Fact: The bill also permits gender-rating, the practice of charging women higher premiums simply because they are women. Some are under the mistaken impression that gender-rating has been prohibited, but that is only true in the individual and small-group markets. Larger group plans (more than 100 employees) sold through the exchanges will be permitted to discriminate against women -- having an especially harmful impact in workplaces where women predominate.

Larger employers can say, "gee, we'd really like to pay you as much as we pay the guy, but your health insurance costs more".  Or they probably won't say this, they'll just build it into their salary structure.

a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero income).

The Third Rail of postmodern American politics.

Funny, the third rail used to be touching Social Security. Instant death to any party! Now, with our wonderful new progressive administration and Democratic-controlled Congress, ehhhhh...not so much.

There was never any real appetite for a rolling series of big progressive victories in the first place.

How can anyone say that with a straight face?  Has he completely forgotten the Obama campaign?  Does he not realize why so many people were swept up in that (what appeared to be) movement?  

Tweaks?  Seriously?  Tweaking things after a major economic meltdown?  Tweaking things for a country at war with at least two countries? Tweaking things for a country in crisis?  

I keep hearing these kinds of talking points on different subjects.  It feels a lot like propaganda to me.  Bad propaganda.  Are we supposed to think that things are moving along smoothly and we just need to tweak a few things?  After this president campaigned on sweeping change?

People think it's fine that taxes give some people a good living, but not others - probably because it is not a direct link. The aerospace companies are the buffer, unlike teachers and others that get their checks right from the government.

But trust me you won't make any friends, or get many votes, reminding defense workers they are supported by taxes.

The tax sunsets in 2010, but imposes a "carryover basis" requirement to those who inherit; instead of all of the decedent's assets getting a step-up in value to the value on date of death, the decedent's original basis in the assets will also be the basis in the hands of those who inherit - whether that is individuals or a trust.

Most of you are too young to remember when we last saw carryover basis, but I can assure you, it was a giant PITA.

The effect of keeping the decedent's original basis is to - presumably - have the government collecting capital gains taxes from the heirs when the assets are sold.  Ponder that.  

In 2011, the tax rears its ugly head again, with exemption amounts going from $3.5MM per individual in 2009, and unlimited in 2010, back down to $1.1MM in 2011 and forward.  With the old rates, which are higher.

This is where we hear about "the death tax" and about the family farm having to be sold to pay the taxes (special use valuation and the 6166 election generally help avoid these hardship situations and prevent farms and businesses from having to be sold, but to hear the GOP tell it, there's an epidemic of it out there, and that just isn't so) - and where we should hear about income inequality, about the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots, and about how much harder it is for the have-nots to better their situation, so we'll see where Obama comes down on this.

To date my best annual income in real dollars was as a new hire doing grunt labor for Firestone Tire & Rubber in 1973-74. Thanks to inflation and a decline in union bargaining power, my paychecks never caught up and no job since has paid me the $59,000 a year that $8 an hour in 1974 dollars equals today.

But this is about much more than just me. From 1989-2002 I did about 7,000 resumes for clients. During that time it almost became axiomatic that any client making over $80k a year was some financial douchebag who was harming the system far more than helping. [Most well paid professionals are in stable careers and not seeking out resume writers.]

After you hear a few dozen of them spout their jargonized version of a job description, you come to appreciate that they really don't do anything but sit around trying to figure out how to steal from those who work for their money.