Free Republic

It should come as no surprise that President Obama will raise taxes if he is re-elected. But here’s the shocker: He will invite the United Nations to tax Americans directly. And the proceeds would go directly to the Third World. In this way, Barack Obama will, indeed, realize the dreams of his father. In our new book, "Here Come the Black Helicopters: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom," Eileen and I describe how there is now pending in the U.N. all kinds of plans to tax Americans and redistribute their wealth – not to other Americans – but...

I generally try to stay out of political discussions whenever possible. I have blood pressure considerations to keep in mind. Every once in awhile, though, something happens that really causes my blood to boil, and I’m forced to comment on it. Last night’s debate provided one of those moments. I avoided watching the actual debate. I try never to listen to President Obama speak—I find his delivery unpalatable, not to mention his content. Instead, I watched highlights on various news channels, and even went to MSNBC to find out how the Left responded to the debate. One of the statements...

A faltering economy, a coalition government torn between spending cuts and tax rises, a sinking currency, money printing and 'unconventional' monetary policy. Britain in 2012? No, Argentina in 2002. The problems faced by Argentina a decade ago and by Britain are eerily similar. In each case the government believed that through its own sophistication and trickery it could defeat a debt crisis of its own devising. In Argentina, every government action served only to make the situation worse. We are following the same path. ....At each stage, Argentina's recovery was sabotaged by the actions of its own politicians, as can...

Back in May I wrote a piece describing Francois Hollande’s election victory as emblematic of the EU’s decline, noting that “his government promises to be a symbol of everything that is wrong with Europe today.” True to his election campaign promise, the new French president, together with his prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, has outlined his plans for a 75 percent marginal income tax rate tax on anyone earning more than €1 million Euros a year. This is economic suicide for the second biggest economy in Europe, a supreme act of financial har-kiri for a country whose public debt has now...

Most mainstream media outlets aide in the proliferation of myths about our tax system and our economy. Here are 5 myths about the US tax system that you probably thought were true. 1. Once A Millionaire, Always A Millionaire As you can see by the graph below, this shows how many consecutive years millionaires file their taxes as millionaires. Half of the people who become millionaires are only at that status for one year.​ 2. Tax Credits Only Help The Rich This graph shows the effective tax rates since 1980. As you can see, because of tax credits and deductions,...

Everyone's getting their knickers in a twist about the 47 percent that Mitt Romney figures are going to vote for Barack Obama, no matter what. But do you know why they will vote for Barack? Wyatt Emmerich did the math back in 2010 for The Clevelend Current in Mississippi. It's been written up at ZeroHedge and by Kathy Shaidle. The message is simple. Earn $3,600 per year as head of a family of three, and your net earnings (after taxes and government benefits) will amount to $31,630. But if you earn $60,000 a year, your net earnings will be $34,366....

Speaking in Wisconsin on September 22, 2012, Barack Obama called for tax increases once again, as usual, this time tellingly stating his belief that "I can afford to pay a little bit more… and Mitt Romney sure can afford to pay a little more." Obama is hoping against hope that he can turn back the clock, back to the days when he convinced a majority, of more than enough states, that he and he alone could clean the air, make the oceans recede, brighten the body politic, and fix what was broken in Washington. He hopes to turn back the...

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the November general election approaches, America’s Catholic bishops have been walking a fine line as they strive to avoid appearances of partisanship while at the same time they wage a high-profile battle against the Obama administration over religious freedom. Earlier this month, one of the leading lights in the U.S. episcopate insisted he “certainly” could not vote for Obama, while not specifically endorsing his Republic opponent Mitt Romney. Asked whether a Catholic could vote for Obama in good faith, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia replied: “I can only speak in terms of my...

Congress must raise taxes on the wealthy "because there just isn't enough to go around," Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute today. "Latino growth has meant that often they're at the back of the line for housing assistance or other things," Donovan said during CHCI's annual Public Policy Conference this morning at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C. "And the fundamental problem here (in part) is, are we going to continue to invest in those things? And if we continue to cut the budget for Section 8 housing and public housing and a...

French president Francois Hollande says there will be no exceptions to his plan to impose a 75 per cent tax rate on millionaires. Mr Hollande's comments came after France's richest man, businessman Bernard Arnault, announced he was applying for Belgian citizenship. Announcing the start of a two-year plan to fire up France's faltering economy, Mr Hollande stood by his plans for the top tax bracket, which would be the highest marginal rate in the industrialised world. "I am in a battle and will not look back," he said. "I am setting up a calendar... two years to create a policy...

