Ron Lieber of the NY Times has a new piece up detailing Congress’ thoughts about halving the amount of pre-tax dollars that American families can set aside in their flexible spending accounts.
Most of the piece is devoted to running down the facts of the case, such as Max Baucus being the grinch behind the plan to take this benefit away from families, an outline of some of the problems with FSAs, etc.
It is true that most Americans would benefit much more from medical savings accounts than from the typical employer-sponsored FSA, primarily because savings accounts are not subject to the same inane year-end confiscation of unused funds as FSAs. Any health reform bill Congress passes should result in the expansion of medical savings accounts; sadly, that doesn’t seem to be on the radar of anyone important.
Nevertheless, it’s frankly unconscionable that Congress would contemplate taking medical benefits away from American families, even the modestly important and hassle-filled FSA plans, in these difficult economic times.
But what’s even more galling – and revealing – about Lieber’s article is his final send-off to the issue, which I quote:
Use that tax break before you lose it, because many of you probably don’t deserve to have it in the first place.
Of all the pompous, arrogant, elitist horse manure I’ve ever read, this statement is one of the most egregious examples of liberal entitlement syndrome that I’ve seen.
The taxpayers don’t deserve a small tax break to pay for medical expenses? Ridiculous. What we deserve is to have every dollar of our earnings in our own pocket rather than funding the bloated, inefficient federal and state government entities and their massive set of welfare expenses.
Lieber’s asinine liberal non-think is an outrageous slap in the face to American taxpayers everywhere. Left-wing politicians who think like he does – and there are a large number of them – need to be voted out of office before it’s too late.