Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

British tax and benefit system favors single parents over married couples

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ECM found this article by Carolyn Moynihan on MercatorNet.

Excerpt:

An analysis of 98 couples with different earnings and numbers of children carried out by the charity Care showed that 76 of the couples would be better off if they split up and claimed welfare benefits that average £8007. Increasingly it is middle-income families where both parents work that suffer this “couple penalty”.

[…]Many do stay single — but they have children anyway, which entitles them to tax credits that take account of only one working adult per household.

Last year Labour MP Frank Field calculated that a single mother on the minimum wage with two children under eleven would get a weekly income of £487 if she worked 16 hours a week. A two-parent family with one earner would have to put in 116 hours of work on the same pay to get the same money.

It would be a poor sort of marriage that could break under the “pressure” of the partners receiving less in the way of tax breaks than the solo mum down the road (who has other disadvantages, to be sure) — as the Daily Mail suggests — but the messages being sent out are certainly not supportive of marriage as the best environment for children growing up.

The Conservative Party has promised to give back tax breaks to married couples.

This is how big government discourages marriage. The left-wing parties get elected by promising to help the poor. They help the poor by confiscating the wealth from married couples and giving it to single mothers. People see this wealth redistribution, and they stop marrying in order to get more money for doing less work. The children suffer from being raised without a father. This is called “compassion”.

Christians! Stop being ignorant! If you want to do some good in the world, do it with your own money. Don’t give it to a secular government who will try to solve the problem without any awareness of the moral law or human nature. Secular-left elites can’t solve social problems because they have no wisdom. Solve the problem yourself!

Commentary

A fishy statement by someone who needs to go on an enemies list

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Sorry for the light posting, because I’ve spent more time spent replying to comments and reading e-mail.

Keith Hennessey has found a very fishy statement that could mislead the public about Obama’s health care plan.

Excerpt:

I call to your attention several fishy statements about health care reform legislation made by a gentleman named Dr. Douglas Elmendorf.  He claims to be Director of the “Congressional Budget Office” and has posted frequently about health care reform on his website, cbo.gov.  This information takes the form of personal posts on his Director’s Blog, as well as in-depth reports that have the veneer of competent, thorough, impartial professional analysis.  The IP address of his site is 206.106.246.254, and his organization has named their hideout the “Ford House Office Building.”

Elmendorf appears to have several hundred followers in his organization, which has extraordinary influence over many in Congress.  I understand that some right-wing Members of Congress support and even vote for his annual funding source.

CBO and Elmendorf make extraordinary claims about bills moving through Congress that attempt to implement the President’s plans for health care reform.  I bring them to your attention so that you can refute them.  I have included these allegations below.  Specifically, Elmendorf and his rabble-rousers make the following claims…

You have to click through to read the evil claims of this evil man! I certainly don’t want to anger Big Brother by re-posting those awful lies on my blog.

Further study

Learn more about health care with my previous posts on health care:

Commentary

Can we tax the rich enough to pay for all of Obama’s spending?

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The libertarian Cato Institute says no way. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Funding the new health-care plan on the backs of households making $200,000 or more per year would require permanently increasing their annual total tax payments by about 50 percent. So, for example, a household that currently pays $50,000 in federal income taxes would need to pay another $25,000. Remember, however, that Social Security and Medicare already face enormous shortfalls. Shoring up these programs — another Obama campaign promise — would require collecting 328 percent more tax revenue from the rich. No, we didn’t forget a decimal point: That is three hundred and twenty-eight percent.

And what follows from taxing the rich?

[…]A major tax increase causes the tax capacity of the rich to shrink gradually as two factors kick in. First, many of the households falling into Obama’s “rich” definition are married couples in which both partners are working professionals. When tax rates rise, the lower-earning spouses in these couples tend to work less. Often, they quit work entirely. Second, many of the “rich” are budding entrepreneurs and small-business owners. They finance their operations using their own after-tax income, or with after-tax resources from family and friends. Small-business innovation is the fuel for long-term economic growth. In fact, many of the largest companies in the United States today were either small or nonexistent just 25 years ago. Killing small business kills the American economy.

Why do ivory tower socialists like Obama seem incapable of thinking through the consequences of his utopian policies for all parties concerned? You can’t assume that people are just going to sit there and let you rifle through your pockets to redistribute their money to everyone who voted for you.

(By the way, if you are thinking that “preventative care” will cut medical costs, think again. The CBO says no way.)