Democrats Smartly Back Off Healthcare Benefits Tax
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street
Senate Democrats have apparently put their fingers to the wind and wisely decided to step back from proposals to tax middle-class taxpayers' health insurance plans to help pay for healthcare reform. That ill-conceived notion has drawn boos from voters and nonvoting Americans. Senate Democratic leaders are finally reading the poll numbers. Yesterday, according to the Associated Press, they told reporters off the record that the idea is now history.
One lawmaker deeply involved in bipartisan negotiations in the Senate said there were second thoughts about a proposed tax on the costliest employer-paid insurance benefits. "It's clearly a very difficult issue. ... You go to the public to ask them what they think, and they don't like it," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., referring to recent polling.
Sometimes the public is wrong and strong leadership is called for to push through unpopular legislation. This is not one of those cases. President Obama campaigned on a pledge not to raise taxes. Taxing some healthcare benefits is a back-door way of raising taxes and doing so would turn him into a bona fide prevaricator.
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Reader Comments
This is how we pay for health care.
Let's stop wasting our tax money fighting losing battles and use it to pay for health care. Why should other countries get free or reduced health care and medications while we are paying more than we can afford and only going in when we have no other choice. I don't care if we have prostitution as long as they are required to have a license and be tested every month and PAY TAXES. I don't care if people grow and sell marijuana as long as they PAY TAXES. And stop wasting tax money trying to enforce a drinking age of 21 when they just get the booze anyways. Take the people out of jail that are in for these crimes, stop wasting tax money fighting them and let's make the money we need to provide health care for every man, woman and child in our country. It is time to prioritize and it is time to stop wasting money on things that are never going to stop. We need that money and the money we can make now more than ever.
Obama is 2 French Fries Short of a Happy Meal
How about instead of taxing cheeseburgers we all pretty much have to live on, let him go back to the clowns that paid over $600 million to buy Obama into office and get them to give us some ideas how to pay for our healthcare he's about to take away?
Frankly, this thing with the American citizens having to pay for Obama's excess personal baggage is getting old. Air your personal vendettas in psychoanalysis, B.O., - we weren't your Daddy, smoking was your personal choice, and we don't want to have to pay because you didn't get your pony.
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http://community.whptv.com/forums/thread/4183573.aspx
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Universal health care
What bothers me most about the administrations health care plan is the lack of time for Americans to study and react to it. So far, we have only proposals. I am afraid that the final agreement will not be a proposal, but will be dictated to Americans without ample time for national thought and discussion. If that should happen, we can count on years of pain as undetected flaws emerge that could have been discovered earlier, had sufficient public review time been allowed.
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