See post #10. I have no problem with tax credits, but this is not a tax credit.
As I said, if this law is struck down and they try to restructure it as a credit (e.g. raise income taxes across the board by a flat amount with a “credit” for health insurance) then I would hope that the court sees that for the charade that it is.
My other point was that if you have insurance through your employer, you already get a tax deduction on your premiums, so any further screwing with deductions for health insurance (except allowing them for private insurance) would be almost per se evidence of trying to skirt the SCOTUS decision (if they strike it down).
Are you kidding us here? That has to be one of the most offensive “trick questions” I’ve seen posted by you over the years. I’ll let an expert who has actually argued 25 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States explain why.
No kidding. And it’s filthy tea party politics informed by ignorance and stupidity. And its managed to rise to the level of what is supposed to be an austere body of brilliant legal minds. It’s sickening to see.
We’ve been taking people’s money out of their paychecks for decades, to “force” them to pay into a retirement fund and an old-age medical fund. Now Congress is saying that the young and healthy who use (and they do use it) medical care now, not 40 or 50 years from now when they turn some magical number, but right here and now, will have to pay their fair share into the existing market that everyone else has been propping up for them for years.
*So what did 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jeffery Sutton have to say on the matter?
Indeed.
So when Solicitor General Verrilli entered the court to argue on behalf of The People, he had some of the most studied, knowledgeable and relevant opinions bolstering The People’s position. And how did the Court address him?
It was downright appalling. Seeing that same low level of rhetoric posted here isn’t nearly as shocking, but it’s exactly as absurd.
Bolding mine. So how is something that doesn’t encourage any action on your part coercive?
As you noted, a paltry $1000 per year is a drop in the bucket when it comes to raising a child. So you’re really not “paying a penalty” by not having another kid, you’re actually saving thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars per year. Only an idiot would say “hmm, I’m gonna have a kid so I can get an extra grand back at tax time” without realizing that even if they gave you TEN grand, having a child would still likely be a losing proposition, financially speaking. I’m NOT calling you an idiot, just calling to your attention that no one would feel financially coerced into having a child based on a $1000 tax refund.
Once when I was really really sick, my mom gave me all the ice cream I wanted. My whole class wrote me get-well cards. Everyone was nice to me and waited on me hand and foot. Then I got better, and the special treatment stopped. But I didn’t feel like their special treatment was “coercing” me into staying sick. Being healthy and not throwing up 10 times a day was worth not getting unlimited ice cream.
If the purpose of the Child Tax Credit isn’t to encourage me to support a child under the age of seventeen, then what is its purpose? What I was saying is that, since the amount is so small relative to the cost of supporting a child, it cannot encourage me to do it. I didn’t mean that it wasn’t an attempt to encourage me to have a kid, just that it wasn’t effective at encouraging me to have a kid. Add to that that the decision whether or not have children includes factors that go far beyond simple finances. Even if the Child Tax Credit were $500K per year, many would still choose not to have children.
Too bad the comparison is not what you claimed, then. It would be claiming the $1000 credit even though your child is older. Of course they aren’t going to arrest you for giving them extra money. They will for withholding it, although a garnishment is a better option.
As for Bricker’s question: The difference would be that in one scenario, I can get more money, and in the other one the best I can do is stay the same.
But that’s not the case in this setup. In both setups you end up with the same amount of money. The only difference is in how you phrase it. In one scenario, we both owe the government, say, $10,000 in taxes, but the government gives one of us a $1000 credit, making our total $9,000. In the other, we both owe $9000 in taxes, but the government makes the other one of us give $1000 more. The only difference is the point of view.
If it were not this way, then the entire concept of change wouldn’t work. If X + Y = Z, then there cannot be any difference between giving the government $X and giving the government $Z and them giving me $Y.
This is basic math. The only difference is that one makes some people feel cheated while the other doesn’t. But the raw facts show that those feelings are illusory.
But that’s not the case in this setup. In both setups you end up with the same amount of money. The only difference is in how you phrase it. Imagine there are two of us, one of us who pays for health insurance (A) and one of us who doesn’t (B). If buying healthcare gives us a tax credit, we both owe the government, say, $10,000 in taxes, but the government gives one of us a $1000 credit, making that person’s total $9,000 (A), while the other one stays $10,000 (B). If the government instead charges a fee to the person who doesn’t buy health insurance, we both owe $9000 in taxes, but the government makes the one of us (B) give $1000 more. This makes that person’s (B) total $10,000, but the other’s (A) is only $9000.
Either way A gives $9,000, while B gives $10,000. The only difference is that, in one scenario, B feels cheated. But since the amount of money is the same either way, this cheating is illusory. If it were not this way, the concept of change wouldn’t work…
For a lot of people that will factor in to whether they can afford to have kids, yeah - I mean, obviously money isn’t the only factor people take into account, but it is one of them.
As jtgain said, you can earn a certain amount of money before income tax kicks in. Think of the thousand dollars as your child’s non-taxable income amount being added to yours.
But if you acknowledge that raising kids costs more than $1000pa, I’m really not sure how you can say you’re losing out on $1,000pa by not having another child.
I don’t think that it is illusory at all. Imagine a law that stated that every citizen must be sentenced to 10 years in prison just for living. However, if the citizen does not rob a bank this year, then the sentence is waived.
This law would have absolutely the same effect that the current laws against bank robbery have. But here is my problem with this situation. The “credit” they are giving you is illusory. There was never before a reason that you would have to do 10 years in prison, so their generosity in waiving your 10 year prison term is not generosity at all.
