Taxes and Transparency

While I'm glad that Paul Ryan is finally forcing the President to seriously engage -- or at least engage -- on the issue of our long-term federal deficit, I'm mystified as to why Republicans do not seek structural reforms that make the tax burden on American taxpayers more transparent.

Employers are required to pay a matching FICA tax to employees, but that is nothing more than an accounting gimmick as it represents the employer's cost of hiring an employee.  There are other words often used to describe the cost of hiring an employee (e.g., wage, salary, etc.).  In other words, every dollar the employer spends on the FICA tax is a dollar that the employer would otherwise pay the employee in salary or wages, so the employer's FICA payment is fundamentally the same as the employer's withholding of federal income taxes on behalf of an employee.

So in addition to pushing for spending restraint, Republicans should prioritize process reforms that highlight the burden each individual -- not just the employer -- bears in the form of government spending.  When taxpayers see that they are paying 12 plus percent of their income for Social Security, not to mention their share of federal income taxes, they may start questioning the size, scope, and efficiency of our federal government in a way that they've never done before.  And they may really start to think that a plan that designates some portion of an individual's FICA tax to a savings account should be considered.