Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Mike W's avatar

1) At the top you mention "income-tested" and then throughout the body you only speak of "means-tested" so I was shocked that the article just ended! I figured this was a whole long tale about "means-tested" approaches which was then going to be followed by an equally thorough wade through what "income-testing" would look like.

2) Even so... Does this argument (which I very much appreciated reading through and checking the numbers on, so thank you both for being tediously thorough) really argue against "means/income testing" entirely? Or just that it shouldn't be so tight? The concepts of:

1. "rich people should get fewer handouts and benefits from the government" , and

2. "rich people should pay more in taxes"

Don't feeeeeeel like bad concepts? In some of the examples being used here it seems as though our means testing begins taking effect long before we would classify someone as "rich". Must we throw the baby out with the bathwater here? Seems more politically possible to say you're going to raise the accessability of these program to include more people than it would be to say you're doing away with all limits and giving Bill Gates extra money.

3) Focusing so heavily on the marginal tax rate is a very interesting and effective tool but it did sometimes give me a bit of pause when comparing two examples. You both know how progressive tax systems work, but when someone says a millionaire pays more taxes than a fifty-thousand-aire because their "marginal tax rate" is higher I get pulled back to high school civics classes. Sure that next dollar may be taxed differently but the first $50k was taxed the exact same amount for both examples, and every fraction of a dollar you make above that 50k mark is a fraction of a dollar you have that the fifty-thousand-aire doesn't have. You make a strong point about how it's not just the extra taxes that need to be accounted for but also the benefits lost, I just got the creepy crawlies a few times in there.

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts