Dems for Life

Dems for Life by Michael Sean Winters of National Catholic Reporter.  My response: The term "pro-life" is so loaded with ambiguity nowadays that it is practically meaningless and its proponents unserious, acting mainly for electoral advantage among the uninformed.  For this reasons, Democrats can call themselves pro-life, even though this violates the main priniciple of the National Right to Life Committee - which is that it is an electoral issue to support the Republican Party with money, volunteers and votes.  If they pro-lifers want to be serious (in either party), they need to overcome the following issues:

First off, there are too many states (and indeed, to many liberals in the House) to ever make a Human Life Amendment a realistic option.

Second, Roe will never be overturned judicially, nor is doing so ever an electoral issue.  Justices cannot be directed to vote in a certain way - even Catholic Justices by the Church.  If access to Eucharist were threatened to any such Justice, all Catholic Justices would be honor bound to recuse themselves from the issue and it could never be heard.  If the Bishops can't force a result, neither can a President, so the idea of using appointment to get there is absurd.

Also on Roe, overturning it on Originalist grounds also overturns much in the way of equal protection jurisprudence, including the decision that states that Hispanics are a separate group and not White People to whom equal protection does not apply.  Supporting the gutting of the 14th Amendment is not a Catholic view, or should not be.  Any effort to send the decision to the states would have the same effect and be as fractious as having slave and free states. Again, not acceptable (nor effective, because people could travel for an abortion - and still often have to for medically necessary procedures in the second trimester).

Again on Roe, overturning it by overturning privacy would likely make the bishops happy, since they like the idea of the state getting back into the control of sodomy and birth control - but that is more of a police state than I am willing to accept just now.  Privacy does not mean simply making a matter non-public - but it is about the right to personal decision-making.  It is essentially allowing the tyranny of the mob to intrude in the most personal matters.  I do not accept the proposition that Catholicism means mob rule, even by a Christian mob.

This leaves to strategies.  The first is an Act of Congress to use its enforcement powers under the 14th Amendment and its sovereign power as a national legislature to move legal personhood to some point earlier than birth.  The Court has used its delegated authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to move it to viability - and reinforced the tie to the 14th Amendment by calling partial birth abortion the equivalent of infanticide and thus birth. How far Congress goes is limited by the principle of Equal Protection under law.  If first trimester embryos (fetushood comes at the second trimester) are people, then killing them must be the same thing as killing a child or an adult.  Going back to pre-Roe days where abortion was a crime all its own is not an option ever again.  First trimester embryonic recognition also complicates miscarriage, since every such even would be liable for criminal investigation by the authorities s a legal person has died and to tort relief for the same reason.

Any legal exemption would give Planned Parenthood and other providers an out they can drive a truck through (for example, miscarriages would spike and could not be investigated if other miscarriages cannot be) and having no exemptions would simply end prenatal care until the second trimester, damaging women's health and the rights of other embryos to medical care.  The alternative is to draw the line at 13 weeks of gestation (or 15 since the last period) and hope that people may one day see the start of the heartbeat at week six as a reasonable marker.  The beginning of regulative development at gastrulation is a good marker to say the soul is present, but unless the complications having to do with equal protection are dealt with (and if you can, you are smarter than I and most in the pro-life movement), this is not going to happen.  If you do come up with a bill that takes care of these exceptions that does not do violence to equal protection, Catholic politicians would be bound to support it.  Without such a bill, however, there is no obligation to support ANYTHING criminalizing abortion.

The reason the pro-life movement is profoundly unserious is because it is unable to ever come up with such a bill or accept a second trimester dividing line, which would settle the issue and end their ability to use it for electoral purposes or fundraising.  It would also likely lose the support of the hard care supporters who will not accept anything less than life being protected from the moment of conception (which is also an unserious belief because ensoulment cannot happen until gastrulation because of 1.twinning, 2. the ability of non-viable hybrids to develop until then - and there are no Dog-Boys in Heaven and 3. because only the mother's DNA is involved in development until that point - which must imply that her life force (or soul) is still controlling development as a part of her body).

