Troubles in the Bush Budget '07

On McClatchy Washington Bureau, their is some troubling analysis of the new budget being put forward by Bush and his Administration. The analysis finds unadvertised tax traps.

Take a look.


Some facets that are particularly troubling are:

Critics allege that Bush is using sleight-of-hand measures that tinker with complex funding formulas linked to the inflation rate. These measures, which include changes affecting Medicare, Social Security and income taxes, aren't advertised as tax increases. But just like hidden tax hikes, they'd raise revenue from millions of unsuspecting taxpayers.


Right now, for example, individual seniors with annual incomes greater than $80,000 and couples with incomes greater than $160,000 pay premiums on a sliding scale for medical services covered by Medicare. The more income beneficiaries have above those thresholds, the less of the bill the government foots.


But under Bush's proposed fiscal 2008 budget, released on Monday, these income thresholds no longer would be indexed to, and rise with, the rate of inflation. As a result, as nominal income rises over time with inflation, more and more people would meet the formula's definition of higher income.


How many more? Leslie Norwalk, the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said this week that 1.7 million seniors would be affected by 2017.


"By not indexing, what effectively you are doing is lowering these thresholds so that over time, more and more people will be affected by these higher premiums until eventually everyone is," said David Certner, the director of legislative policy for the AARP, the lobby for older Americans.

I am not saying that every health care and social security idea in it is bad. But the White House is trying to hide the costs to citizens, just and unjust.

At least when Reagan went back to taxes after all the posturing, he just did it in the open (He did plenty of other things in the shadows, but still.).