Free Republic

Art Laffer, famed member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, has co-authored, with Stephen Moore, an article for Investor’s Business Daily in which they assert that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have the “best” tax proposals.

Puerto Rico is $72 billion in debt, and it will take a painful process to bring the island's finances back from the brink. It's a massive debt load for such a small territory, and the problem can really be traced to one issue — bad tax policy. After Puerto Rico let one tax break for manufacturers expire almost a decade ago, manufacturers started shutting down operations on the island. That caused a spike in unemployment. On top of that, business-friendly tax policies for some of the companies that remained allowed multinational giants to pay tax rates of little more than...

Donald Trump wants to run for president. He says he can beat Hillary. Sometimes Donald Trump has something good things to say, and sometimes he makes me shake my head in disbelief. ... Here is one of Trump’s economic solutions. “He said Ford and other companies looking to move manufacturing to Mexico or overseas should face a 35 percent tax when they ship the goods back to the U.S. That would bring the plants back home, he argued. ‘That’s what’s going to happen, and there are hundreds, thousands of those deals,’ he said. ‘I will make this country so rich...

Nevada’s Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, secured an unlikely victory when the conservative state Legislature approved a huge tax increase at his urging as part of a plan to boost education spending. The $1.1 billion package raises taxes on businesses and cigarettes, and it makes permanent a $500 million bundle of temporary payroll and sales taxes. Sandoval’s win on Monday came on the last day of the legislative session, and the proposal’s fate had been in doubt until late Sunday when several skeptical Republicans in the state Assembly pledged support. The plan had faced vocal resistance for months, led by anti-tax...

A nearly $1 billion dollar transportation funding bill is on its way to Gov. Nathan Deal after a late night compromise is passed by the state House and Senate.The two sides agreed to convert from a state sales tax on motor fuel to an excise tax of 26 cents per gallon for passenger vehicles and 29 cents for tractor trailers.Semis would also be required to pay an impact fee of $50 to $100 based on weight.“Those trucks are the ones doing the most damage to our roads; we felt like that was a small, nominal fee for them to pay...

A group representing road builders said Thursday that the federal gas tax should be increased by 15 cents per gallon to help pay for infrastructure improvements. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) said increasing the gas tax this year would raise $401 billion for new transportation spending. The gas tax hike could be offset with a “federal tax rebate for middle and lower income Americans for six years,” the group suggested.

Gov. Tom Wolf is expected to call today for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to send him a budget that boosts state education funding and provides relief for school district property taxes while raising the rates of the sales and personal income taxes. His plan for doing so includes a proposal to raise the personal income tax rate in July 2015 from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent, while increasing the eligibility for a poverty exemption, according to a briefing document prepared by the administration. He will propose increasing the state sales tax in July 2016 from 6 to 6.6 percent while...

resident Obama's disrespect for motherhood has manifested itself in policies ranging from support for same-sex marriage to defense of a form of abortion that involves forcing a baby into a drug-induced premature delivery and then leaving that little one to die. When it comes to the most vulnerable and innocent human beings -- those for whom great mothers have great hearts -- Obama has a heart of stone. It is demonstrably true that he does not believe a child has a right to a mother or a need for a mother. If he did, he could not support same-sex marriages...

**SNIP** Obama will ask lawmakers to close a loophole allowing capital gains on inherited funds to go untaxed -- a so-called "trust fund" loophole the White House says allows billions of dollars in capital gains to go untapped by the government every year. The administration’s proposal would exempt the first $200,000 in capital gains per couple plus $500,000 for a home, along with all personal property except for valuable art and collectibles. The rest would be treated for income-tax purposes as if it had been sold. The total amount of money raised for the government by these actions would be...

Barack Obama declared victory this week as the deadline to avoid the penalty for the individual mandate to carry health insurance passed on Monday. “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” the President insisted as he announced that 7.1 million people had enrolled in private insurance through Obamacare. “The debate over repealing this law is over.” Consider that presidential wish casting in a midterm cycle in which Democrats will have to constantly defend their support for the unpopular law. As Jimmy Fallon pointed out later the same evening, the numbers were neither impressive nor reliable. “It’s amazing what you...

