William Galston’s Growth Proposals

He writes,

Here’s a simple, easily administered proposal along these lines: a five-year reduction in Social Security payroll rates — by 3 percentage points during the first three years, phasing down to 2 points in the fourth year and 1 point in the fifth. (General revenues would fill the gap in the Social Security trust fund, protecting current and future beneficiaries.) A Joint Economic Committee report on the effects of the 2012 payroll tax cut suggests that the proposed five-year reduction could increase growth by 0.75 percent during each of the first three years while increasing net jobs by 600,000 annually during that period.

I have been advocating cuts in the payroll tax for six years.

And here is another interesting proposal:

If everybody were required either to purchase insurance against the possibility of nursing home care or to save for that eventuality, states could be relieved of the long-term care burdens for which they now pay in the Medicaid program.

4 thoughts on “William Galston’s Growth Proposals

  1. A return to the idea that requiring people to buy insurance is more market-friendly than taxing them and providing it as a universal social program! I believe the Libertariantern decided that was contrary to correct Hayekian-Leninist thought at the Sixth Congress in 2009 or something, but I could be wrong.

  2. Logically inconsistent. Do you want people to pay for these individually or not? No, so you can keep marginal taxes low, yes, so you can keep government expenditure low, but the difference between taxes and mandatory savings is immaterial other than the former being somewhat more efficient.

  3. The paragraph on long term care is very naive.

    We are seeing almost all insurance companies getting out the long term care business. They are concluding it is impossible to insure this need on a reliable profitable basis.

    As for mandatory savings, I do not think that has ever been accomplished in American history.

    I favor adding LTC to Medicare and raising the Medicare tax to pay for it.
    This is essentially what Germany has done.

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