Free Republic

In a recent New York Times opinion essay, drawn from their new book, Professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, advisors to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, advanced a startling claim. In 2018, the 400 richest Americans paid a lower effective tax rate (23.0%) than the bottom 50% of Americans (24.2%). That claim furnishes a juicy soundbite for all the left-of-center Democratic presidential candidates – “American voters, you pay more tax than a billionaire!” The soundbite will resonate once President Trump’s tax returns are leaked and it turns out he paid less than the average billionaire. But is the soundbite accurate?...

The new Democrat governor in Illinois, billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune J.B. Ptitzker, gave a speech about how grave the budget situation is. He correctly said that the problem had compounded itself for decades, but somehow mostly blamed Republican Governor Rauner, who was in office for four years, for the problems, and didn’t comment at all on the Democrat-controlled legislature. The governor pointed out that Illinois 2020 budget was $3 billion in the hole with a backlog of $15 billion in unpaid bills. Somehow, his solution was to tax more, with a series of new taxes totaling $1.1...

I had a very bad lunch today. But not because of what I ate. My lunch was unpleasant because I moderated a noontime panel on Capitol Hill featuring Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and my Cato colleague Chris Edwards. And I should hasten to add that they were splendid company. The unpleasant part of the lunch was the information they shared. The Senator, in particular, looked at budgetary projections over the next 30 years and basically confirmed for the audience that an ever-expanding burden of federal spending is going to lead to a fiscal crisis. To be blunt, he showed...

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a widespread consensus that high tax rates were economically misguided. Many Democrats, for instance, supported the 1986 Tax Reform Act that lowered the top tax rate from 50 percent to 28 percent (albeit offset by increased double taxation and more punitive depreciation rules). And even in the 1990s, many on the left at least paid lip service to the notion that lower tax rates were better for prosperity than higher tax rates. Perhaps that’s because the overwhelming evidence of lower tax rates on the rich leading to higher revenue was fresh in...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney started a three-day visit to China Tuesday aimed at keeping a lid on tension between China and Taiwan and jump-starting talks to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In his first closed-door meeting after arriving from Tokyo, Cheney reassured Chinese leaders that the United States did not support Taiwan independence and would oppose unilateral steps by either side, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. But Washington is increasingly concerned by China's build-up of ballistic missiles capable of striking Taiwan, and Cheney was expected to raise the issue when talks resume on Wednesday. China,...