times till 3am? And I’m talking what sounds like 1/4 sticks, not those little poppers.
My answer therefore is not so well actually.
Fuck the fourth I’m getting tired of it. Of course my landlord just found a box of M80s so I’ve got that to look forward to. I may get some sleep over the next week or two. Some.
Violet
Going to make burgers on the bbq. Corn on the cob. Not sure if I’m bothered enough to make a salad. Maybe.
It was supposed to rain here today but it hasn’t yet. Just hot and humid. Typical July. I guess the fireworks will go on as planned tonight.
gene108
@Derelict:
WTF?
These “deductions” you refer to are what businesses use to determine a profit. For any entity there are rules in place as to what qualifies as an expenses and how they can reduce your tax liability.
Like home interest mortgage deduction can reduce the tax liability of a home owner to be lower than a renter with the same income, there’s nothing inherently wrong in minimizing your tax liabilities.
Corporate profits are not as big an issue as inherited wealth, in my opinion, because corporate profits can fluctuate over the years and decades. I bet 50 years ago, GM was making money hand over fist and looked unassailable as America’s largest company.
Inherited wealth, with favorable tax laws, can create dynasties and turn us into a feudal state.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Ruckus:
It hasn’t been too bad in my part of town. I mean, it’s not like it’s something important like Genocide Day.
(I still don’t understand why genocide commemoration goes hand-in-hand with heavy drinking and obnoxious car horn tooting, but apparently it does.)
currants
@FlyingToaster:
I’m not willing to wish ill on people, but I have to admit I had the passing thought that a weather event might let the Carolinas slip away from us.
Steeplejack
@Thomas F:
Yeah, because that’s not regressive at all.
Ruckus
@gene108:
He didn’t say it was an either or situation. Both of you are right but forgot to add personal income rates for the wealthy, more in line with what middle class people pay when they have wages. You know not less than.
currants
@gene108:
Of course they can. Here’s a kind of interesting graph of that profit fluctuation, after-tax (thanks to my friend fred). I don’t know what the tax rates over those years were, but for me, I’d say let’s tax Corp taxes PLUS inherited wealth.
WaterGirl
@FlyingToaster: Is there an age where you plan to stop saying “fucking” in front of your daughter?
The reason I ask is that I had a very interesting trip to the shoe store with my sweet little niece 35 years ago. In the course of trying on shoes when she was 6, she used some version of the word fuck 3 different times. “Oh, fuck.” “I cant get this fucking shoe on…” “Fuck it, can we go?”
I was in my early twenties and I thought it was all very funny. I was very proud that she had used the right version of the word fuck each time; it was almost as if someone had asked her to conjugate the word.
My sister, not so much. That was it for her; she read the riot act to her husband that night about language that would no longer be used when his friends were over.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Actually, I think—though I’m too lazy too look it up—that when Burns commented on the inheritance tax way back when he had what sounded like a pretty good plan.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
You’re missing the point. Horn tooting and heavy drinking is the reason for Genocide Day, not the other way around. Having a title makes it more acceptable, like saying it’s after 5pm somewhere.
cmorenc
Does that “universal paid vacation” thing mean that I’m universally on “paid vacation”?
Steeplejack
Weather turned out beautiful today. I just opened the front window so the housecat could sniff the breezes. It’s 77° now, and it got up only to 79° earlier, according to Weather.com. Didn’t get any rain, and it’s sort of sunny now. Going down to 58° tonight—yee-haw!—then heating back up to the mid-90s by Monday. Mid-80s tomorrow and Sunday, I think. Not bad for July here in NoVa.
WereBear
The good news is, the heat wave broke.
The bad news is, the kitties’ accumulated energy was then released. It took me three times as long to play out Mithrandir.
⚽️ Martin
@Corner Stone: Yeah, that system actually does seem to work, though the big unspoken is earned vs unearned income. I’d be okay with a lower tax rate for earned income, but unearned should be way the fuck up there. I don’t mind people get paid for their work. If we’re going to have athletes destroy themselves physically by the time they’re 30, lets at least give them enough income to no have to go find a career when they’re 50. But if you’re sitting on your ass playing the market then yeah, cough it up. Nobody should be able to make a billion dollars in a year as a hedge fund manager. Sorry, but no one person provides that kind of value to a company.
Corner Stone
@⚽️ Martin: I agree to some extent. Income is income. Rent is income. Interest is income. Cap gains are income.
Let’s tax people in a fair way on how they benefit from society’s commitment to the commonweal.
gene108
@currants:
Corporate profits have almost doubled as a share of the GDP. In 1950, the GDP was about $300 billion, with profits being $19.8 billion or 6.6% of GDP. Today profits are $1906.8 billion with a GDP of $16,800 billion or 11.35% of GDP.
I think the issue is more to do with wages than taxes and how productivity gains are not passed on to the worker bees.
