Shut Up And Pay Your Higher Taxes, You Whiners

Something that the media should be pointing out a lot more than they are is McCain's lie about how Obama is going to raise your taxes and McCain is going to lower them. The media has started to question him a little more on it than they have previously, pointing out that an independent and nonpartisan tax group has said Obama will cut taxes for the majority of Americans and only raise the taxes of the highest wage earners.

But one thing they have not tried to call McCain on is his insane tax increase on health insurance. The big thing he says he wants government to get out of the way of is the very thing that he's going to put a tax on.

What McCain is proposing is not just insanity, it is criminal insanity. Under McCain's plan the health insurance you get from your job would now be taxable income. You read that right.

To make sure I'm clear, we are not talking about just the non-taxed portion of your salary that you contribute to your coverage being taxed. That would be bad enough, that $100 to $300 or whatever per month being taxed when you now enjoy being able to put that into your health insurance as pre-tax money. That saves you a few bucks a year.

No, what McCain's plan would do is put the entire value of your health insurance, meaning the amount that it costs your employer, in the taxable income column.

This means that a President McCain would raise your taxes as if you got a $10,000/year raise (average cost for a family on the cheapest plan) without you being able to actually reap the benefits of a larger income.

He would replace this with a $5,000 tax credit for families, which won't pay for even half of a year's worth of health coverage even if what you get even really equals five grand, which for most people it will not. You can't get the whole amount if you don't make enough money to owe that much in taxes to begin with.

So who would this help, when it is obviously not the working people of America? Well, it sure goes a long way in helping the big corporations. Once people can't afford the extra taxes they have to pay they will drop their health plan at work, saving millions for large companies with thousands of employees. (Wal-Mart would presumably be unaffected, not really having a health insurance plan for the majority of their employees anyway)

John McCain is selling a health care plan that would considerably increase number of people who are uninsured in this country.

Add this slap in the face to the working class to the one his biggest financial advisor, Phil Gramm, already did by calling us a nation of whiners about the economy.

That isn't even the biggest sin of Phil Gramm. As the Princeton economist Paul Krugman points out, Gramm - as the head of the Senate banking committee and the chief writer of banking deregulation bills in the late 90s and early 2000s and as the V.P. and main lobbyist for the investment firm UBS - is the person most responsible for the current economic crises, save for one Alan Greenspan.

It is widely known that McCain will tap Gramm as the Secretary of the Treasury if he is elected.

The United States better get used to the phrase, "Brother can you spare a dime?" again.

I beg you to make sure that every voting age person you know knows about this disastrous plan.

Read: Journal Disputes McCain’s Health Care Claims.

Read: McCain’s Radical Agenda.

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Quick addendum from JJ:

Mother Jones has a nice piece about McCain slamming Wall Street for the failure, and ignoring how much Phil Gramm had to do with it.

Mother Jones - MoJoBlog: McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It

The best part of the whole financial mess is going to be how it forces McCain out of his comfort zone of personality politics (read: bullshitting the voters) and into actual policy conversations, in which he inevitably flounders.