Vote for the next president by examining their monetary policies

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With the primaries underway, its hard not to notice the various candidates that are out there trying to get your vote. I know most of you probably think that your vote is too small to really matter but as physicians to be and as professionals we need to think about the direction that the US will be taking in the next few years when some of us are out of residency and actually making some real money. Not only that, the health care policies that we will have to live with will be determined in large part by who is the next president.

I know that its really hard to find out who to vote for. I usually end up like most of us voting for the person that probably seems to coolest on TV or the person that seems most like us. If that’s the case, I would definitely vote for Fred Thompson because he’s the dude on Law and Order or Obama because he’s the youngest one on the block. But to really make a truly informed decision we need to look at these candidates much closer. What I would like to do today is to help you decide who to vote for based solely on monetary and tax policy as the financephysician tries hardest to help you make the most financially prudent decisions in life.

There is another website that has an extensive list on the candidates views on various issues and you can actually try to compare each of them to make your decision on who’s policies seem to match most what path you hope the US will take.

• Democrats: Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama
• Republicans: Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Rudy Juliani

1. Hilary Clinton: Basically Hillary has a new retirement plan laid out much like a 401k but giving everyone the opportunity to save into this matching retirement account. This gives people a match of 1000 dollars if you make less than 60K and 500 dollars if you make less than 100K. She states that she will pay for this by freezing estate taxes at the 2009 level which will supposedly put some strain on the richest 10K people but supply an extra 400 billion over 10 years. The plan will cost 20-25 billion dollars to fund but supposedly it evens out.
   1. Hilary also plans to put the income tax at the rates that it was at in the 1990s during Bills reign. This will put a more equal level of taxation on people throughout the income brackets. I don’t know the specifics.
   2. she also plans to reform the AMT or the Alternative Minimum Tax that is slowly affecting more and more middle class families
   3. She also has made promises to change the health insurance plans allowing for broader coverage and offering more tax credits to make health insurance more affordable. Some of it will base based on income levels. But I know that Hillary always had a bold plan on health care reform since many years ago under Bill’s administration.
2. Barack Obama =
   1. Plans to have a “making work play” tax credit providing 500 dollar tax credit or 1000 for a couple. This hopes to eliminate payroll taxes for the poorest 10 million people that work.
   2. Plans to forgive patients who apply for bankrupcy due to medical expenses. Not sure how this will work, this may actually backfire and also have possibly a negative impact on medical reimbursements and health insurance.
   3. Restore the top 2 personal income tax brackets and rates on dividends and capital gains to clinton era levels. Pretty much the same plan as Hillary Clinton. Not good for most doctors that make in the mid 6 figure incomes.
3. John McCain:
   1. Plans to permanently repeal the AMT: This is awesome and none of the 2 democrats mention this as a highlight.
   2. Plans to keep the Bush tax levels on income and capital gains tax cuts permanent. This is awesome for people that are working hard and making lots of money. Hopefully he sees this as a way to stimulate the economy.
   3. He hopes to lower rates on capital gains and dividends to reward people who take risks in investments. Good for the investors out there.
   4. He hopes to keep the internet free of taxes. This is probably something that will be brought up in a tax strapped government in the future but would suck for businesses that use the internet. However, I don’t see why there shouldn’t be some taxation on the internet as well.
   5. He hopes to create a pro market healthcare system and reduce medicare costs…not sure about the specifics.
4. Mitt Romney
   1. He has an excellent health care reform plan:
      1. deregulate state markets: ecourage competition among all the competitors across state lines to provide health care.
      2. fix the tax code: make all health care expenses tax deductible. This is genius!
      3. Stop the free riders: my god this is an excellent quote. find a way to stop people from using the emergency room as a dumping ground for medical care for the uninsured!
      4. Reform the medical liability system by providing caps to litigation and prevent the practice of defensive medicine.
      5. Provide innovation in medicaid. allow states to decide where the money goes depending on where they need it most. (i’m not sure if i can stand another level of bureaucracy though)
      6. Ultimately though, this sounds like a pipedream because how do we make a free market system work when private insurers will not insure people with preexisting conditions? what about people with diagnosed heart disease or previous surgeries…they are out of luck. How do we insure them? Are they destined to use the Emergency room for their care? How will Mitt solve this problem. Overall though, I think there is a lot of good points on his agenda and I’m glad that he has a decently detailed strategy to tackle this issue.
   2. Mitt’s economic policy is a pretty easy to understand one as well.
      1. eliminate all interest, dividends, and capital gains for people making less than 200K. This is a great policy that stimulates citizens to save and invest.
      2. Eliminate the death tax for everyone: this is great because it allows people to pass their estate down the generations but this heavily skews the benefits to the super rich because they are usually the ones with the most to gain from this break.
5. Rudy Giuliani:
   1. Monetary Policy
      1. End the death tax: same as mitt
      2. AMT to be current with inflation: different than McCain in that McCain wants to eliminate the AMT altogether (i may be wrong on this)
      3. Expand tax free savings accounts: this is much like a roth IRA but with the ability to put in and take out even before retirement (prevents double taxation)
      4. Keep tax preparation and tax rates simple: this is much more agressive than Obamas hope to simplify tax forms into one page by Rudy’s hope to create just a 3 level tax system of 10-15-30 percent brackets and hopefully lowering taxes for some as well.
      5. Cut capital gains from 15 to 10%. This is a great idea to stimulate investments.
   2. Health Care policy
      1. Reform medical legal liability system: this is much like Mitt’s plan and I strongly support this as a physician.
      2. Allow interstate market for health insurance.
6. Mike Huckabee: sorry I can’t write for this guy because I just don’t like him. (sorry i have to be biased somewhere)

BOTTOM LINE: This election is probably going to be one of the most important elections we’ll have in a long time because this election will determine the kind of work environment and ecnomic environment that we will be introduced to when we finally enter the workforce. To be honest, I always considered myself a “libertarian”: I believe that everyone has the right to do whatever is right for them so long as it does not infringe on the ability of others to have their freedoms too.

I love the republican philosophy of less government, pro free trade; but I love the democratic dream of striving to create some sort of equal footing for everyone and provide services that probably will not be available if some republicans are in office. In those reasons I cannot fully support one party over the other. At this point my front runners for the election would be John McCain and Hillary Clinton. They both have very different policy goals when it comes to monetary policy so you have to decide like I have to, who will make the best president. Look at what each of these candidates have to offer and also look at their character as well before casting your ballots.

If I had to make a decision today I would most likely choose to vote for John McCain because not only is he a very honest and likable person, he would probably be the one person that won’t be swayed by one interest group over another and actually follow through with what he planned out on his proposals in his website.

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