Whatever laws that need to be tightened up need to do more with pegging worker compensation to CEO pay, so there’s an incentive for CEO’s to raise worker’s wages to boost their own pay.
gene108
@Mike J:
What the IRS measures as income and what financial accounting standards (GAAP, in the U.S., IFRS in other parts of the world) measures are different, with regards to when income and expenses are recognized, so you have these timing differences between financial reporting standards and tax laws that GE and other companies us to minimize tax liabilities.
What you propose is for them to sync up, which would be a Herculean task.
Congress outsourced the establishment of rules for GAAP to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), but can step in to change accounting standards in the USA at any time.
Congress is solely responsible for tax rules.
What you propose would be for Congress to create the largest overhaul of both financial regulations and tax rules at the same time. The complexity required to pull this off and not go FUBAR, with the new rules, is mind-boggling. Deep-Thought could not even conceive of a way to do this, even after 7 million years of thinking it over and would have to punt to a new, more powerful computer.
Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. Period.
gogol's wife
@Ruckus:
I feel for you. I hate this stupid “holiday.” But my neighborhood is nothing compared to what you’re going through.
⚽️ Martin
@Corner Stone: But income isn’t income – at least as far as the government should be concerned. The number that the government should be most focused on is per capita GDP. If that number is dropping, then we’re pretty boned no matter what the tax structure is.
But not all income contributes to GDP equally. Investment income above a certain level becomes nothing more than money changing, and that doesn’t contribute to GDP at all. And it’s fragile, as we learned in 2008. The government through its tax system should be encouraging durable, high yield income – labor, mainly – over investment. Because that benefits the nation as a whole, it makes sense to tax it with that in mind. Reward labor, and don’t reward investment over a certain level. Making unearned income below the federal poverty level tax free would be a fair approach. Allow people to build and benefit from their own Social Security system, but above that line the tax rate jumps way up and keeps going up.
2 years ago I earned about $40K in unearned income and paid a 0% tax rate on it (that’s $40K above my cost basis). I did nothing to shelter that income or try and offset my taxes on it. I was expecting to pay 15% but the tax code was set up to let me take it for free. I didn’t have to pay Social Security taxes on it, or anything else. Even a part-time McDonalds worker paid more in taxes than I did on that income. That’s just not right. You shouldn’t be punished for working over not working, and the current tax system does exactly that.
Matt McIrvin
Samantha’s concert band had a couple of concerts scheduled for today, one of which was postponed to tomorrow because of the hurricane. But the outdoor concert at the volunteer fire department’s pancake breakfast in Andover went off as planned, though with a smaller crowd than usual. There wasn’t even any rain to speak of until right when the concert was over.
Thus far Arthur seems to be mostly dumping rain on us, and in Haverhill it’s not even a tremendous amount of rain. We had a whopper of a storm yesterday when I was picking up my daughter after day camp.
Corner Stone
@⚽️ Martin: It sounds like you’re arguing with me just because you like to read your own comments.
⚽️ Martin
@Corner Stone: I thought you were arguing that all income should be treated equally.
dmsilev
@FlyingToaster: For the fireworks, I highly recommend camping out on the Mass Ave bridge. Beautifully un-obstructed view, doesn’t fill up quite as early as the Esplanade per se (6 or 7 PM is fine for getting a reasonable front-row space) and the wind off the river keeps the heat from being too too bad.
Obviously a moot point this year, but something to think about next year.
Davis X. Machina
@⚽️ Martin:
It’s theological. Work is punishment — cf. Eden, snake, woman, etc…. All wages are the wages of sin.
Wealth, OTOH — that’s different. Mortals. without presumption or blasphemy, even gathered in a legislature, have any business second-guessing how God has, from before the beginning of time, decided to bestow the good things of His Creation, unmerited and unearned, or upon whom He has chosen to bestow them.
(There is another tradition. But that never seems to elbow its way into the Zeitgeist.)
Davis X. Machina
@dmsilev: Roof of William James Hall at Harvard isn’t bad. (Thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for that, a couple of summers.)
Corner Stone
@⚽️ Martin: Maybe I should have been more clear.
People that earn money off money should have an obligation to pay society for the general stability that allows that income.
I don’t want fast food workers to pay more on a percentage basis than hedge fund managers/property owner rentiers.
I do think that some accommodation could be entered into for “retired” people who have invested in a class of products that they derive income from, and which they base their living standards.
We’re not going to get there anytime soon, but it needs to happen.
Steeplejack
@⚽️ Martin, @Corner Stone:
I think you guys are semi-vehemently semi-agreeing.
Matt McIrvin
@⚽️ Martin: I don’t know, does per-capita GDP even matter much? Probably if it’s dropping, but the US is actually doing all right now in terms of per capita GDP. It took a major hit in 2008-09 but that was basically it. Most people aren’t seeing the growth as wages; it’s just going to the rentier class.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: Nuh-uh!
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin:
Not really. Not based on this discussion, anyway. Martin can sometimes be a fancy pants when it’s just not called for.
Corner Stone
Either we’re about to get fucking pasted where I am, or God has decided to put on his own fireworks show for a bit.
