dyn99
waterworld –
SS is fairly solvent as-is. It’s medicare that’s the problem.
For SS – if you just tie benefits to inflation, nobody’s buying power is reduced. It’s simply not increased over time so the poorest seniors don’t see an increase in standard of living.
For medicare, I would assume that the reason you would opt-out is to buy a superior private policy. Given that the people who would be opting out would be those that didn’t get full medicare coverage because of their income being too high, they would want to buy better coverage elsewhere. There’s still plenty of seniors so plenty of base to spread.
On the AMT issue – I’m not talking about gross vs. net income. I’m talking about AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) vs. Taxable income.
Business losses should reduce AGI preventing the AMT from hitting someone unfairly. The point of the modified AMT is to prevent someone who makes $500k/year from being able to write off $3 million/year in interest expenses on his 3 houses and get his income taxes down to nearly $0. That’s crap.
And lastly, I totally agree with your last paragraph. I really don’t think the government needs to subsidize any industry I can think of. Farming and energy production in particular. I am all for letting the market do what it will, and then letting the market innovate to create solutions to challenges presented.
Nice post – well thought out. I wish more people would post big ideas and less snarky comments.