Legal Commentary

A Critique Of the Excise Tax, From An Excise Tax Proponent

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein:

The excise tax, by contrast, does not have progressive rates -- it's just a flat 40 percent. If health benefits were treated as wages, then a middle-class worker with a $27,000 health-care plan would've paid much less in taxes than a Goldman Sachs trader with a $27,000 health-care plan. With the excise tax, the two will pay the same rate.

(Emphasis supplied.) Indeed. But then Ezra levels a strange, disingenuous critique at the House Dems:

But unions partnered with House Democrats to fight the cap on the employer tax exclusion, and the Obama administration realized that it couldn't defend a policy that it had attacked John McCain for proposing, and then everyone ended up with a policy that did basically the same thing as capping the exclusion but did it in a less progressive fashion. And that's how a bill becomes a law.

This is ridiculous and disingenuous coming from Ezra. Ezra spent months championing the excise tax. He has been one of its biggest fans and defenders. The House NEVER killed the Wyden-Bennett proposal Ezra loves because it never had to. It was as non-viable as single payer. Ezra might as well attack Pelosi for never giving single payer a chance. This is either stupid or dishonest of Ezra.

Remember that Ezra OPPOSED the House financing mechanism, the most progressive piece of any proposal - imposing a 5.4% surtax on incomes in excess of 500,000 a year. That progressive financing proposal was vehemently opposed by Ezra Klein.

His pretensions to supporting progressive financing of the health bill are simply nonsense. And an attempt to rewrite history. Enough.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).