Free Republic

This week, the U.S. House will vote to prevent the most damaging aspects of Taxmageddon from taking effect on January 1, 2013. Below is a comprehensive resource list of all the economic studies showing how many jobs Taxmageddon will kill, and what Taxmageddon will do to damage economic growth: According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, President Obama’s income tax proposal would force 940,000 taxpayers with business income (that is, owners of small- and medium-sized businesses) to pay higher taxes at top marginal rates of 36% or 39.6%. CBO CBO Analysis: “Under those fiscal conditions, which will occur under current...

I’d like somebody to get rid of the death tax. That’s what I want. I don’t want to get taxed just because I died. I just don’t think its right. If I give something to my kid, I already paid the tax, why do I do I have to pay again just because I died? -- Whoopi Goldberg ______________________________________ “This study confirms that the cost of the estate tax far exceeds any benefits it produces.” So begins “Cost and Consequences of the Federal Estate Tax” published last week by the Republican Staff of the Joint Economic Committee, whose vice chairman,...

House to vote on bill terminating federal workers who don't pay their taxesBy Pete Kasperowicz and Bernie Becker - 07/30/12 09:27 AM ET The House will vote on legislation as early as Tuesday that would require the federal government to terminate workers with "seriously delinquent" tax debts. The bill, which also would prohibit the government from hiring people who are late on their tax payments, tries to deal with the roughly 100,000 federal workers who are usually behind on their taxes each year. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the bill’s sponsor, has cited IRS data indicating that these workers owed a...

Taxing small business to pay for more government is the policy equivalent of “you didn’t build that.” Increasing taxes on the top bracket—$200,000 single; $250,000 married—hits small businesses, sole proprietorships and family farms that file as individuals or “pass through entities.” In 2011, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that this plan hits 750,000 entities. A more recent update in their model concludes that, under this plan, 940,000 small businesses will pay higher taxes. The economy grew 2.0 and 1.5 percent in the last two quarters. Growth in real nonresidential fixed investment declined for the third straight quarter. RNRFI...

It was either Adolf Hitler or his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who said that the people will believe any lie, if it is big enough and told often enough, loud enough. Although the Nazis were defeated in World War II, this part of their philosophy survives triumphantly to this day among politicians, and nowhere more so than during election years. Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of "the rich" is going up, while other people's incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack...

On Wednesday, President Obama argued that not raising taxes on certain households amounts to a "giveaway" from the government. On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated and defended the term "giveaway." Chalk it up as another example of a "You didn't build that" worldview. During the Thursday press briefing, ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper asked Carney why the White House uses the term "giveaway": Jake Tapper: You used the word "giveaway", and President Obama, in his statement yesterday, used the word "giveaway," referring to the extension of the lower Bush tax cut rates for I guess...

Considering that every economic theory agrees that living standards and worker compensation are closely correlated with the amount of capital in an economy (this picture is a compelling illustration of the relationship), one would think that politicians – particularly those who say they want to improve wages – would be very anxious not to create tax penalties on saving and investment. Yet the United States imposes very harsh tax burdens on capital formation, largely thanks to multiple layers of tax on income that is saved and invested.But we compound the damage with very high tax rates, including the highest corporate...

President Barack Obama, since taking office, has showered his donors and allies with billions in federal dollars. A steady stream of grants and loans flows from the administration to Obama's political cronies. And taxpayers foot the bill. Obama treats taxpayer money as his personal piggy bank -- using government checks as multimillion-dollar thank you notes to campaign donors. Taxpayers get nothing in return. Factories close. Jobs go overseas. The unemployment rate remains painfully high. Government debt stands at over $15.8 trillion. A 2011 investigation found that nearly 200 of Obama's biggest political donors received jobs, advisory posts or federal contracts....

Today Barack Obama blamed his four years of trillion dollar deficits on the Bush tax cuts. From the president’s Weekly Address: You see, Republicans in Congress and their nominee for President believe that the best way to create prosperity in America is to let it trickle down from the top. They believe that if our country spends trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthy, we’ll somehow create jobs – even if we have to pay for it by gutting things like education and training and by raising middle-class taxes. They’re wrong. And I know they’re wrong because we already...

