Obameter #24: Income Taxes for Poor Seniors

This was posted a day late. Sorry.

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Obama promised to "eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year." But since his election... nothing. It wasn't part of Obama's budget proposal. It wasn't part of the stimulus bill. It wasn't part of his tax-day speech that was specifically about his tax policies and ideas. It's not anywhere. Promise broken.

Little question, though: why only seniors? Why should a young adult be paying more taxes than a senior if their incomes are the same? Seniors already have Social Security, so they should be less poor than the young person of the same income. This change would only deepen that inequality.

The Tax Policy Center ^[W] has similar questions, declaring that the policy conflicted with "fair, simple and efficient" tax policy. It seems to me that the fairest, simplest, most efficient tax policy would be a universal tax rate without credits, options, or exceptions. Why is no one proposing that? Actually, someone did, but it never took hold and was criticized as being too easy on the rich.   <sarcasm>Remember: all men are created equal, but the more money they make the less they deserve equality.</sarcasm>

(I have no special love for the FairTax plan. I'd also be fine with a universal income tax rate, or a income tax rate that increases as a function of income, or even the current tax bracket system so long as there are not 10,000 credits, exceptions, loopholes, incentives, and other complications.)

Anyway, as previously discussed, I oppose tax credits because it is paying people to obey more government rules. In other words, because it requires the complexity of tracking behavior and creates a line across which there is inequality in taxation. There is a suggestion of authoritarian government in that criticism, but also of ineffectual government. This example of ending income taxes for seniors circumvents the authoritarian accusation (there is no way that this could become an incentive for people to choose to be old), but the accusation of ineffectiveness remains. Rather than aiding the poor generally, this merely divides people yet again.

It's possible Obama recognized the inequality he was proposing and silently recanted. It is also possible that he was persuaded by the Tax Policy Center's reasoning. Either of those would be good things. But it's also possible he simply broke a promise to do something he thought was right, either forgetting about it entirely or judging it to be a lesser priority. I'm not very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this without some statement from the White House. Pretending he never said it is not an acceptable policy.

In all, he proposed a broken, hobbled tax cut, failed to deliver, and failed to explain why. That does not show good character nor good judgment. Thumbs down.