Mean Testing Is Standard Practice
I've often discussed how many of the tax deductions and credits are only available to those people whom our rulers consider to not be evil rich, as defined by the AGI (adjusted gross income) on their income tax returns. They refer to this as "means testing," implying that people with substantial income (means) don't need additional tax breaks. I prefer to call it "mean testing" as a penalty for being successful.

In the recent discussions over expanding the government medical programs to cover prescription drugs, I never bought for a second the argument that many people were raising that the taxpayers would end up paying for the medicines of the super duper evil richest of our country, such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Ross Perot and Rush Limbaugh. I knew that was a bogus claim because any new government program would have to have a means test to weed out the undeserving. As Robert Novak describes, that means that the medical establishment will be provided with our income data in order to know which of us are entitled to the government benefits.

I'm not in favor of expanding the size and scope of government control over our lives. However, I am also not in favor of using bogus arguments in discussions of those issues. Claiming that the taxpayers would be picking up the tab for billionaires was never appropriate and just makes opponents of the program look stupid for mentioning it as a realistic possibility.

However, allowing government bureaucrats to have more actual life and death power over us is very scary. Need I remind everyone that our rulers in DC have already established the cut-off between the deserving and the evil rich for Social Security recipients as $25,000 AGI for single people and $32,000 for married couples? Is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to foresee someone being denied life saving cancer medicine because his/her AGI is $40,000?

For anyone who thinks using AGI as a test of eligibility for benefits is a good idea, please check the AGI on your most recent 1040. It's the number at the bottom of Page 1. Now, ask yourself how much of that you have in actual cash with which to buy medicines or anything else. AGI has very little relation to the amount of actual disposable cash people have on hand and has never been a fair measuring stick for wealth. However, it has become enshrined in the mentality of our rulers in DC whenever deciding who may or may not participate in any new benefit.
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 6/28/2003 01:20:00 PM Send this post: