Posted on 02/07/2007 12:20:14 PM PST by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration may be squarely against new taxes, but its proposed fiscal 2008 budget seeks to raise almost $81 billion in new revenue over the next five years by hiking user fees and other charges on taxpayers and businesses.
Technically, changes to these fees aren't taxes. But for anyone who must pay them -- everyone from recreational hikers to war veterans -- it's a question of semantics.
The big revenue gains would come from changes to federal health-care programs.
Bush would raise more than $15 billion through 2012 by allowing the Defense Department to raise enrollment fees and deductibles for medical care provided to military retirees under age 65. It would also raise retail pharmacy co-payments for all military retirees.
He'd raise another $1.6 billion over five years by increasing the pharmacy co-pay for all veterans and another $526 million by raising medical care fees for non-disabled, high-income war veterans. Veterans with household income above $50,000 a year would pay an annual enrollment fee of $250, which would jump to $750 a year for vets with household income above $100,000.
The president also seeks to limit the growth in health care subsidies for high-income beneficiaries of Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly. His budget estimates collecting $5.5 billion over five years through "reduced subsidies for certain high-income beneficiaries."
Bush also proposes to end the practice of indexing for inflation the income thresholds that determine just how much wealthy Medicare beneficiaries must pay out of their own pockets. Over time, failure to index those income thresholds for inflation would allow more Americans to shoulder a greater share of their health costs.
The biggest single new revenue generator under Bush's user-fee section is $35 billion he'd collect over five years from airlines for use of the nation's air traffic control system. This would ostensibly eliminate ticket taxes and other charges imposed by airlines on consumers. But the airlines would still be expected to pass on the new costs to the flying public.
Don't take this as a support for any of these fees, but a fee is not a tax. An income tax, for instance, punishes success no matter how the taxpayer achieved it. A fee asks a person using a serbvice to pay part of the cost. Take the example of the hiker. A fee-less hiking trail charges a guy in a wheelchair (through income taxes) for the upkeep of the trail. A fee charges those who use it.
The Demorats ought to LOVE this budget then, since it sticks it to us. I wonder if they have ever thought about cutting spending?
Meadow Muffin
Tri-Care premiums and co pays to go up. Another increase in my free for life benefits.
So, Bush is raising taxes. What a surprise.
See, it's possible to type a post on FR without exhibiting symptoms of BDS. Try it sometime!
If any of these pols were serious about cutting costs at the VA they'd start cleaning the fake vets and other fraudulent scumbags out of the system.
No, the democrats typically don't like making the recipients or consumers of a service pay their share of that service. They prefer to make somebody else pay for it and then take credit for "giving" it to the recipient/consumer.
The Bush legacy keeps forming -- and now he can do the same shaft-job on America that his father did....
** Read my lips...NO NEW TAXES **
The pandering to the left just keeps on building, doesn't it ?? Note that all the things he wants TO TAX or hurt financially are people that do not provide campaign contributions....amazing how that works, isn't it ??
I didn't mean to imply you were for or against anything. I just wanted to make it clear to everyone on this thread that military retirees were about to get jobbed again.
He'd raise another $1.6 billion over five years by increasing the pharmacy co-pay for all veterans and another $526 million by raising medical care fees for non-disabled, high-income war veterans. Veterans with household income above $50,000 a year would pay an annual enrollment fee of $250, which would jump to $750 a year for vets with household income above $100,000.
Thanks for your service to our counrty, now grab them ankles!
It's reducing the benefits provided. Actually since medical costs have been increasing so quickly, it's more of reducing how much the benefit has been increased by, rather than a reduction in benefits.
The government doesn't collect this money, so it's not a fee as far as the government is concerned. It would only be a government fee if we had truly socialized health care.
You can say that raising enrollment fees for health care programs is technically a fee increase. However, the costs of health care benefits have been sky rocketing for years. Unless these are huge increases to the enrollment fees, it's unlikely that this represents a decrease in benefits, or even a proportional increase in the fees to match the increase in the costs. It is really another spending cut.
Reducing subsidies for high-income medicare recipients is a spending cut, not a fee increase or a tax increase. You can say that it unfairly treats those who make more money and already pay higher taxes, but it is a spending cut.
The biggest single new revenue generator under Bush's user-fee section is $35 billion he'd collect over five years from airlines for use of the nation's air traffic control system. This would ostensibly eliminate ticket taxes and other charges imposed by airlines on consumers. But the airlines would still be expected to pass on the new costs to the flying public.
So he removes a tax and replaces it with a fee that more accurately targets those who benefit from the services.
The author seems to act like taxes are remaining the same and the administration is increasing fees to cover increased spending, but the examples they provide show spending cuts and shifting a tax to a fee.
It's not a very honest portrayal of the facts.
read my lips junior: no new "taxes" ... heh, but new "fees"
I complained about it until the HR person from corporate simply layed out what the costs per employee for insurance really were and how much it has been increasing every year.
I end up paying a couple hundred more a year. The company ends up paying a couple thousand more a year.
The purpose of co-pays is to have the people use some discretion rather than go to the doctor for every minor scrape or to demand a prescription for the latest drug they heard about on TV.
The co-pays general pass on a small portion of the overall cost which is not enough to keep people from getting needed medical care, but enough to discourage SOME from getting unneeded care.
That would be optimal if it were coupled with a corresponding cut in the tax rate. However, a rise in fees without a corresponding tax cut, rather than merely shift the burden of programs to those who use them, also grows the size of the federal government (as the money freed up can be used for further spending).
This is nothing but another government-building scam.
He would take money away from our vets who put their limb and life on the line for America -- yet he perpetuates the OVER $100 BILLION per year stolen from the U.S. taxpayer to fund the MILLIONS of illegals in this country. His friends.
Now I ask -- "What country does Bush work for?"
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