In my last column, I gave my analysis of Sen. Barack Obama’s proposed policies on taxes and Social Security. Well, the old adage has it that turn-about is fair play. So, by all means, John McCain is due up.
Part of McCain’s proposed tax policy is to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Perhaps some of you just let out a groan about trickle-down economics. Well, as long as I don’t turn you off from reading the column, I really don’t care. There is one point I’m determined to drive home. That point is corporations are tax collectors, not tax payers. For every penny tax-penny corporations “pay,” the prices you and I pay for the goods and services we buy from them goes up a bit more. Do prices come down when the corporate income tax is reduced? Not automatically. While the corporations could pass the savings on to their customers, there are also other valid options of helping the public. Those options include a pay raise for current employees, the hiring of new employees and maybe opening a new branch of their store or some combination of all these options.
McCain also supports a phase-out of the Alternate Minimum Tax. This was initially instituted as a substitute tax for those people who were wealthy enough to have enough legal deductions effectively to cancel any income tax owed. Like Obama’s proposed tax policy in my previous column, this thing reeks of class warfare and indeed needs to be abolished.
It comes as a surprise that McCain’s Web site has little mention of Social Security. Since I can’t quote his Web site, as I did with Obama, I’ll finish this column with some substitute issues.
A portion of McCain’s proposed health care policies includes initiatives to lower the costs of health care. There are no specifics on his Web site, so I’ll go with what I hope are included in those initiatives.
This is really more of a state and local issue than a federal issue. First of all let’s get rid of the government-mandated coverages. It’s fair enough that one mandated coverage doesn’t drive the cost that much. However, according to libertarian radio host Neal Boortz on boortz.org, the state of New Jersey had 42. That included some orphan diseases that are so rare that they affect less than one-half of 1 percent of the world’s population. That does effectively put the cost of health care out of reach for many.
Next, let’s eliminate community standards which are laws usually passed by the state or local government that insurance companies must agree to in order to do business in that state or locality. Effectively, the insurance companies are not allowed to assess the risk the potential policyholder poses to them. Therefore they charge everyone the same outrageous price.
Finally, let’s increase competition. New Jersey residents, according to Boortz, cannot purchase insurance from companies outside that state. It’s a proven fact that fair competition on comparable products will always drive down the price.
Obama’s proposed healthcare policy is essentially nationalized medicine, which at best has only seen very limited success in countries with much smaller populations than our own. However don’t take my word for it; go talk to some Canadians.
Kerry Hunt is a parking service officer at Mississippi State. He can be contacted at [email protected].