Be Really Bold, Obama

President Obama challenged Republicans to extend payroll tax cuts and increase infrastructure spending. “(Republicans say they) are the party of tax cuts,” he said.... Show us what you got.”


To start, Republicans won’t cut taxes on Social Security when it is already in deficit spending, and do another stimulus plan when the last abjectly failed.

To really accomplish something, Obama should propose ending the mortgage interest deduction. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “just three (heavily Democrat) metro areas - greater New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco - receive more than 75 percent of the subsidy…The bigger the mortgage and the higher one's income, the bigger the deduction. A person in the top tax bracket of 35 percent who borrows $1 million can get a tax break of $17,500… households earning less than $75,000 get less than $200… More than three-fourths of taxpayers do not itemize, and so don't claim the deduction at all. Those who rent or have paid off their mortgages, most of them seniors, get no benefit.”

While Obama is being bold, he should also propose stopping the exclusion of employer-paid health insurance from taxes, which is the biggest federal tax subsidy.

And to be really bold, he should propose replacing the IRS with a national 15% sales tax. Much higher economic growth would result from eliminating the tax bias against work, savings, and investment. That one act would eliminate every unfair tax subsidy, be they for the wealthy or corporations, plus it would eliminate the unproductive economic drain of tax accounting and reporting.

Since I’m a CPA, real estate agent, and anti-tax hawk, my positions on these issues put the good of our country above my personal welfare. I’m one of Biden’s “barbarians”, one of the “sons of bitches” Hoffa wants taken out.