In the same manner, if they can’t punish you for not having health care (assuming SCOTUS strikes it down) then they shouldn’t be able to accomplish the same thing by a different manner. Legislative intent is something that courts look at all of the time.
With the Child Tax Credit that is a good faith attempt to reduce a family’s tax bill when they have greater expenses than a family that does not have a child. We can see that from the legislative history. If this law is struck down, and Congress gets together for the express purpose of raising everyone’s income tax by a flat $1k but with a “credit” of $1k for having health insurance, we can look at the evidence and see that they did it for the express purpose of skirting the Supreme Court’s decision.
Plus the “having health insurance credit” wouldn’t make sense because it doesn’t reflect any change in your income level. If you have a job, then your premiums are already tax free. This “credit” would be for nothing except to be coercive.
I was wrong about the nature of jtgain’s objection before. There is more to it than just a preference but is coercion much of an angle? Taxation is coercive. We could just taxed everyone and have the government insure them and this would be perfectly constitutional. How then is there a problem when concessions are made for private enterprise? I mean, I get that many don’t believe that universal health care is a legitimate goal but that’s not the issue here. The issue is in the delivery.
Taxation isn’t supposed to be coercive. I realize that Supreme Court precedent goes against my opinion here. Taxation is supposed to raise revenue in a policy neutral way so the government can function. I am opposed to using taxation to coerce people into doing things that are beyond the power of the federal government to directly regulate.
I would assume that when President Santorum gets a bill passed enacting a $1 million tax on every abortion performed, that somehow the left won’t readily agree that the tax power is unlimited.
Taxation can’t not be coercive. If people aren’t forced to pay taxes then they aren’t taxes, they are donations. And directly regulating the health care market is entirely within the federal government’s purview. It’s interstate commerce after all. You can’t regulate in a policy neutral way. Deciding to regulate (or not to) is a policy question.
It is possible to disagree on policy questions without reference to constitutional principles. But yeah you are right. People will argue that Santorum can’t do it instead of that he shouldn’t.
They are coercive in the sense that you have to pay them. But generally taxes are there to raise money, not to stop you from pursuing an activity. Sales taxes, property taxes, and income taxes aren’t in place to keep people from buying stuff, owning a home, and having a job. They are there simply to raise money.
A tax on abortions or for not having health insurance is clearly not there to raise revenue, but to punish. And the whole statement about regulating interstate commerce is one the Court is dealing with right now…can you regulate by forcing participation?
The law doesn’t force anyone to participate in the health care market because everyone is already involved. Everyone uses health care at some point. Being forced to pay the same cost as everyone else isn’t a punishment. It’s necessary to ensure that others don’t have to pay your share (assuming we don’t just tax everyone and have the government provide the insurance).
Like Scalia pointed out and has been discussed in other threads, of course if you use the term “health care market” we all participate in it. Why should we draw such a broad line? We all participate in the “food” market but that doesn’t give the feds the power to mandate that I buy slim jims every week.
Name an activity, and I will put it in a broad enough category so as to make sure everyone participates in my broad market. Then the feds can force a purchase for everything under that standard.
Your failure to buy Slim Jims does not increase the necessary costs for everyone else. Is there any other market like health care? Where everyone will need it and at unpredictable times such a large amount that it would bankrupt nearly any individual and if you don’t get it you will die? I don’t think so. Name one and I’ll be wrong. Name three and I’ll be impressed. Name five and you’ll start to have a point that there is a slope to become slippery.
(Sorry if this is repetitive. I’m not following the other thread.)
I could label that same market “catastrophic health care.” One where not everyone will be a participant in. So why does the government need to mandate contraception coverage and routine doctor visits under the same scheme that regulates heart transplants? I contend that they are vastly different markets.
The only reason that my failure to buy health insurance will increase the costs for everyone else is because Congress mandated that. Can Congress really increase its own power by passing laws to create a problem, and then needing follow up laws to correct the problem?
You can do so but I don’t see how it helps your argument at all. That’s certainly not an example of another market with the conditions I pointed out. Unless you find some that do how can the mandate be seen as anything more than a limited exercise of power?
This is not so. People without health insurance cost the rest of us money before ACA and will continue to do so if the law is completely invalidated by an activist court. People with no ability to pay get treatment at emergency rooms and the rest of us pay for it. This is a fundamental issue with free market health care in a society compassionate enough not to just close the door in the face of sick or injured people even if they cannot afford the care they need. Lets note that if we moved away from private insurance to a single payer model there would be no constitutional issue. We could tax and spend for everyone as we already do for Medicare. If a more intrusive program is legitimate then serious can the problems with Obamacare be?
I don’t have kids and have only ever claimed myself on my taxes, so I have a clarification question to ask. You said your AGI was effectively going to go up by $1k next year. That’s not the same thing as your tax liability increasing by $1k, unless you’re in a 100% tax bracket. And if, indeed, this is just a $1k increase to your taxable income (as opposed to a $1k increase in your taxliability), at worst (for a theoretical one-percenter with no tax shelters) this would cost you $350. More likely, if you’re middle-class with a more modest income, it will cost you a couple hundred bucks at the most.
The “resistance” to the child situation would be claiming it without having another kid first. So no, committing fraud isn’t a different situation entirely. It is the situation.
Then you’re doing it wrong. You can toss an 18-yr old out of your house. He doesn’t have to cost you anything. Any aid you give him at this point is of your own free will, not mandatory. So why should the tax payer subsidize you and your charity?
Nothing makes my political blood boil more than the phrase “their fair share.” Show me the calculus that demonstrates what a “fair share” is, and how the young and healthy are paying less than it. Somebody has to be subsidizing somebody, and I guarantee you, it ain’t the sick ones holding up the healthy.