The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people. The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery. We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order's plans. It's not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves...

An Indiana-based medical equipment manufacturer says it's scrapping plans to open five new plants in the coming years because of a looming tax tied to President Obama's health care overhaul law. Cook Medical claims the tax on medical devices, set to take effect next year, will cost the company roughly $20 million a year, cutting into money that would otherwise go toward expanding into new facilities over the next five years. "This is the equivalent of about a plant a year that we're not going to be able to build," a company spokesman told FoxNews.com. He said the original plan...

“…[W]hat we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more…” So said President Barack Obama. Nothing wrong with that. We agree wholeheartedly. Ask the wealthy if they will pay a little bit more, or even a lot more. Please do. Ask. But government doesn’t ask. It demands. It coerces. It enforces at gunpoint. Taxes, you see, aren’t voluntary...

In the weeks following the Supreme Court's ruling on the healthcare mandate, President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeatedly stated to the public that the individual mandate contained in Obamacare is not a tax. The Democrats' hard line stance that the mandate is not a tax is illogical, as evidenced by Chief Justice Robert's constitutional analysis of the individual mandate. Contrary to President Obama and the Democrat's interpretation of the mandate, Justice Roberts made ten key points in his analysis on why the mandate is a tax, and not a penalty: The Government asks us to read...

The state government is in dire straits, we are told. We must pay higher taxes, we are told. The cupboard is bare and they are running out of money, we are told. Then there’s this: “More than $2 billion in California taxpayer money has apparently been stashed in hundreds of special funds unaccounted for by the state Department of Finance, a newspaper reported on Friday..."

Yesterday, Senate Democrats dropped President Obama’s proposal to raise the death tax in favor of their own. Their plan included stripping all death tax provisions out of S. 3412. By purposefully dropping the death tax provision, at the end of the year the tax is set to revert to pre-2001 tax cut levels, a rate that is higher than the President’s initial proposal. With her AYE vote on S. 3412, Senator McCaskill voted to subject Missouri small businesses, farms, and ranches to millions of dollars in additional taxes on earned assets. In 2006, McCaskill said that she supported “extending the...

As of July 25, Federal withholding tax collections for the prior 10 business days were 3.2% greater than last year. The 10 day total is extremely volatile however, so for that reason I also look at the 4 week moving average. It is up by 6% year over year in nominal terms. This number must be adjusted for compensation inflation to derive a real rate of change. This chart compares current withholding tax collections with last year on the same date. It shows this year running well ahead of last year in nominal terms. The gap has been widening all...

As the city of Flint has fallen upon hard economic times, the increasing cost of its government has fallen upon its residents. Three of Flint’s biggest sources of revenue have plummeted. From 2006 to 2011, the city’s property tax revenue dropped 29 percent, income tax revenue fell 27 percent and state shared revenue dropped 20 percent. Those three sources of revenue accounted for a combined loss of $19.2 million. However, thanks in part to $12.2 million in federal help, total revenue to the city went up from $105.5 million in 2006 to $108.9 million in 2011. The city also increased...

According to Census figures, some 200,000 small businesses disappeared from the rolls between 2008 and 2010. Those businesses were responsible for some three million jobs. The Obama administration claims that they’re moving in the right direction – but the direction of the economy is now reversing itself. Not surprisingly, Gallup finds that business owners are turning on President Obama. The national poll showed a 59-35 disapproval/approval split. Workers are split in favor of Obama, thanks in large part to Obama’s heavy emphasis on class warfare. It is no coincidence that government spending has expanded dramatically during the same period that...

Q. How do you boil a frog? A. Put it in a pot of cold water and turn on the heat. HaHa. LOL. Yeah, not so funny when it happens to you and me. And I have news for you, it’s happening ALL THE TIME. The heat is being turned up so slowly you don’t even realize it and soon it may be too late. This is a silly metaphor with very serious real world implications. Incrementalism is the process of making very small, but steady changes over time, chipping away at tasks, ideas, theories or beliefs. Over time, perceptions,...

