I do get what you are saying, I just think it is a weak incentive. If you were making $96k would you forego part of your income in order to get a subsidy?
You need to look at the marginal cost on making that next dollar.
It's a big problem for our official poor, where there are wide ranges of income that cost them more in government benefits than they get in highly repressively taxed income.
And look at the results of supply side tax rate cuts, JFK's from 91%, Reagan's from 50% and 75% as I remember ("earned" and "unearned" (passive) income). Those had major effects, and while I'd gone to college a year before the latter's election I noticed how it changed my parent's economic behavior in ways that were good for the economy.
Again, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you w/r/t policies outside of the ACA, but weren't we talking about health insurance and a guy that makes $96k? In looking at the tables for Health Insurance Marketplace subsidies, I just don't see the major impact here.
Note the rise from 25% to nearly 50% in the ~ $65K to ~ $85K income range, after which it plateaus to around that $96K threshold; add Obamacare subsidy losses and we're absolutely guaranteed a significant impact, unless people's economic behavior has radically changed since the '80s. Which is of course what the CBO is saying, among many other dire things (0.5% GDP loss, 6-7 million losing their employer health coverage, around the same number uninsured (although a lower percentage because of population growth)).
Note also the > 100% rates around $25K to $45K, and the steep climb that starts around $15K. That's the big effect I was talking about, except we generally don't count people or families in most parts of the country making $45K as "poor".
But, yeah, exactly what's going to happen at that income range is yet to be seen, and at this moment neither of our impressions can be stated to be right or wrong.
It's a big problem for our official poor, where there are wide ranges of income that cost them more in government benefits than they get in highly repressively taxed income.
And look at the results of supply side tax rate cuts, JFK's from 91%, Reagan's from 50% and 75% as I remember ("earned" and "unearned" (passive) income). Those had major effects, and while I'd gone to college a year before the latter's election I noticed how it changed my parent's economic behavior in ways that were good for the economy.