Does the cost I pay to a private entity (authorized to provide vehicle emissions certification) represent a tax imposed by my state government?
No. The law does not require the payment, only the certificate. The examiner does not have to charge.
The term “
implicit tax” is sometimes used to describe an indirect cost that results from a government policy. Without the policy there would be no cost, therefore associated costs may be described as an implicit tax.[SUP]
*[/SUP]
Though the examiner is not required to charge a fee for his services, it is unlikely that he will provide that service without the fee. Testing requires an item of equipment that can
cost from $16,000 to more than $37,000. Even without a fee, the testing process consumes human resources and thus represents a cost.
So, while I cannot prove the hypothetical that forcing the purchase of insurance would dramatically increase the number choosing the alternative economy, it is an unavoidable conclusion.
I suppose with effort I could find others saying the above, but they would not be democrat sources and thus not acceptible here. See this, for instancehttp://newsok.com/health-care-law-winds-up-discouraging-work-upward-mobility/article/5356773
The situations you use to illustrate an “alternative economy” are somewhat bizarre and detract from any solid measure of validity for the points you might otherwise be able to make. Nonetheless, let’s look at your link.
NewsOK is the online version of
The Oklahoman newspaper. It is owned by
Philip Anschutz and the article you linked is attributed to the paper’s
Editorial Board.
While it is arguable that the publisher fosters a general bias favoring Christian values, Conservative opinion and against regulation of the petroleum industry, I also note that it presents
Dr. Mulligan’s working paper as “damning” [of Obamacare] and suggests that Obamacare includes “perverse incentives.” Neither of those terms or any similar remarks appear in the work they cite in their article.
The conclusion that that would have the effect of causing many young people to resort to welfare/crime/underground economy is a hypothetical since I also point out that the Obamacare solution is to subsidize the policies for low income people. But I point out that, even now, many young people do not choose to work, and that problem would necessarily be exacerbated if they were forced to surrender a large part for insurance. Many girls now choose to collect welfare for illegitimate children, as high as 72+ percent of births for some groups. We also know that many young men resort to crime when they cannot find work for wages they consider sufficient--as high as a third for some groups.
… I suppose with effort I could find others saying the above
I think it is effort that you are missing.
You posted provocative generalizations about young people, low-income people, and girls with illegitimate children. And you pointed to the
NewsOK article to substantiate your claims. That article itself relies upon Dr. Mulligan’s working paper to make a somewhat similar claim with regard to low-income people – that they are being provided health insurance “in exchange for forgoing the dream of a better life through employment opportunities.”
Dr. Mulligan sees government assistance as a contributing cause of reduced employment levels, rather than as support to persons who are involuntarily unemployed or underemployed. He regards his position to be representative of conventional economic analysis and discredits Keynesian economic theory. He generally rejects the concept of a demand driven economy (goods and services), but prefers to see the supply and demand of labor as the critical determinant of employment levels.
Dr. Mulligan’s working paper uses a very specific demographic to support his conclusions. It is a worker that fits the following characteristics:
- Works for an employer that offers health insurance to full-time workers
- Works for an employer that contributes 22 percent toward the total health care premium
- Qualifies for ACA subsidies based upon being the sole wage earner supporting a family of four
- Earns approximately $18 per hour
- Works 50 weeks per year
- Selects the ACA Silver Plan for health insurance
That specific demographic does not seem particularly representative of young people or unwed girls with children. The worker earns about $36,000 per year (assuming there are no paid vacation or sick days), which is 50 percent more than the
poverty level for a family of four and roughly equal to the upper threshold of the low-income designation for a family of four in the State of Oklahoma. (US median household income is nearly 20 percent higher than Oklahoma.)
[SUP]
*[/SUP]Dr. Mulligan argues that the ACA constitutes an
implicit full-time-employment tax and an
implicit earnings tax. The latter “tax” is perhaps better described as a disincentive for workers to seek higher wages, because their ACA eligibility for assistance decreases as their income increases.
For Dr. Mulligan’s illustration to be convincing, I think he would need to include analysis of at least several sample workers demonstrating varying circumstances. His underlying hypothesis is that workers will no longer be motivated to work (or stop working full-time) if the government (through provisions of the ACA) provides assistance to help pay health care policy premiums or for out-of-pocket health expenses to persons who are eligible.