For the fifth consecutive year, residents of Virginia celebrate a Cost of Government Day falling on or after the national average. Working until July 22, residents must work seven days more than the national Cost of Government Day on July 15. This year, Virginians celebrate their Cost of Government Day with California, falling behind 39 other states. The Cost of Government Day measures the calendar date by which the average American pays off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens on all three levels of government: federal, state and local. This year, residents of the Commonwealth labor 204...

Yesterday, the Senate narrowly voted (51-48) to raise taxes on 1.2 million small businesses, which will likely kill more than 700,000 jobs at a time when nearly 13 million Americans are out of work. Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) joined all Republicans in bipartisan opposition to the tax hike. This is President Obama’s economic plan. This is what he asked Congress to do. And he recently told a fundraising crowd that his economic plan has been working. “Just like we’ve tried [Republicans'] plan, we tried our plan—and it worked,” he said. But Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner,...

In a setback to US President Barack Obama’s push to curb outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries like India and China, Republican lawmakers have blocked a Bill in the Senate that sought to end tax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas but cut taxes for those bringing the jobs back home. Called “Bring Jobs Home Act”, the measure was first outlined by Obama in his State of the Union address in January. In recent weeks, Obama had whipped up outsourcing into a major campaign issue, questioning Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s record on this score as former CEO of Bain Capital...

It's vampire versus vampire at the National Review. In response to President Obama's "you didn't build that" attack on individual initiative, a New Hampshire contractor insisted that he did so build his business. Except, as Think Progress reports, the guy is a rent-seeker. He built his business by the sweat of the tax-payer's brow in the form of government-subsidized loans, grants and contracts. The Think Progress article is disgusting, and the comments are worse, but the National Review piece isn't much better:This man pays taxes that support this government endeavor (and many others he does not benefit from),That would be...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today came out with new scores for Obamacare. The big statistic that caught our eye was that Obamacare is now officially a $1 trillion net tax increase. The reason this number is bigger than in the past is because the gimmicks of that law are now running out. Tax hikes were scheduled to start several years after the passage of the bill, creating many "zero" years on a ten-year score. Well, it;'s been several years, so the window dressing chickens are coming home to roost. In Table 2 of CBO's analysis of repealing Obamacare, they...

Interestingly, if they really cared about the middle class, they’d call for a reduction in taxes on those making less than $200k individual/$250 joint (Washington Post) The Senate on Wednesday narrowly approved a plan to preserve tax cuts for the middle class while letting them expire for the wealthy, a powerful if largely symbolic victory for Democrats who have been pushing to raise taxes on the rich for more than a decade. The measure is dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House, where leaders are preparing to vote next week on their own plan to extend the George W. Bush-era...

The unintended, convoluted and costly consequences of President Barack Obama's signature health care law are about to be realized. Obamacare was rushed through Congress in 2010 despite almost no one knowing what the 2,700-page law provided, apart from a vague promise to make health care more affordable and accessible. This week...

With VP Biden Presiding, Senate Passes Democrats’ Tax Cut Plan Vice President Joe Biden made the rare move to come to Capitol Hill this afternoon and fill his seat as “president of the Senate,” presiding over the Senate as they cast two votes on dueling tax cut plans. In the end the vice president did not need to cast a tie-breaking vote, and the Democratic tax cut plan passed by a vote of 51-48. “The bill is passed,” Biden announced from the chair. Sen. Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Webb, D-VA., voted against the Democrats plan. No Republicans voted with the...

Senate Dems pass middle-class tax-rate extension in close voteBy Bernie Becker and Ramsey Cox - 07/25/12 05:06 PM ET Senate Democrats narrowly pushed through a measure to extend tax rates for family income up to $250,000 for a year, as both parties continued their election-year messaging war on taxes. By a 51-48 tally, Democrats overcame two defections to win passage of a measure that would also raise the top rate on capital gains and dividends, as well as continue several targeted tax provisions that Democrats say help the middle class. Vice President Biden presided over the tally. He was in...

