November 20, 2009
What's New?
The 72nd Annual Dinner will be held Thursday, November 19, from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown (map).
The event will feature the presentation of the Tax Foundation's Distinguished Service Awards. This year's winners are Eric Solomon, Director of National Tax, Ernst & Young LLP and Former Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, and John Samuels, Vice President and Senior Counsel for Tax Policy and Planning, GE.
If you have registered to attend the event and need additional details, please click here. If you must speak to a member of the Tax Foundation staff during the event, please call the Four Seasons at (202) 944-9112.
Click here for a list of previous award recipients.
The $848 billion health care reform legislation unveiled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday is financed primarily through cuts to Medicare provider payments (which would save $330.6 billion, or 34 percent of the bill's 10-year cost) and a 40 percent excise tax on high-value "Cadillac" health plans (which would generate $149.1 billion, or 15 percent of the bill's cost), according to the Tax Foundation's review of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis.
Reid's plan also includes a 1/2 percentage point increase in the Medicare tax rate for high-income earners ($53.8 billion, or 6 percent of the bill's cost) and various tax hikes imposed on the health care sector, including fees on manufacturers and insurance companies ($102 billion, or 10 percent). The bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion.
"Senator Reid's proposal has scaled back the 'Cadillac' tax on high-valued health insurance plans from the version offered by the Senate Finance Committee, but he's made up some the difference with a Medicare tax increase on the wealthy," said Tax Foundation Senior Economist Gerald Prante, who analyzed both Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and CBO scores of the bill. "Like the Senate Finance Committee plan and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill, Reid's proposal includes cuts to Medicare spending and penalties on individuals who do not purchase insurance and on employers who do not offer insurance for workers." A pie chart breaking down Reid's financing plan is available on the Tax Policy Blog.
Our Tax Counsel and Director of State Projects Joseph Henchman will be speaking at a panel event hosted by the America's Future Foundation in Pittsburgh. The event will occur at 6pm on Wednesday, November 18 at the Rivers Club, One Oxford Centre. For more information and how to RSVP, click here.
A popular defense of the proposed 5.4 percent surtax on high-income people to fund House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's health care reform plan is that it would only affect 0.3 percent of all tax returns. An analysis by the Tax Foundation shows that this small group earns about 14 percent of the nation's adjusted gross income (AGI), and would foot 36 percent of the entire federal individual income tax bill in 2011.
Click here for the full press release. View a chart comparing "surtax returns" and "non-surtax" returns."
The $1.05 trillion House health care reform legislation unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday is financed primarily through net cuts to Medicare (which would save $472.8 billion, or 39 percent of the bill's 10-year cost), and a 5.4 percent surtax on high-income individuals (which would generate $460.5 billion, or 38 percent of the bill's cost), according to the Tax Foundation's review of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis.
By comparison, nearly half of the $829 billion Senate Finance Committee plan is financed through Medicare cuts ($377.8 billion, or 41 percent of the bill's 10-year cost), and 22 percent would come from an excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans, which would raise an estimated $201.4 billion over 10 years.
Click here for the full press release. View Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 200, "Comparing Financing of the House and Senate Health Care Reform Plans." Download pie charts depicting a break down of the plans' financing here.
Based on recently released Census data, a new Tax Foundation report reveals state and local government spending priorities.
State and local government spending is broken down for nine specific functional categories and a miscellaneous catch-all: K-12 education, higher education, public welfare, hospitals and health, transportation, public safety, environment and housing, government administration, interest on debt and other.
Click here for the full press release. View Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 199, "Where Do State and Local Governments Concentrate Their Spending?"