A new IRS tax regime in 2014 will be devastating for the U.S. economy, and for millions of Americans working abroad, especially those in the middle class. New U.S. Tax Regime is "Devastating," Experts Say The New American 30 December 2013 Already facing “pariah” status worldwide due to onerous IRS requirements, millions of Americans living and working abroad are preparing to deal with a deluge of even bigger problems in 2014, when a byzantine new tax regime starts going into effect. Known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, the deeply controversial and incredibly complex scheme is...

Republican Governor Tom Corbett, who announced he's running for re-election next year, likes to tell Pennsylvanians he hasn't raised taxes. He ran for office four years ago saying he wouldn't raise taxes. But that's exactly what he is doing today when he signs a "transportation funding bill" to fix roads and bridges along with subsidizing public transportation systems (especially in the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh areas). The bill replaces an out in the open 12 cent a gallon gas tax at the pump with a backroom tax on gas at its wholesale price. It also raises registration fees for vehicles in the state...

Get ready to be blindsided by a barrage of new taxes. $1 trillion worth... They'll be coming courtesy of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. And they won't just be affecting those who make over $250,000. The bulk of these taxes will be passed on directly to the middle class. That's because while a majority of these "stealth taxes" were designed to be taxes on businesses, they're actually transferred directly to ordinary citizens. They include the investment income surtax, a Medicare payroll tax, even a "tanning tax" on those who utilize indoor tanning services. "Many of those [hidden]...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Right here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. It prints out perfectly on one page. I will show it to you. Yep. I'll show it to you there on the Dittocam. That's what it looks like. What it does, is state by state it tells you what your health insurance premiums were before Obamacare and the exchanges, what they will be after (i.e., when you go there), and what percentage change it is for an adult age 27, an adult age 50, and a family of four. Now, I'm gonna show you this. If you look at the colors,...

SAN FRANCISCO - One reason the Republicans are so adamantly against Obamacare, is that it's driving individual insurance premiums up. And with the law now kicking in, the bills are coming due. In looking into this, we talked to health insurance companies, and representatives of Covered California, agency implementing the Affordable Care Act in California. What they told us may be a bitter pill to swallow, for those who will pay more. Cynthia Jaynes thought her family would benefit from the Affordable Care Act. The author of several young adult books says her family will see a minimum 11 percent...

As I mentioned yesterday, the medical device tax that went into effect last January is just one of the many insidious job-killing measures contained within ObamaCare, but it is an especially terrible one. The 2.3 percent excise tax is meant to raise a handsome $30 billion to pay for ObamaCare over the next decade, except that, added bonus: It’s going to stifle innovation and competition in an industry that provides all manner of life-saving medical devices, from MRIs to pacemakers to blood tubes. And this hasn’t just been a Republican refrain, by the way. Thursday night, the Senate voted overwhelmingly...

How many Americans are being smashed by these same sort of crushing financial blows because of Obamacare? Across North Carolina, thousands of people have been shocked in recent weeks to find out their health insurance plans will be canceled at the end of the year – and premiums for comparable coverage could increase sharply. One of them is George Schwab of Charlotte, who pays $228 a month for his family’s $10,000 deductible plan from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. In a Sept. 23 letter, Blue Cross notified him that his current plan doesn’t meet benefit requirements outlined...

As the death toll for Government Shutdown Apocalypse 2013 continues to grow, it appears that the EPA’s plans to make it even more expensive for Americans to drive a car were “shut down” by the government shutdown. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency. Just think of how much less the EPA will be able to do with only 7 percent of its employees. That EPA SWAT Team may...

Dan Joseph went to the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference to find out why people don’t like ObamaCare. Surprisingly, it isn’t because ObamaCare is predictably causing the cost of healthcare to shoot through the stratosphere: Only racism, ignorance, greed, and a liberal media that is not liberal enough could explain the ingratitude of the American people in the face of such a generous gift from our power-mad moonbat rulers as ObamaCare. Unless it’s because of this:

The national Republican Party has a serious brand problem. Too many Establishment Elephants are too often Diet Democrats - taking positions just slightly less Large Government than the Donkey Party. That is - when they’re not agreeing with them in totality. Which disheartens and drives away American grassroots Conservatives - the lifeblood of any hope for Republicans in any election. And it drives average Americans crazy, because they see too much damage being done by DC - with two Parties too often agreeing on the obviously wrong solution. Democrats are for amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens currently in...