On taxes - let's get real. One of the key components of the Democratic coalition is the blue coastal metropolitan areas upper middle class (New Jersey 17% of Dem primary voters earned over 150K, Maryland 18%). And while one way of looking at it is the 97% figure, another is 'a little over double the median income of a family of four' in the NYC suburbs. Furthermore, it's still a pretty huge part of the total income pie. He's also planning on scrapping the SS cap meaning that the effective top federal marginal rate would end up at 47%. And that's federal - most states and some local governments have their own income tax, here in NYC you'd be looking at a top marginal rate of over sixty percent - care to compare that to your country? Plus he's proposing increasing the capital gains tax from the current 15% to 28%. All in all the wealthy are looking at their biggest tax hike in living memory - remind me, what did the most recent SPD government do? Care to refresh my memory on what sort of platform the CD's were running on in the last election?
Housing - I have some sympathy for your point of view, but it isn't at all clear what the progressive position should be on a crisis which is disproportionately affecting both middle income and minority households.
The first is the "hope for a miracle" approach to universal coverage in Senator Obama's plan.
The second is that the "pay" side of the "pay or play" does not go directly to funding the coverage of the employee, but is pooled into the funding base for the public plan, encouraging better paid employees to stay clear of the public plan.
The first is for political expediency, since focus grouping of younger voters will find that many of them prefer the "don't start paying in until you get sick" approach.
The second is to arrive at a small budgetary cost, since its a system that reduces the amount that the government must provide at the outset to subsidize the funding for lower-income workers. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
yeah, no sense in the USA importing the bugs in the euro healthcare systems. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
In Germany the top marginal rate you can get with a sufficient unlucky construction is over 80% if you are already at the top rate of income tax, but below the cap of social insurances. The capital gains tax then however would be higher than here. The SPD gov reduced the max income tax rate from 56% to 43%. However the current Merkel gov increased the rate again to 47.5% (but only for people well above the cap of social security), despite Merkel promised lower income taxes before the election. But if I look to last years budget surplus, I would say we can afford lower income taxes than in the US. We don't have to finance an inflated stock of state employees and the fanciest high tech stuff for our military as the US seems to have to. And Obama will not cut the military budget by much. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
How is it not helpful. As you point out, the SS surplus is fake since it is folded into the general budget. That means that the idea that the SS tax is not a tax but an insurance payment is a fiction. So a capped SS tax is simply a way of making the tax system regressive.
I thought it would not be helpful, because it covers that the revenue which was intended to spend on all the other stuff is not enough for all the other stuff. Some people even think the war in Iraq was only possible, because of the deception of the real shape of budget. The right thing in my opinion would be to announce the deficit numbers independent of the SS fund. In Europe the retirement fonds are as well part of the unified budget deficit numbers. But in Europe these funds have deficits and capital based retirement is done entirely in 401(k) similar plans. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