If fairness in paying taxes means the amount you pay is based on the amount you make, then the only group in America paying at least a "fair share" is the top 20%—people who make more than $74,000. For everyone else, the tax code is a bargain. You wouldn't know this from President Obama's rhetoric, but our tax system, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is incredibly progressive. Consider: The top 1% of income earners pay an average federal tax rate of 28.9%. (See the nearby table.) The average federal tax rate on the top...

Current Law A number of tax credits on the books today are deemed “refundable,” because they can reduce filers’ tax liabilities below zero (when this occurs, the IRS sends the filer a check, rather than the other way around). One such refundable provision is the American Opportunity tax credit (AOTC), enacted as a temporary measure under the 2009 stimulus. The AOTC, modeled after the earlier Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning credits, is a four year, dollar-for-dollar tax reduction of up to $2,500 for the first $4,000 in eligible educational expenses (tuition, fees, course-related supplies, etc.). Up to 40% of the...

What happens in the real world when those who are fiscally responsible for managing other people’s money hide it and engage in other deceptions? Yeah, they go to jail or at least get sued and have to pay up. What happens in Sacramento? We have a couple of examples of such shenanigans...

The White House has launched a new offensive in its fight with congressional Republicans over taxes, arguing 114 million middle-class families will see their taxes rise without action by Congress. A report from President ObamaÂ’s National Economic Council released Monday contends the families would see their taxes rise by an average of $1,600 if the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire as scheduled at the end of the year. The report is the latest effort by President Obama to corner Republicans on taxes. The GOP has argued that all of the Bush-era rates should be extended for a year, and...

According to the report, those in the top one percent had an average pre-tax income of $1,219,700 in 2009. Of this, they paid $353,000 federal taxes. Despite having earned 13.4 percent of the nation’s income, these individuals paid 38.7 percent of federal income taxes that year. To put it more starkly, this group makes less than 16 times as much as the average household but pays more than 40 times as much in federal income taxes.

Erskine Bowles, the co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal responsibility commission, says that the federal government should aim at cutting spending back to 21 percent of GDP--which is 1 point more than the highest level federal tax revenues have reached in any year since World War II. At the National Press Club on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Bowles at what level of Gross Domestic Product he would balance the federal budget, given that federal spending has exceeded 24 percent of GDP over the last four years and that since World War II federal tax revenues have reached 20 percent of GDP only...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) - James Holmes, the alleged gunman in the recent theater shooting that left 12 dead in Aurora, Colo., was previously awarded a $26,000 federal grant. WNEW News reports that Holmes was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It gave the graduate student a $26,000 stipend and paid his tuition for the highly competitive neuroscience program at the University of Colorado in Denver. Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get the grant money. http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/07/24/james-holmes-received-26k-grant-from-bethesda-based-national-institutes-of-health/

........."We see the strength of the Houston housing market as a direct reflection of improving consumer confidence in the local economy as a whole," said Wayne A. Stroman, HAR chairman and CEO of Stroman Realty. "One of the principal factors in the demand for homes throughout greater Houston has been steady job gains that the Texas Workforce Commission reports has amounted to more than 90,000 hires over the past year. In its July economic outlook, the Greater Houston Partnership said 'Houston is the strongest of all the major metro economies in the U.S., and if job growth continues at the...

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the...

That's one way to increase tax revenue from the rich. If you can't get Congress to pass the Buffett Rule, why not just start taxing phantom income instead?They want their money, even if you don't get yours. The object under discussion is “Canyon,” a masterwork of 20th-century art created by Robert Rauschenberg that Sonnabend’s children inherited when she died in 2007.Because the work, a sculptural combine, includes a stuffed bald eagle, a bird under federal protection, the heirs would be committing a felony if they ever tried to sell it. So their appraisers have valued the work at zero. But...

