Contact CU Independent News Staff Writer Sarah Zahra at sarah.gandhi@colorado.edu
On Oct. 28, the Republican presidential candidates will gather at the University of Colorado’s Coors Events Center to discuss their plans of action for the United States and its people. The third Republican primary debate will focus on job growth, taxes, technology, retirement and national economic health. As younger brother of former President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush’s political movements are under scrutiny. Here is a quick look at what he’s proposing:
Cutting the corporate tax
The top corporate tax rate would be reduced from 35 to 20 percent, which Bush argues will stop American companies from moving out of the country.
Corporate deductions
Bush’s plan would allow companies to deduct the costs of their capital investments from what they eventually pay in taxes. Bush argues that this will encourage more investment in American corporations; the size of standard deductions would nearly double. Bush also plans to eliminate the tax deduction for paying interest on the money businesses borrow, and these two policies may have a cancelling-out effect on how businesses are ultimately affected.
Lower individual tax rates
The most prominent aspect of Bush’s economic plan is reducing the amount of tax brackets from seven to three. Those brackets would be taxed 28, 25 and 10 percent respectively — you can view the income amounts to which the brackets apply in a chart by NPR here.
Expand the earned income tax credit
Bush hopes to double the earned income tax credit for childless workers, which could encourage more Americans to enter the workforce.
Obamacare will be repealed, but there will be a replacement
Bush supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, and would replace it with a government-funded coverage system alternative. His plan would put the 17 million participants in a so-called “transition plan” away from the current healthcare system. Bush has not specified what this transition plan entails. The plan overall would most likely lower health care costs, but it would do so by lowering the amount of benefits health plans are required to cover.
Medicare will become a voucher system
The government’s guaranteed insurance plan would become a voucher plan, in which senior citizens are given set amounts of money to find private health insurance. This plan would address the fact that the Medicare program is underfunded and, as it stands, cannot hold up forever. The downside is that the voucher would only be worth a certain amount — senior citizens would be left to pay the difference in their health plan’s cost.
Raising the retirement age
Bush is in favor of bringing the retirement age from 65 to somewhere around 68 to 70, which could have several unintended negative effects. The goal of the plan is to make the Social Security program more manageable, because in the long term, its current funding structure will not be able to sustain it.
