From a friend of a friend:
inside the health care 2000 page bill is the 1099-misc provision (every business must send a 1099 for all purchases, no exceptions, to every other business) will be a great fee generator.
Imagine that – you must file a 1099 for every single purchase you make. That is surely free-market ideology. In addition to this being the precise mechanism by which a Value Added Tax will be implemented, think about the disadvantage this puts on small businesses. Who ever said the left was an enemy of big business?
Breathtaking. Appalling, revolting, horrifying. Evil.
Back in 1972 when George Bush, the father of the phrase Voodoo Economics, was running, George Stephanopoulos, Dick Gephart’s former chief of staff and future Clinton Press Secretary, charged that Ronald Reagan signed into law the biggest tax increase in U.S. history.
At the time everyone, including Rush, let this pass as truth. George Bush did not utter a peep. The idea was to simultaneously trash supply-side economics and present Bill Clinton and Al Gore as tax cutters, and it stuck.
The big tax increase referred to TEFRA, the Tax Equalization and Fairness Act. That act created the 1099, which was supposed to capture a huge amount of hypothetical unreported income, which then was taxed at a top rate of 70%. The tax increase was not an increase in rates, but rather a theoretical figure which hinged on extravagant assumptions. I never had time to figure out whether this bill ever raised the revenue it advertised, and have yet to see any evidence that it ever generated anything significant, which today is anything over $300 billion.
All I remember is that it was a Big Lie, because it contradicted everything I know about that decade. Income tax cuts would be passed after TEFRA, and would be phased in over a three-year period, which blunted their supply-side effect. But the economy would grow, and the outlook would change from the dark days of 1982, when we were suffering from stagflation.
Now we have TEFRA II buried in the dark recesses of Obamacare. I’d like to think it was slipped in by some congressional staffer as a sick joke, along with a provision for the government to pay his premium Comcast bill and a few nights on the town. What is disturbing is that it might have been snuck in intentionally at the wishes of one or more of our elected servants.
This is the sort of thing that causes people to carry pitchforks. I’ts Marie Antoinette all over again. I’m going to write my Senators Bob and Arlen and ask whether they think this will be helpful to their careers.
I referred your post to Chris Chocola, president of the club for growth last night. Can you please refer us to the original source — whoever found this in the bill? I want to be certain about this. Thanks, Winetrcow. I hope you are grazing along with your family in abundant spring pastures with my favorate cows Cynthia, Louise, and Glee.
We never had a bull named Speedmaster, although the guy who collected the semen would have preferred a bull by that name.
Speedmaster, you must be too busy making a living to comment, but I miss your informed contributions to perfesser Rizzo’s ongoing seminar.