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Should we make healthcare “free”? Should the minimum wage be increased? Should we eliminate tipping and raise pay? Should seniors be exempt from property taxes? Should teachers be paid on par with doctors? Should CEO pay be limited to a lower multiple of worker pay? Should college be free? Should we limit the ability for landlords to raise rents.
These and many similar ideas pop up on social media (and from politicians) all the time. Sometimes they are refuted, but too often they gain many supportive comments.
Needless to say, nothing is free. We all know that but it doesn’t stop selling ideas because using the words “included in taxes” doesn’t go over well.
Many times the justification is stated as fact when it isn’t. I recently read a post saying the average McDonald’s franchisee make $400,000 a year so they can simply raise wages. The actual average gross income is between $150,000 and $200,000.
Everything has consequences some good, some bad, often unintended.
I especially like the ideas that give more to seniors – included me. Exempt me from paying for schools in my property taxes. NJ just passed a law that beginning in 2026 age 65 and over property tax bills will be cut in half – up to $6,000 as long as their income is not more than $400,000 – no problem I’ll take. Who is picking up the slack?
Raise wages = higher prices or lower profits = lower profits and stock prices decline. No impact on my retirement investments?
Lower taxes for a segment of the population = someone else pays more. Limit rents = property maintenance suffers. Increase the minimum wage = salary compression results with higher pay demanded up the line. Raise teacher pay and benefits = higher property taxes (except for we seniors who have been made exempt😎).
I find the idea of forgiving student loans fascinating. If all existing loans were forgiven today, what happens with the loans my grandson is taking starting next month? Opps.
All this is or should be obvious, no spreadsheet required and yet we press on with solutions to what are perceived as problems to solve without a holistic strategy and without regard to consequences or practicality.
This is a great topic, but I always try to remember the old adage about people in glass houses. I spent the majority of my career on government funded programs. Over the years I listened to a number of colleagues complain about taxes and government spending, even as their paycheck came from the same government. I recently listened to someone complain bitterly about how much he paid in taxes, and how he evaded some. I didn’t have the heart to remind him his wife worked in law enforcement for a federal agency. I’ve owned a 2nd home at the Jersey shore for 12 years. A few years back at a Christmas party, an old boss berated me for all of his wasted tax dollars that went to beach replenishment and subsidizing flood insurance. As the saying goes – “We have met the enemy and he is us”.
If we all spent more time looking in the mirror a lot of problems could be solved, but as long as there is someone else to pay or costs are buried in taxes or shifted to next generation, who cares?🤑
You said a mouthful when you wrote “no problem I’ll take it”. Yea, me too, here’s a few examples. Self-employed on Ohio get a free pass on income tax for the first 250k of income. Worker bees and retirees get no such break. I don’t think it’s fair, but as a self- employed person myself, I’ll take it.
Back in 2009, a couple clients who always bitched about tax credits to the working poor were the first in line to collect the 8k first time homebuyer’s credit.
Or the self-employed home improvement salesman who collected thousands in covid relief payments while simultaneously having the best sales of her career.
Or the part time workers who collected 10 times their prior year income from unemployment during the pandemic.
And yes I know it was meant to stimulate the economy, but somebody’s got to pay for all this. I like to help people, but I don’t like being ripped off.
I say more extensive required education in economics, starting at a young age (4) could help solve some of this. Doesn’t it seem like many (or most) people don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to money? And many people (or most) tend to look at the short term benefits of various “fixes,” rather than considering the potential long term consequences: Increased availability of bank loans to pay for college tuition = increasingly higher college tuition (with encouragement by college financial aid officials to take out loans). Don’t get me started on the health insurance industry! Happy Sunday to the Quinns.
I agree. More education in finances and economics is necessary.
Go ahead, get started on health insurance. I managed health plans for 40 years. Oops, better not get me started on that topic. 😃
Happy to get you started on that. I once volunteered for, and continue to donate to, Remote Area Medical, an organization that puts on 3-day free health care events in Appalachia and other poor areas of the country, often at fairgrounds or sports arenas. People get medical, dental and eye care from volunteer doctors and dentists. Most of the patients are working people, people with jobs that don’t provide health insurance. So they show up with untreated blood pressure in the 160s and five-year-olds who have never had a checkup. They drive for hours to get there and sleep in their cars in the parking lot the night before.
Shouldn’t happen in the greatest country in the world. I support Medicare for all, not single-payer but a multi-payer, hybrid public/private system like in France or Germany where private insurance is available, patient choice is unlimited, access is universal and nobody goes bankrupt from medical bills. The German system actually runs a budget surplus. It’s what we should have implemented instead of Obamacare. Pay for it by bringing costs down. We pay a fifth of our GDP for health care. Not sustainable. I’d be happy to pay more in taxes for that.
Fire away.
Discussions are good but just don’t (yet) spur corrective actions, which admittedly seem Herculean at minimum when it comes to these subjects. In the meantime, applause for taking action to help. As for potential “hate mail”, I hope that this site continues to simply not tolerate such, ever.
Best to all.
Okay before the hatemail begins, here’s my take. I’m looking at healthsystemsfacts.org. We actually spend 16.6% GDP on health care, which I think came down a bit since before the ACA. We live to be 76.4, and we insure 91% of the population. There appears to be about 16 other developed nations that do a lot better while spending a lot less than we do.
I look more at the other end of the life cycle. Our infant mortality rate is 49th in the world. It’s more than double that of Slovenia, Cyprus, Belarus and Montenegro.
Our maternal mortality rate is 21 per 100,000 births. That’s 65th in the world. Obscene. Israel and Australia have a rate of 3 per 100,000. Germany and France, my two examples, are 5 and 8 respectively.
Our health system isn’t just wildly inefficient. It’s sick. It egregiously fails to take care of those who need it most.