Ed Gillespie Wishes to Expand Tax System

[Kreutz]

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/senate- ... s/28363030

The Republican who's hoping to win one of Virginia's seats in the United States Senate wants to encourage more people to enter the workforce.

Ed Gillespie believes labor is a "dignity given by God." He made those remarks at Liberty University Wednesday morning, telling students that he wants to introduce a federal "wage enhancement tax credit."

Gillespie believes the idea would give unemployed people an incentive to find a job.

"A wage enhancement tax credit would incentivize work, help make ends meet, and in particular help single parents who face the challenge of being both a sole provider and a single parent," Gillespie told WDBJ7.

Gillespie says his tax credit is a better alternative to raising the federal minimum wage, which he believes will kill more than 500,000 jobs.

Basically...give low wage workers more money, but don't make the employers pay for it, let the taxpayers do it and create a more complex tax code in the process.

[dorminWS]

There are things to recommend this. It puts more money in the hands of low wage earners. It reduces the disincentive to work posed by other "entitlements". It discredits the notion that the government needs to or should dictate wage level insofar as it takes the pressure off on increasing the minimum wage. And it reduces the amount of income and wealth retained by the government. And since it fits in the "nanny government" model, it MIGHT even be doable. Not ideal, but perhaps a step in the right direction.

And what's wrong with making government pay for something instead of employers? It takes the discretion on how to waste the money out of bureaucratic hands.

[ShotgunBlast]

If I had to choose between the Earned Income Tax Credit and raising the minimum wage, I'd choose the EITC (and I'm surprised Democrats aren't going down this road instead of the uphill battle that raising the minimum wage brings). Government should not be in the middle of labor negotiations and increasing the cost of low-skilled labor ultimately makes it so there are fewer opportunities for low-skilled labor. The EITC gets extra money to low-income people from rich people (they do pay the bulk of the taxes) without destroying labor opportunities that raising the minimum wage would.

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[FiremanBob]

He's trying to come up with an improvement to the present system, which does reduce welfare dollar-for-dollar if the person earns income and so fails to incentive work over dependency - while still being a "compassionate conservative".

But Ben Franklin was right, both economically and morally, when he said the kindest thing to do is make them uncomfortable in poverty so that they will be motivated to climb out of it. If we had a tax system (and immigration limits) that did not discourage job creation in our country, there would be plenty of opportunity.

Am in the midst of my fifth reading of Atlas Shrugged. It is uncanny how much more the US of today resembles it compared to my last reading ten years ago.

[Kreutz]

And what's wrong with making government pay for something instead of employers? It takes the discretion on how to waste the money out of bureaucratic hands.

Why should you or I subsidize the employers "low" wages and make government even bigger in the process?

[trailrunner]

The EITC gets extra money to low-income people from rich people (they do pay the bulk of the taxes) without destroying labor opportunities that raising the minimum wage would.

I'm not sure why getting "extra money to low-income people from rich people" is right. Can you help me out?



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[ShotgunBlast]

I never said it was. I just said if I had to choose one (since politicians want to push one or the other) I'd go with the EITC.

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[seeknulfind]

He's trying to come up with an improvement to the present system, which does reduce welfare dollar-for-dollar if the person earns income and so fails to incentive work over dependency - while still being a "compassionate conservative".

But Ben Franklin was right, both economically and morally, when he said the kindest thing to do is make them uncomfortable in poverty so that they will be motivated to climb out of it. If we had a tax system (and immigration limits) that did not discourage job creation in our country, there would be plenty of opportunity.

Am in the midst of my fifth reading of Atlas Shrugged. It is uncanny how much more the US of today resembles it compared to my last reading ten years ago.

FIFTH reading! Goodness. It was all I could do to suffer through it once. The story was good, the message was good but the pages upon pages of speeches! Ugh.

Onward... never heard Franklin's take on this before - I like it.

We need to force government to stop micromanaging every stinking thing. (Current favorite example: banning incandescent light bulbs... REALLY?)

A good place to start would be eliminating the minimum wage. Get rid of it. A minimum wage only keeps wages artificially low for everybody. Look at Nixon's "wage price freezes". Did this policy really DO anything? No. All it did was forestall the inevitable - rising prices due to the Fed printing too much money.

Repealing the minimum wage would put labor back on the free market. "BUT" detractors would say, "employers could then hire people for like a dollar an hour and EXPLOIT THE WORKERS!" (I love that obviously commie phrase. It so socialistically stark.) Yep. some employers, maybe lots would try to do just that. Buy cheap labor. It wouldn't take long for the labor market to dry up. Anyone who wants to work would be able to find someone to hire them. Now what? Gee, if an employer wants to hire someone s/he's going to have to make it worth their while. Wages would rise and rise and rise.

Andy