If you were wondering who exactly gets the bulk of the tax cuts, here is the answer, from the Tax Policy Center:
This is germane to the question of benefit cost analysis (BCA). Rick Stryker says BCA is essential when putting into context the cumulative 26,500 excess deaths over the next ten years associated with BCRA.
So let’s be explicit. Cut Medicaid spending on the order of $772 billion; give tax cuts of $408 billion. The $772 billion cuts fall — almost definitionally — on low income households. The $408 billion tax cuts we can see benefit primarily high income households: roughly 2/3 to the top decile. 44.6% to the top one percentile.
So, I’m certain for a given calculation — worse health outcomes and deaths valued at low levels (they’re poor and middle income people incurring losses, after all), and value an incremental dollar’s worth of after tax income highly (they are after all more deserving), then it makes perfect sense to trade-off elevated mortality levels for higher after tax income for the rich.
I sum, my thanks to Rick Stryker for explicating the GOP Weltanschauung more clearly than GOP leaders have done themselves.
Menzie,
You are now making the ethical argument that’s generally behind much of progressive thinking, i.e., we don’t have to worry about the tradeoffs in saving statistical lives as long as the “rich” bear the cost.
Our ethical obligations to do not stop at the border of the US. And the definition of who is rich is relative. There are people in Africa who will die unless they get antibiotics and other basic medical care. Economists at the University of Wisconsin are obscenely rich compared to these people. Shouldn’t these economists’ salaries be taxed at at 90% rate so that lives can be saved? Are you ready to meet your moral obligations?
Rick Stryker: Setting the marginal utility of a dollar’s worth of income for a high income household equal to that for a low income is also an ethical judgment. Read a textbook.
Our concerns focus on citizens of the nation state because the political system encompasses those individuals. We live in a world (largely) of international anarchy. Read Waltz, Man, the State and War. Geez.
Menzie,
I think you need to read the textbook actually.
The textbooks point out that you can order utility of choices within a single agent but you can’t rank utility across agents. Welfare criteria used by economists are weak, i.e., pareto optimality, etc. A competitive equilibrium can be pareto optimal but that doesn’t mean it’s just. In my original comment, I was merely pointing out that saying a policy saves statistical lives is not enough, since the cost to those people whose statistical lives would be saved may be too high for them.
Once you start ranking utility across agents, as you are doing in this post, you are outside of economics and into the realm of moral philosophy. Hence, my question to you (which you ducked).
Nice false narrative.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ”
Unless the people in Africa are covered by the US government then the preamble doesn’t apply to them (unless their government decides it is so)
We are obligated by our morals to help the people of Africa, but not by the documents that created our nation (unless you think the people in Gitmo deserve to be covered by Constitutional law)
If our government decides to help the people of Africa then great! And those economists will pay the 90% tax rats if the law is passed.
Promoting the general welfare is in our Constitution. Is access to life-saving medicine not promoting the general welfare of our people?
The rich pay such a great proportion of our taxes because they have a vast amount of the money/income. http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/america-wealth-inequality/
Continuing on the trend that Reagan set us on is a recipe for creating a French revolution here at home. So much for domestic tranquility.
So they obviously think their ‘supporters’ are really really stupid or they are going to lose a lot of votes.
you yanks are strange creatures
Yup! You’ve shown our tax and entitlements systems are progressive. Isn’t that what “Progressives” have wanted for decades? For decades haven’t “Progressives” pushed for ever increasing tax cuts and increased benefits for the lower quintiles of our economic societies? When tax cuts for those actually paying them are proposed/implemented and those benefit increases are slowed, not stopped, it is a “Progressives” tragedy.
As -Not Trampis- explains “you (progressive) yanks are strange creatures” You “Progressives” seem to NEVER be satisfied always wanting MORE taxes and greater benefits. What actually would be satisfying to you?
“What actually would be satisfying to you?”
A civil society. Many European countries, Canada, Australia, etc. are better examples of the America we want for our children, but greed (and let’s be honest, racism) gets in the way.
The U.S. is a nation of immigrants.
To say the U.S. is not civil and racist is to say the best people in the world are not civil and racist.
Many of the best people continue to move here and raise their children in the greatest country the world has ever seen.
It would be a horrible world without the U.S.. It’s the most powerful empire the world has ever known and has done tremendous good in many ways.
“To say the U.S. is not civil and racist is to say the best people in the world are not civil and racist.”
Ask the people who are not in the minority if this country is not racist. As a white male I see/hear the racism all the time and my responses are not welcome. Imagine what minorities see. There are boatloads of examples on how this country doesn’t treat minorities as humans. To argue otherwise shows a lack of awareness that borders on racism.
Yes, people come here to avoid starvation, but that in no way means we don’t have huge problems.
