But then I came to his comments on health care, and realized that, like most of the relatively wealthy and secure people who write about this issue, he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about (I am currently suffering through a painful knee injury I can’t afford to have looked at, so his plug for the Cleveland Clinic’s “executive health program” was especially galling.) In particular, I am still confused about this scary term “rationing” that is always being thrown out as one of the inevitable deleterious effects of “socialized medicine.” I’m no economic expert, but I recall my economics 101 class defining “the economy” as something like “a system for allocating scarce resources.” Do we talk about rationing cars? Houses? Yachts?

Oh but of course, economists use “rationing” as a shorthand for *non-price* rationing, while the rationing that goes on in the market is just, well, the market at work. Anyone who thinks this is how our health care system operates must be blind. In our system, price plays no role except to exclude the poor and underinsured: if you have insurance, no expense is spared in providing you with any medical service you may or may not need. If you don’t, you are out of luck until you are so sick or injured that an emergency room is required to take you in.

However, our system is #1 in one regard: we spend by far the most, both nominally and as a percentage of GDP, on our totally dysfunctional health care. This is where the skepticism that Obama can wring cost savings out of the system really confuses me. If we went totally socialist — way beyond what any elected Democrat is proposing — we might end up with a system like Sweden’s or England’s. But they spend just 8.9% and 8.4% of their GDP on health care (respectively) to our 15.3%. That includes insuring 100% of their population, and, according to all available statistics, results in a much healthier population. If we could somehow copy their “expensive” socialist systems wholesale, we would achieve at least $800 billion A YEAR in savings. Obama’s proposed savings seem modest by comparison, and will certainly have more impact, if they can pass the gauntlet of lobbyists in Congress, than a few new drugs will. (In fact, if Mr. Mauldin can name any new drug that has *lowered* health care costs, I’d love to hear about it!)

The problem is not in the exact numbers. Gov rate is 39% but they really pay 20% or whatever. The problem exists as long as the corporation can get a better tax rate somewhere else. IF XYZ is really paying 18% but could be paying 10% in Switzerland then we run the risk of them being fiscally responsible and leaving.

The other problem is that if we are taxing them we (the government) is saying that they are better allocators of the capital then the corporation is. In they are getting taxed then they are profitable. If they are profitable then they are far better allocators of capital then the Government has really ever been.

Obviously a government needs to tax, but ours taxes too much and will be taxing even more. All this does is pass an increasing load onto the shoulders of the citizens while giving the government permission to blow it on stupid projects that create no long term jobs or anything else that is truly stimulating.

It all gets back to the Jesus and the fish. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. The gov takes the first route, while corporations and small businesses take the second route….at least they try to.

(i) how about providing the most elementary piece of logic, proof.
The average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is ~39%. But who pays that? There are so many available deductions and credits, would they still be available at the lower rate?

Until we start using good data the market is going to, as Soros says, always be wrong.