In any event, I love you all! No matter what occurs, stay alive! I will come for you!
Anoniminous
@Matt McIrvin:
No. It’s a macro-economic granfalloon.
JPL
@WaterGirl: haha.. My oldest was two plus and was watching Captain Kangaroo and the Captain was showing a duck with a broken leg. He looked at me and said this really sucks. I explained that it was sad and that would be more appropriate. A few months later my baby was at the doctor’s and he was about ten months old. The doctor dropped his stethoscope and here is the baby who says oh shit. Fortunately, the doctor looked around and saw the baby on the table and shook his head, as if to say no way a baby says shit. Yes I cleaned up my language.
JPL
@Steeplejack: So are they both saying that earned and unearned tax should be the same? Maybe it’s something deeper though.
eemom
@WaterGirl:
Here’s a little story you might like.
PurpleGirl
When Macy’s fireworks are on the East River, roughly by the UN, I have a clear view to the river and the UN. I may not see the low explosions but I’ll see the high explosions. This year they are doing the fireworks by the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m not happy about this. There are a bunch of tall buildings between me and the Brooklyn Bridge. And even though they close off certain bridges and roadways, You can’t brings chairs with you (at least the past you couldn’t) or coolers with drinks, food, etc. No way I can stand from say 4 PM until 9:20 when the fireworks shows typically start. I know there are lots of people who do go out the viewing locations, but I can’t. So I’m a little pissed at the City right now. (This is a City decision, not Macy’s.) Until a few days ago, the City wasn’t giving the Coney Island sponsors a permit for fireworks tonight. (Probably on the grounds that Macy’s show is at the Brooklyn Bridge, but they didn’t actually say.) Now the Coney Island group got the permits for every other Friday night this summer but originally not for tonight. I’ll probably be able to see some of that show from my terrace.
shelley
Heavy storms over the past 24 hours have put the kibosh on our holiday explosions. Even our town fireworks have been postponed till tomorrow. But the skies are finally clearing and we have the whole weekend for the local yahoos to make up for lost time.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@JPL:
Yes, pretty much, although I think one of them went so far as to say that unearned income should be taxed at a higher rate, an idea with which I am sympathetic, with some allowance for retirees, pensioners, etc. It should at least be on the table for discussion. Lincoln said labor comes before capital, and we’ve been ignoring him ever since.
WereBear
Thus, the incomes levels should be tiered, with higher amounts rising.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@WereBear:
Not sure exactly what you’re saying. The original point of “unearned income taxed more” was just that, say, $50,000 of stock profits and dividends would be taxed more than $50,000 of wages.
PurpleGirl
@ruemara: Her brain has softened — too much plastic surgery, too much hair bleaching, too much of everything. People take a hint from her, this is what happens to you when you decide not to age gracefully.
WereBear
@Steeplejack (tablet): Yes, but what if someone’s retiring on that, and not making much?
Just a thought.
Keith G
@ruemara:
Ah….No. That would be sarcastic hyperbole used as a riff off the News Max (and National Inquirer-type) head lines proclaiming Obama’s secret sexuality.
Ya see, sometimes comedians say things that are not meant to be taken literally.
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman: Middlesex Concert Band, out of Wakefield. Sam plays French horn.
opiejeanne
@Michael Bersin: my aunt’s memorial service was held at Powell Gardens; her husband was a Powell and related to the people who started the garden.
FlyingToaster
@WaterGirl:
Doubt it. I occasionally drive in Boston traffic, therefore, I curse like a sailor. As does my husband, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, WarriorGirl’s godless parents, etc.
I don’t even remember if I actually said “fucking”. I certainly thought it.
We have a rule about “words you don’t use at school”, which is universal for the adults and children. George Carlin is probably laughing somewhere, because “tits” isn’t one of them :)
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: It’s a lot worse now. Instead of understaffing and drunks you’ve got the militarized police state and no bottles of anything allowed inside the cordon.
The overhead view with the staties standing around the edges was just creepy. I’ll wait until WG is old enough and we’ll do the MuseumofScience shindig. I miss the days when I worked in Riverview II (Cambridge side) and could watch out the office windows.
They also moved the fireworks from below the Longfellow to halfway between the Longfellow and Harvard bridges, which looked awful (note, the low cloud ceiling and the impending thunderstorm didn’t help).
FlyingToaster
@dmsilev: I’ll wait until I think she can stay awake through them. I told her 8 or 9 or 10, at the earliest; if we can get her cousin in the Navy leave, and can get up to the front “photogenic” section, I’d happily do the Esplanade, otherwise, forget it.
PhilbertDesanex
@Keith G: All that, but I still like her diet joke ‘If it tastes good, spit it out!’
Steeplejack (tablet)
@WereBear:
Hence my suggestion of some allowance for retirees, etc. And of course low incomes of any type can be taxed less than higher ones.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anoniminous: It’s rather like how the “average income in the room” is utter bullshit if Bill Gates walks into it.