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Hold my beer and watch this...

But what if we call it the "CONSUMER" Option? . . .

And count me out of supporting the public option. My workplace picks up 80% (80 FUCKIN PERCENT) of my premiums for my plan, which covers myself and joshua and whoever else I add because I have a family plan, and I'm very content with it.

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mechaphil

Yeah, mine picks up all but $8 a week.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

As a business owner, I can tell you out right the public option will force my company to pay more for medical benefits. This will result in my firms inability to add that money to increase my workforce, thereby decreasing my firms ability to increase competitivness in the industry at a rate that is satisfactory or advantegous to my company.

Sad, very sad indeed. Oh well, I'll post the numbers of non job creation with my firm 12 months after the activation of the "Public Health Option".

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

You do realize that should a public option be implemented you're not require to use it, right?

Well, when the small business you work for realizes a $1600 fine is cheaper than a private insurance premium you won't have much choice will you?

So your employer drops private insurance...pays their fine and you, as an individual are still mandated to carry insurance.
Brilliant!

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Hold my beer and watch this...

This about sums it up completely. Government gone bad. If their going to go with a publicly funded plan, slap a flat tax out there and pay as you go for the program. Oh, thats right, politicians can't do such thing, they get greedy immediately and want more. Forcing more taxes down the throat of taxpayers.

My larger concern is this craziness about taxing the rich at a higher tax rate, that is an unproportioned tax and in accordance with Article 1 of the constitution, is illegal. But then again, so is the federal income tax.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

You mean the Federal Income Tax expressly permitted by the 16th amendment?

Personally, I don't think that the rich should pay taxes at a higher rate than anyone else. What needs to be fixed is the countless loopholes and accounting games that are more available to those with higher incomes to reduce that amount of tax that they pay.

Yep.
All this garbage, loopholes, unreported income, offshore tax havens could be made obsolete by a flat consumption tax.
The right would be happy because it would be fixed and the left would be happy because the "rich" would still pay more.
All studies say Federal revenue would increase as well.

Of course, that will never happen because politicians use the tax code to punish / reward and they're not going to willingly give up that power.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Expressly permitted by an illegal amendment, ya, thats the one.
Title 25 does not clarify the law that you have to pay income tax. This has been hashed out in courtrooms nationwide. Several IRS employees and agents have quit their job due to this. The notable ones you can find online I am sure, but more importantly was the case in 1985 in Kansas which the jury could not find fault with the defendents actions of not paying federal income tax. They actually asked to see the law, not Title 25 (which remitts the policy by which the federal income tax will be governed). The government could not produce it. Plus it is a fact that the bankers of the day (back in the early 1900's, the Morgans, Stanley's, Rothchilds...etc...) heavily pushed not only the federal income tax, but the federal reserve as well. Both policies were not what our founders had in mind, atleast not all of them (the great debate between Jefferson and Hamilton).
A flat tax may be the way to go, that would of course force balanced budgets, but you can say goodbye to alot of entitlement programs. Which I would love to see happen anyways.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

Good thing my business employs 500, and isn't really a small business.

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mechaphil

I'll have to research this a little further to accurately respond. I'll admit, I have a hard time accepting that an amendment to the Constitution is 'illegal', since the mere fact that it is am amendment to the Constitution makes it law, and thusly impossible to be illegal.

Here Squanto, I'll save you the time. It is Legal, but Illegal, it is just a matter of which court looked at it.

The Constitution gives Congress the "Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises..."

Congress considered an income tax in 1815, but decided against it. In 1861, Congress enacted an income tax that stayed in effect until 1872 when Congress allowed it to lapse. In 1880, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of that income tax in SPRINGER v. U S, 102 U.S. 586 (1880) the court stated, "Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."

In 1895, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of an income tax law passed a few years prior. In that law, taxes were collected not only on incomes from wages, but also on income from property (ie. rental income). That court decided that a tax on income from property was the same as a tax on the property itself. Since a tax on real estate is a direct tax, the court decided that the tax law was unconstitutional because that tax was not apportioned. The court also discussed whether they could separate the tax on income from real estate and the tax on incomes. Unfortunately, both taxes were contained within the same section of the law. Since the court is limited in declaring a section of the law unconstitutional and cannot rewrite a law to separate the two income taxes, they had no choice but to declare the entire section unconstitutional.

Due to the 1895 decision and the decreasing feasibility of funding the entire government using only tariffs and excise taxes, Congress enacted a proposed amendment to the Constitution. The states ratified it as the 16th amendment in 1913 and Congress almost immediately enacted an income tax. In 1916, the Supreme Court, in STANTON v. BALTIC MINING CO, 240 U.S. 103 (1916), stated, "...by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged..." That decision specifically reinforced the fact that income taxes are INDIRECT taxes and are therefore constitutional under Article 1, Section 8. Even if income taxes are considered direct taxes, the 16th amendment removes any apportionment requirement that would otherwise be required if income taxes were direct.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.