New Analysis Finds Expanded Child Tax Credit Reduces Work and Growth
Vanessa Brown CalderNew analysis produced by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) finds that extending the American Rescue Plan ’s (ARP) Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion would result in costly economic consequences.Last year ’s CTCexpansion increased the credit up to $3,600 per qualifying child (from $2,000), including a bonus for children under six years old. The expansion also eliminated the income (read: work) requirement and allowed the full value of the credit to be refunded. This ensures that the tax “credit” functions more like a welfare program administered through the tax code.Combining two different macr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 16, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Vanessa Brown Calder Source Type: blogs
Physicians are only good for 90 days
“Nothing is certain except death and taxes.” Physicians are commonly offered one, two, and three-year employment contracts that appear ironclad and have automatic renewal clauses. The length of these contracts encourages us to believe we can confidently make major financial decisions based on expected income. Moreover, we want to believe that enduring years of training
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Physicians are only good for 90 days originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 14, 2022 Category: General Medicine Authors: Aaron Morgenstein, MD and Victoria Brown, MD Tags: Physician Practice Management Source Type: blogs
Return Discretionary Spending to Pre ‐Pandemic Levels
Romina BocciaAfter this week ’s election, members of Congress will return to Washington for a lame-duck session during which they will confront a “must‐pass” deadline of their own making. Lawmakers will need to address theDecember 16th expiration of discretionary appropriations or federal government operations will partially shut down.They have two main choices: adopt a continuing resolution to extend federal funding at current levels into early 2023 or adopt a massive new spending bill. Extending the continuing resolution into 2023 offers lawmakers the best chance to take another crack at putting discretionary ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 9, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs
Bonds on the Ballot 2022
Chris EdwardsAside from choosing politicians for office this election, many voters will decide on important policy issues, such as whether their state and local governments should issue more debt. This year,four states have bond issues on the ballot and there are usually hundreds of local ones. Voters in Arlington County, Virginia, for example, will decide onsix bonds for schools, transit, parks, and other items.When higher state and local taxes are on the ballot, voters usually reject them. But, inconsistently, voters usually support bonds by large margins —often around 75–25—as in Arlingtonin recent years. Voters m...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 7, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Alternate realiity
Tom Sullivan titles this blog postMinistry of Lies, which is somewhat doofy since Orwell ' s point is that the so-called Ministry of Truth is actually the Ministry of Lies, but the substance is entirely correct. We have entered a political reality in which the issues are not configured around competing interest groups, values, or policy analyses, but around the fundamental nature of reality. One political party constructs an entire universe out of lies, while the other struggles to convince the news media to distinguish between truth and fantasy. Sullivan quotes Greg Sargent:[T]he whole point of all the lying is to a...
Source: Stayin' Alive - November 3, 2022 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Promises Made – Promises Kept: President Biden’s Support for “Obamacare.”
BY MIKE MAGEE
As the saying goes, “History repeats!” This is especially true where politics are involved.
Consider for example the past three decades in health care. It is striking how many of the players in our nation’s health policy drama remain front and center. And that includes President Biden who recently commented on the 12th anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare):
“The ACA delivered quality, affordable health coverage to more than 30 million Americans — giving families the freedom and confidence to pursue their dreams without the fear that one accident or il...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 2, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Policy Affordable Care Act Biden Obamacare Source Type: blogs
Keeping Track of the 2022 Ballot Measures
Walter OlsonLast week I posted aboutelection ‐related ballot measures in next week ’s vote, and in this post I’ll turn to measures on other subjects.More states are considering cannabis ‐related measures this year than ever more. All five (Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota) move in the direction of legalization, but with differences in tax and regulatory handling. Chris Edwards has lately looked at thetax implications and Jeff Miron at some ofthe substance ( “More than a century of experience demonstrates that prohibition is a treatment far worse than the ‘disease...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 1, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
IRS Report Shows Stable Tax Gap