This week’s winner of the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up contest is undoubtedly a front-page story in this morning’s New York Times. When New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend died in 2007, she left her children a fabulous collection of modern art valued at $1 billion. Her children have already paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, being forced to sell off most of it to meet the bill. (This is a beautiful example, by the way, of why estate taxes should be abolished and replaced with a capital gains tax on inherited assets—the collection, an artistic whole in itself, had to be...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A federal program is giving away thousands of free cell phones and minutes in Minnesota, and you’re paying for it. Helping low-income people connect to services they need, the program gives free phones with hundreds of free minutes each month to people in need to land jobs, make appointments and stay in touch with family. But the program has come under fire for its $1 billion price tag and reports of fraud. . . Odell Hilson sold his phone for $20 because he needed the money. He didn’t remember which company gave it to him, but he...

While President Obama exhorts Americans to support tax hikes on high income individuals, families and businesses, he could stand to look inside the halls of the White House for some extra revenue. Andrew Malcolm over at Investor's Business Daily points us to the hard numbers: three dozen Obama executive advisers and aides owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes - and federal workers as a whole owe the IRS $3.4 billion in unpaid taxes. A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama's executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in...

This week’s winner of the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up contest is undoubtedly a front-page story in this morning’s New York Times. When New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend died in 2007, she left her children a fabulous collection of modern art valued at $1 billion. Her children have already paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, being forced to sell off most of it to meet the bill. (This is a beautiful example, by the way, of why estate taxes should be abolished and replaced with a capital gains tax on inherited assets—the collection, an artistic whole in itself, had to...

Behold what a prominent politician's "CYA" instinct hath wrought:   Facing questions about why she and other top Congressional officials won’t release their tax returns, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) downplayed her previous demands for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to release his, calling the issue a distraction. As recently as Wednesday, Pelosi had strongly urged Romney to provide further disclosure of his tax returns. But today, while maintaining Romney should release more documents because of “custom� and “tradition,� Pelosi said the issue was trivial compared with economic issues. “We spent too much time on that. We should...

CBS Host Laughs At Paul Ryan After She Fails To Distinguish Between Tax Cuts And Tax Hikes (video at link)

“We are in the midst of yet another great American discussion about taxation. Perhaps no policy area has become more sensitive or controversial. At stake are two vital concerns for the American future: How will we generate sufficient revenue to balance our budget without discouraging economic activity, and will the burden of taxation fall equitably on all Americans?” ~ Mitt RomneyFaith vs. Hopelessness | Independence vs. Dependence- By Larry Walker, Jr. -Under Mitt Romney’s tax proposal, no one making less than $200,000 a year is taxed on interest income, dividends or capital gains. For more on why this is just,...

President Obama and Democrats claim that Republicans are out of touch with ordinary Americans. But it's Obama who's scandalously out of touch with most Americans. Here's proof.

The presidential election has given us two myths about the rich. First, that their incomes, and income inequality, are at all-time highs. Second, that the wealthy pay less in taxes than ever, and lower taxes than the rest of us. A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, however, suggests that both may be false. Let’s consider income first. Between 2007 and 2009, after-tax earnings by Americans in the top one percent for income fell 37 percent. On a pre-tax basis they fell 36 percent in the same period. That may sound like a minor haircut for One Percenters compared...

There was a time, within living memory, when the achievements of others were not only admired but were often taken as an inspiration for imitation of the same qualities that had served these achievers well, even if we were not in the same field of endeavor and were not expecting to achieve on the same scale. The perseverance of Thomas Edison, as he tried scores of materials for the filament of the light bulb; the dedication of Abraham Lincoln as he studied law on his own while struggling to make a living — these were things young people were taught...

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...

This week, Obama opined that American ingenuity has nothing to do with individual success. Johnny did not build his business, and Suzy didn't build hers. To quote the President: "somebody else made that happen." But Johnny had the idea, and then he made it happen with "hard" work (which O should appreciate because he often tells us how really "hard" his job is).  Johnny's family and/or friends may have joined him in the endeavor, and maybe they all made it happen, but it had nothing to do with Government. Dittos for Suzy. If Johnny and/or Suzy had an inspiring teacher,...