Catholic Pro-Life Democrats have the added advantage of pushing for other ways to protect life that are profoundly serious - such as mandating health care for pregnancy on the public's dime and generally supporting social services and tax credits for growing families - although it could be more serious by joining the Center for Fiscal Equity in calling for a federal refundable Child Tax Cut of $500 per month, per child - paid through either personal income taxes (but with wages by changing withholding) or as an offset to a VAT-like Net Business Receipts Tax paid by employers and channeled directly to workers and their families with pay (thus cutting refund anticipation usury out of the system.  Ending the lifetime limit on welfare benefits, switching TANF from work readiness to basic literacy and making it a path to real career (not just low wage job) training or even higher education and paying literacy trainees at a much higher minimum wage (say $12 an hour) would also be profoundly serious, seriously Catholic and very much in support of the seamless garment of the Gospel of Life.

Healing in Indian Country: Ensuring Access to Quality Health Care

Comments for the Record

Senate Finance Committee

Healing in Indian Country: Ensuring Access to Quality Health Care

Wednesday, August 8, 2012, 11:00 AM MDT

By Michael G. Bindner

Center for Fiscal Equity

Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch, thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments for the record to the Senate Finance Committee.  As always, our comments are in the context of our four part tax reform plan:

•             A Value Added Tax (VAT) to fund domestic military spending and domestic discretionary spending with a rate between 10% and 13%, which makes sure very American pays something.
•             Personal income surtaxes on joint and widowed filers with net annual incomes of $100,000 and single filers earning $50,000 per year to fund net interest payments, debt retirement and overseas and strategic military spending and other international spending, with graduated rates between 5% and 25% in either 5% or 10% increments.  Heirs would also pay taxes on distributions from estates, but not the assets themselves, with distributions from sales to a qualified ESOP continuing to be exempt.
•            Employee contributions to Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) with a lower income cap, which allows for lower payment levels to wealthier retirees without making bend points more progressive.
•            A VAT-like Net Business Receipts Tax (NBRT), which is essentially a subtraction VAT with additional tax expenditures for family support,  health care and the private delivery of governmental services, to fund entitlement spending and replace income tax filing for most people (including people who file without paying), the corporate income tax, business tax filing through individual income taxes and the employer contribution to OASI, all payroll taxes for hospital insurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance and survivors under age 60.

The effects on various tribes and territories will vary.  We will address each in turn.  OASI provisions are, of course, not relevant to this analysis.  Our analysis draws heavily from our comments of May 15^th of this year, which addressed tax reform rather than health.  As you recall, we stated:

Native American tribes will be affected in the same manner as states.  To the extent that they have a tribal tax system, they will likely bring it into conformity with the federal system.  Tribes which exist mainly on casino revenue, where members pay no direct taxes, can still benefit from harmonizing with the federal tax reforms we outline here.  This is especially the case if an NBRT is adopted with offsets for employers who perform or fund social welfare functions in lieu of payment of taxes.

Our proposal replaces TANF with privately or publicly provided adult education, with participants funded at the minimum wage and receiving the same refundable child tax credit as workers, along with the same health plan as employees of the provider organization.  This feature could also be used to replace Tribal TANF, allowing participants to achieve real education rather than job training for low wage work.  This is especially the case if program participants can then transition into either technical education or even college – where the employer pays a wage while paying tuition in exchange for both a NBRT credit and a work requirement/student loan.

To the extent that health care is provided publicly, it will be provided through training programs or through sponsored agencies who replace what the private system would otherwise provide on the reservation.  This would be especially true for providing care to senior citizens.

Tribal employers would, of course, have the same federal tax structure as non-tribal employers in both Indian country and in the nation at large.  Tribal employers and non-tribal employers in Indian country will feel the same impacts as anyone else resulting from health care reform, especially if the stock market decides that private health insurance is unsustainable.  If this happens, the Indian Health Service could either remain separate, along with the Veterans Health Service, or be incorporated into any subsidized Public Option or Single Payer System.  While Veterans’ health will be subsidized by the high income surtax, Indian Health may or may not be.  If funded by the Net Business Receipts Tax, then tribal and non-tribal employer in Indian country would have the same offsets available to them for providing alternate health care services for employees and/or retirees.  

Among our recommendations is the strengthening of regional government, which will include the distribution of federal land, with Native People’s getting first claim to any land they hold by treaty, which could be retained to be used or rented or sold.  It is anticipated that ownership and control of this land will make all nations richer and will end the need for a taxpayer subsidized system, although the structure of the Indian Health Service could then be transferred to tribal governments to be run by each tribal nation with their own revenue from extraction, land rent or gaming.  We suspect that if the nations controlled the service without interference and federal funding constraints, but with adequate resources through regaining their birthright, that quality would dramatically increase (provided they went with a tribal based rather than an employer based system).