Chris EdwardsThe IRS has releaseda new estimate of the “tax gap,” which is the amount of federal taxes owed but not paid. Basically, this is the amount of cheating on federal taxes. The IRS report contains good news. Tax cheating is not a growing problem relative to the size of the economy, despite all the political rhetoric to the contrary.The IRS found that the annual gross tax gap for 2014 –2016 was $496 billion. After late payments and enforcement actions, the net tax gap was $428 billion. Of the net total, $306 billion stemmed from individual income taxes, $34 billion from corporate income taxes, $87 billion ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 31, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Taxes on Recreational Marijuana
Chris EdwardsState governments across the nation are legalizing recreational marijuana. Pot is legal in19 states and voters in 5 more states will decide on legalization in November. Every state that legalizes needs to think carefully about the appropriate tax structure to apply.Let ’s look at the November ballot measures and then discuss the tax options.Arkansas voters will decide onIssue 4, which would legalize the possession, use, and sale of up to one ounce of marijuana and impose a 10 percent sales tax on top of the state’s general sales tax.Maryland voters will decide onQuestion 4, which would legalize possess...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 28, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
October 27, 2022 Edition-----In the UK we have a political farce running with only a day or so to run when you read this, with a new PM (Rishi Sunak) in place..In the US the mid-term elections are coming in a week or so, thus some concern as to where the US is going!In China Xi has his third 5 year term so we all wonder how that will turn out!In OZ we have has a Budget with floods, inflation, data leaks, the threat of recession, Medicare concerns and other issues just rolling on! At least the Budget does not seem to have broken anything!Overall an ‘omnishambles’ as they say!-----Major Issues.-----https://www.afr.com/wo...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - October 27, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Election Reform on the November Ballot
Walter OlsonOn November 8 voters will consider a wide range of state and local ballot measures. Here are some that relate to voting and election reform.Nevada voters inQuestion 3 will decide whether to join Alaska in adopting the innovation known as Final Five voting (Final Four in Alaska), in which a single all ‐party qualifying‐round primary is followed up by a ranked choicevoting (RCV) general election. As I ’veargued, while RCV tends toget more attention, it ’s the first of these paired reforms that could pose the more systematic challenge to current practice by offering a way to ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 26, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
Federal Reserve: High Pay, Low Performance
Chris EdwardsEconomists are blaming today ’s high inflation on excess federal spending, supply disruptions, and misjudgments by the Federal Reserve. With inflation running at 8 percent, the Fed clearly failed its mission to hold inflation to 2 percent.John Cochranenoted that the Fed “was completely surprised by the surge of inflation, and through most of [2021] insisted it would be ‘transitory,’ and go away on its own. That turned out to be a major institutional failure.” Jim Dornargued, “The Fed’s forecasts, based on complex economic models of the economy, have been error‐prone for years.”Another p...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 25, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
Dr Margaret Vaux Has Exposed A Problem With Health Department / Medicare Technology!
Last Monday the ABC and The Nine News Outlets made a big splash with the following headlines:‘Medicare is haemorrhaging’: The rorts and waste costing taxpayers billions of dollars a yearByAdele Ferguson and Chris GillettOctober 17, 2022 — 5.00amBillions of dollars are being rorted from Medicare each year by medical practitioners making mistakes or charging for services that aren ’t necessary or didn’t even happen – including billing dead people and falsifying patient records to boost profits.The revelations come as GPs lobby the federal Labor government to boost Medicare funding and increase rebates, claiming t...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - October 23, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
The Macro View – Health, Economics, and Politics and the Big Picture. What I Am Watching Here And Abroad.
October 20, 2022 Edition-----In the US we have just had the usual mass-shootings last week! Hard to know why the population put up with it. On a larger scale the war is seemingly just getting worse and more lethal. While there is assassination there must be hope!In the UK all eyes are on just when the Truss implosion will actually happen.In OZ the biggest news has been the really Biblical floods in SE Australia, The Budget is also getting close!-----Major Issues.-----https://www.afr.com/policy/tax-and-super/average-tax-rate-to-hit-record-high-this-decade-with-or-without-stage-three-cuts-20221008-p5bo78Average tax rate to h...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - October 20, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Good News on Federal Worker Pay
Chris EdwardsNew data show that growth in federal worker pay lagged growth in private ‐sector pay in recent years. The average federal worker still makes far more than the average private‐sector worker in total compensation, but the advantage has narrowed. From the taxpayer perspective, the moderation in federal worker costs is good news.Figure 1 shows average wages for the U.S. private sector and for the federal government’s 2.2 million civilian workers. Federal pay growth outpaced private pay growth for the decade up until 2011 when a three‐year soft wage freeze kicked in. After that, federal wages re...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 19, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