The ideology of this country is revolutionary in human history, but the implementation has a long way to go. We have come a long way from slavery, but we have a long way to go.
Phil, you have quite an imagination.
Phil, want a civil society, then campaign for it. This conservative sees most civil destructive/violent disobedience coming from the liberal/progressive side, antifa, not Trump, etc groups. Most blatant racism from organizations like BLM and its supporters.
Perhaps you have been brain washed to believe what you do?
“To say the U.S. is not civil and racist is to say the best people in the world are not civil and racist.”
Ask the people who are not in the minority if this country is not racist. As a white male I see/hear the racism all the time and my responses are not welcome. Imagine what minorities see. There are boatloads of examples on how this country doesn’t treat minorities as humans. To argue otherwise shows a lack of awareness that borders on racism.
Yes, people come here to avoid starvation, but that in no way means we don’t have huge problems.
The ideology of this country is revolutionary in human history, but the implementation has a long way to go. We have come a long way from slavery, but we have a long way to go.
You need to stop hanging around the tiny percentage of people who are actually racist.
“This conservative sees most civil destructive/violent disobedience coming from the liberal/progressive side”
Then you are spending too much time watching Fox and reading Breitbart who have an agenda to show you exactly that.
Right wing violence/intimidation is an epidemic in this country and since you can not see that you are part of the problem.
Phil, claims: “Right wing violence/intimidation is an epidemic in this country and since you can not see that you are part of the problem.” please enlighten us on the epidemic. When I see violence it is almost always from the left.
After doing a quick search for articles on “Right wing violence/intimidation is an epidemic..” I found nothing. Other than your heart felt deep beliefs it is true, show us the evidence.
I think, Republicans have been winning elections, in part, because more income redistribution and spending on the poor didn’t result in stronger economic growth and an improvement in overall welfare.
And, not enough people are paying their fair share:
CBO: Top 40% Paid 106.2% of Income Taxes; Bottom 40% Paid -9.1%, Got Average of $18,950 in ‘Transfers’
December 9, 2013
“The top 40 percent of households by before-tax income actually paid 106.2 percent of the nation’s net income taxes in 2010, according to a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time, households in the bottom 40 percent took in an average of $18,950 in what the CBO called “government transfers” in 2010.
The households in the top 20 percent by income paid 92.9 percent of net income tax revenues taken in by the federal government in 2010, said CBO.”
Many more counties switched to Republicans:
http://brilliantmaps.com/changed-counties-2016/
A lot of college educated whites voted Republican:
http://brilliantmaps.com/if-only-x-voted/
The Republicans have used the Obamacare repeal as a platform with no replacement plan aside from about 6 plans that was not vetted by the CBO (I have the list so don’t bother trying to come up it). Now that they are running the government, they are finding out that it isn’t so easy after spending time and money to repeal it. Even then, most polls shows that majority of the people do not like the bill.
I saw an interview on Newshour recently which Warren Buffet was interviewed about the healthcare battle going on in Congress. Since the interviewer brought up the point of the tax cuts. Buffet produced his most recent tax return and stated if the House bill (AHCA) was enacted, he would gain $679,999 in tax cuts and also pointed out that some of his friends he knows of will gain $10M. This BRCA is nothing more than a tax giveaway in guise of repealing the ACA. This bill has the “Vote me out in 2018” written all over it for the Republicans.
It seems, the top 1% has an adjusted gross income of about $500,000 or higher. How much should they pay in taxes?
And, it seems, Warren Buffett has more faith donating billions of dollars to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation than to the federal government (they should be able to donate to specific government organizations, like NASA, although, I’m not sure they would).
I doubt raising tax rates on people earning $5 million or more a year, for example, will add up to much.
We need to create more taxpayers and spend less on the unemployed and underemployed.
PeakTrader: Absolutely! So much the better to decrease the surplus population.
Menzie Chinn, I was talking about decreasing the huge annual budget deficits through work.
Work won’t kill them.
PeakTrader: But the effect of BCRA would be to reduce the “surplus population”. So in that case, that provision would kill them.
Menzie Chinn, work will reduce the “surplus population.”
We need more people to produce value and pay taxes, which causes less government spending on them. Then, there’s more money to help other people.
Also, we need to allow the free market to work, which will reduce health care costs and raise quality.
People die due to a lack of access to affordable health care. Decreasing access to affordable health care will result in deaths. There are no studies disproving this. The fact is that you (and many other conservatives) know this and don’t care. Eliminating Medicaid for a 90 year old in a nursing home or a child with disabilities will not convince them to get a job that pays for health insurance, it will kill them.
Phil, extremists like you have made U.S. health care unaffordable to more people.
The policies you support speak louder than your rants.
And, Phil, regarding your previous comments. There is only one race – the human race.
What you perceive as racism is rejection of some cultural values.
There’s much more intolerance on the left than the right.