One of the hardest propositions for conservatives to remain consistent on is the issue of federalism. We believe in federalism. We believe that the Constitution enshrined power to the states through the Tenth Amendment. We believe that that power has been eroded away through the years and want it restored.The hard reality of our position is that some states may seek to push positions that we believe threaten liberty. Conservatives have lauded efforts by Arizona to protect their borders consistent with federal policies and Missouri's effort to nullify ObamaCare. But many have blasted California for essentially legalizing medical marijuana...

ung Quat, Vietnam’s only oil refinery, received various tax incentives from the government last week, including a four-year income tax exemption. Apart from the exemption, Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co, which runs the 130,500 barrels-per-day refinery, only needs to pay half its corporate tax for the first nine years after it begins earning taxable incomes. Over the course of 30 years, it will be subject to an income tax of 10 percent, compared to the current 25 percent applied to other businesses, according to the government’s website. Dung Quat, which started operations in February 2009, is also allowed to...

For years — decades, really — Miami-Dade homeowners have been ducking property taxes by illegally claiming homestead exemptions, usually with impunity. .......The price of getting caught: Up to 10 years of unpaid back taxes, plus a 50 percent penalty and 15 percent annual interest.... Since January, six detectives from the Economic Crimes Bureau of the Miami-Dade Police Department have been working to bolster the muscle of 15 investigators at the Property Appraiser’s Office in nailing violators. That is up from two police detectives deployed in 2011 to tackle a backlog of some 3,500 complaints (now about 2,166) which typically come...

The Cost Of "Intervention"The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a small “think tank” in Washington DC which puts out an annual report called: “Ten Thousand Commandments”. The report deals with the regulatory agencies of the US federal government and the cost of the regulations they continually introduce - and enforce. This report would be typical of the regulatory function of pretty well every government in the world. In all interventionist economies, regulations are not set by the “lawmakers”. The “lawmakers” merely pass the laws, their enforcement is left to the various bureaucratic departments of government. And in order to “enforce”...

California state parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned and her second-in-command was fired Friday after officials discovered the department has been sitting on "hidden assets" totalling nearly $54 million. The money accumulated over 12 years in two special funds the department uses to collect revenue and pay for operations: $20.4 million in the Parks and Recreation Fund, and $33.5 million in the Off Highway Vehicle Trust Fund. The money accumulated, state officials said, because the parks department had a pattern of underreporting the actual size of the funds in its regular dealings with the state Department of Finance. ....Advocates for the...

In the mid-1800s, a cousin of Charles Darwin by the name of Francis Galton wrote a series of works expanding on an old idea of selective breeding in human beings. Galton’s theory became known as eugenics. At its core, eugenics was underpinned by an assumption that talent and genius were hereditary traits, and that deliberate breeding could improve the human race. Within decades, intellectuals were spending their entire careers studying these ideas, quickly spawning a number of different fields dedicated to ‘racial sciences.’ Scholars began closely examining racial differences and building volumes of statistics on everything ranging from intelligence to...

In 1935, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was fretting about finding a constitutional basis for the Social Security Act. Supreme Court Justice Harlan Fiske Stone advised her, "The taxing power, my dear, the taxing power. You can do anything under the taxing power." Last week, in his ObamaCare opinion, NFIB v. Sebelius, Chief Justice John Roberts gave Congress the same advice—just enact regulatory legislation and tack on a financial penalty, as in failure to comply with the individual insurance mandate. So how did the power to tax under the Constitution become unbounded? (Read the rest at the WSJ page) ============Dr....

While the individual mandate tax gets most of the attention, the ObamaCare law actually contains 20 new or higher taxes on the American people. These taxes are gradually phased in over the years 2010 (with its 10 percent “tanning tax”) to 2018 (when the tax on comprehensive health insurance plans kicks in.) Six months from now, in January 2013, five major ObamaCare taxes will come into force: 1. The ObamaCare Medical Device Manufacturing Tax (snip) 2. The ObamaCare High Medical Bills Tax (snip) 3. The ObamaCare Flexible Spending Account Cap (snip) 4. The ObamaCare Surtax on Investment Income (snip) 5....

Every American knows we will be celebrating the 4th of July on Wednesday; not enough of us remember why. Few of us truly grasp the profound significance of the separation between the American people and our government. We are a nation of self-sovereign individuals, and as the term implies, our government has no authority over our private affairs and no claim over our property. That’s what makes this country unique…or did. Our elected officials all talk about “the American people” like we were undifferentiated; they would have us believe what is good for us is just one thing and they...