Dear Everyone;
Yesterday the SF Chronicle had an editorial which backed increasing the minimum wages. I wrote an LTE pointing out what really should be done and the SF Chronicle agreed and published with affiliation. Part of what I wrote included a mandate for states to follow the federal lead and relieving low wage earners of income taxes.
Obviously this is Federalism and contrary to Libertarian principles. However, if federal taxes were to be cut and the states left to their own devices all of us are smart enough to realize what the states would do with all that extra income money out there unless somebody forcibly quashed those low wage earner income tax rates. The same applies to the state sales tax floor. State sales taxes are regressive and do hurt low income wage earners the most.Yet the states and Congress keep mumbling about increasing the minimum wages without any tax relief so the increases get ate by taxes resulting in zero net gains. DO'H!
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
Minimal logic
Editor -- Your editorial ("The minimum they should do," Nov. 30) on increasing the minimum wage without income tax relief is fatuous. Without tax relief, any minimum increase in wages nets zero. Instead, stop collecting income and payroll taxes for anyone earning less than the federal poverty minimums, which increases take home pay. Absolve employers from paying matching payroll taxes for any person earning below the federal poverty minimums. This frees up capital and makes hiring less skilled or unskilled persons more attractive for small businesses.
Require each state to do the same on income taxes. For every state with a sales tax, require a floor of $100. Sales taxes are regressive taxes hurting the poorest who can least afford it. Take these steps to genuinely help the lowest paid encourages their hiring by small businesses without increasing the minimum wage and gives them actual take-home pay.
RON GETTY
Initiatives Committee Chair
Libertarian Party
San Francisco
The minimum they should do