Hillary and Obama agree on taxing Americans more, they just can’t agree on whether it’s the “middle” or “upper” class that they’re prepared to squeeze for votes (HT: Paul Caron):
Class, always an awkward topic in the United States, made a rare cameo appearance [Ed. note: Rare? Apparently Joel Achenbach is new to politics?] at a recent candidates debate in Las Vegas. The two front-running Democratic presidential contenders, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), sparred over tax policy and quickly got entangled in the question of whether someone making more than $97,000 a year is middle class or upper class. That’s upper class, Obama said. Not necessarily, suggested Clinton.
[...]
The exchange between Obama and Clinton began when the senator from Illinois said he was open to adjusting the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax. That’s the tax that the government prefers to call a “contribution” to Social Security. Under current law, a worker pays a flat percentage (and employers match it) of wages up to $97,500. Wages beyond that aren’t taxed.
Clinton responded by saying that lifting the payroll tax would mean a trillion-dollar tax increase, adding that she did not want to “fix the problems of Social Security on the backs of middle-class families and seniors.”
Obama replied: “Understand that only 6 percent of Americans make more than $97,000 a year. So 6 percent is not the middle class. It is the upper class.”
This exchange is rather reminiscent of the the trolls arguing over what a Hobbit is, whether or not it’s worth eating, and exactly how one should be prepared.
What’s more interesting, however, is to compare the wrangling over whether someone making $97,000 is too rich to keep his earned income to the wrangling over how a family making up to $83,000* is too poor to pay for their own health insurance:
The Senate Finance Committee recently voted to reauthorize the program. The Senate bill would expand eligibility to children in families with incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or $62,000 for a family of four. House Democrats would raise income limits even higher — to 400 percent of the poverty level ($83,000 for a family of four) — well above the median income.
By these metrics, nearly half of all families in America are too poor to live without government assistance, while the rest are too rich to live without paying for everyone else.
Sort of makes you long for a “Leave Me The Heck Alone” kind of candidate, doesn’t it?
*
By the way, don’t fall for the “400% above poverty level mantra was just Bush BS” line that’s been going around. The Bush Administration rules limiting SCHIP expansions were rescinded by Congress prior to the new bill being vetoed because those rules put the kibosh on exactly the sorts of expansions Bush complained about:
Under new guidelines issued Aug. 17, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will not approve any state’s SCHIP expansion to children in families with incomes up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level — $51,625 for a family of four — unless 95 percent of children in families below 200 percent of the poverty threshold already are enrolled in SCHIP or Medicaid.
State officials have said that the 95 percent standard has never been met by any state, a claim disputed by the administration.
The CMS guidelines also say that states must prove that no more than 2 percent of the kids targeted by an expansion had been “crowded out” of the private insurance market and into public coverage during the previous five-year period, and that cost-sharing under SCHIP is comparable to cost-sharing in private insurance plans.
Eight states have enacted laws authorizing SCHIP expansions above 200 percent of poverty that must win approval to receive federal funding. CMS already has rejected New York’s application to expand coverage from 250 percent of poverty to 400 percent, which precipitated Spitzer’s lawsuit threat.
[tags] SCHIP, taxes, politicans, Election 2008, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Fred Thompson [/tags]
really? I usually find factcheck.org to be pretty accurate and nonpartisan.
I agree, Chris, and to be fair they sort of nibbled around the edges on this particular smackdown. And to their credit (sort of) they did note the following:
The part in italics was apparently added later, and it’s really a half-truth. The rules were put in place, the States balked (Spitzer threatened suit) and then the SCHIP expansion was vetoed. When Bush raled against “covering children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year” it was true that the House Bill proposed just such a thing at the bidding of the various States who had been denied under the CMS rules.
Also note this update added to the FactCheck.org article:
Here the parts in bold show that FactCheck is backing off its original slam, but the part in italics just doesn’t follow. In one sentence they admit that New York could expand coverage to families making $82,600, while in the next they claim that the Pres. is being “misleading” by saying the program covers children in households with incomes up to $83,000.
You be the judge, are they being fair here?