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.  We are, of course, available for direct testimony or to answer questions by members and staff.

Tax Reform: Examining the Taxation of Business Entities

Comments for the Record

Senate Finance Committee

Tax Reform: Examining the Taxation of Business Entities

Wednesday, August 1, 2012, 10:30 AM

By Michael G. Bindner

Center for Fiscal Equity

Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Hatch, thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments for the record to the Senate Finance Committee.  As always, our comments are in the context of our four part tax reform plan.

• A Value Added Tax (VAT) to fund domestic military spending and domestic discretionary spending with a rate between 10% and 13%, which makes sure every American pays something.
• Personal income surtaxes on joint and widowed filers with net annual incomes of $100,000 and single filers earning $50,000 per year to fund net interest payments, debt retirement and overseas and strategic military spending and other international spending, with graduated rates between 5% and 25% in either 5% or 10% increments.  Heirs would also pay taxes on distributions from estates, but not the assets themselves, with distributions from sales to a qualified ESOP continuing to be exempt.
• Employee contributions to Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) with a lower income cap, which allows for lower payment levels to wealthier retirees without making bend points more progressive.
•  A VAT-like Net Business Receipts Tax (NBRT), which is essentially a subtraction VAT with additional tax expenditures for family support,  health care and the private delivery of governmental services, to fund entitlement spending and replace income tax filing for most people (including people who file without paying), the corporate income tax, business tax filing through individual income taxes and the employer contribution to OASI, all payroll taxes for hospital insurance, disability insurance, unemployment insurance and survivors under age 60.

We refer Senators, staff and the public to our prior testimony before the committee for a more detailed presentation of these proposals, which are also available on our blog at http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com.  We are also available for detailed briefings of our proposal.

Our proposals would regularize the taxation of business entities.  Currently, how taxation occurs depends upon the form of ownership of the business.  This will no longer be the case.  Both the value added tax and the VAT-like net business receipts tax will be assessed on all value added, with the chief differences the two being that the VAT will be entirely border adjustable and have only one offset (excess NBRT offsets) while the NBRT will have offsets for various social purposes – from guaranteeing family income to providing health care and education for employees, future employees and retirees with no border adjustability unless a tax in excess of tax expenditures is actually collected (however tax benefits must first be fully  utilized for this to be allowed.  

Personal income taxes will only be filed for the highest quintile of taxpayers, with graduated rates so that middle class taxpayers pay less than those with the highest incomes.  Much, if not all, of the complexity currently endemic to personal income taxation will be moved to business taxes, which will also be greatly simplified.  The only possible personal income surtax deductions will be for sales of assets to a qualified Employee Stock Ownership Program and for charitable contributions – and even these may be forgone to achieve lower rates.  The ESOP exclusion could ended if the NBRT includes an offset for creation of insured personal retirement accounts holding employer voting stock, as a tax incentive will no longer be required in such a case to bring about more such ownership.

The vast majority of taxpayers will no longer be required to file personal income taxes, provided that employer provided disclosures of Child Tax Credit benefits match those reported to the Internal Revenue Service, which will also provide a report of deductions paid.  Filing will only be required if there is a difference between the two filings or if excess credits were granted by the employers of both spouses.  This filing will require no more effort for employers than the current tax system, while greatly reducing the amount of effort required to process tax returns.  Larger employers will likely be able to file all forms automatically and electronically as many firms do now.

Consideration was given to abandoning personal income taxation entirely, as proposed as a possibility by Lawrence B. Lindsey.  We considered and abandoned this approach in our 2005 submission to the Presidents Task Force on Tax Reform because it would have some lower income taxpayers pay either too little or too much or require onerous privacy intrusions into the income and investment information of employees and investors in order to calculate the correct NBRT surtax amount.  We concluded that the government would be preferable for this purpose than requiring sharing all employment information with brokers and invested firms while sharing all investment information with employers.

Many deductions and tax benefits required for business taxation will be abandoned because of the transition from taxing profit to taxing all value added, which includes both labor and profit.  The rationale for many tax breaks simply do not exist when the base is broadened in this away – especially those targeted to specific industries.  The biggest exclusion to be repealed will, of course, be labor costs – which is by far the biggest element of value added.  While there will certainly be some complexity involved in judging the taxability of fixed assets, this will certainly be no more complex than the current tax code – with the possibility that many investments will be deducted in the current period.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.  We are, of course, available for direct testimony or to answer questions by members and staff.