Free Republic

Most of us will pay our fair share of taxes on April 18 - perhaps even more than our fair share. But not everyone is ponying up. General Electric, for instance, paid no federal income tax last year on billions of dollars of profits; worse, its army of tax attorneys convinced the IRS to pay the corporation a refund. Closer to home, the top 1 percent of California's income earners has doubled its share of all income earned by individuals in the state, but pays a lower tax rate than before. Yet, when Congress extended Bush's tax cuts for the...

When it comes to business climate, California ranks last among the states according to the latest attack on the rules and red tape despised by the respondents to a survey by CEO Magazine.

As America's trade with the Far East – principally China – expanded massively during the 1980s and 1990s, California reaped the benefits as the gateway for both exports and imports. With trade emerging as a major component of the state's very diverse economy, traffic and payrolls blossomed at its major ports. California now is mired in its worst recession since the Great Depression, and international trade has been seriously damaged. Imports and exports through the state's air and sea ports, the most recent Department of Commerce data show, are running at least one-fifth below last year's already depressed levels. Exports...

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Barack Hussein Obama will propose a massive business tax on greenhouse gases in his FY 2010 federal budget to be presented this week.The massive tax increase and power grab was buried at the end on article on Obama's forthcoming budget proposal in The New York Times:On energy policy, Mr. Obama’s budget will show new revenues by 2012 from his proposal to require companies to buy permits from the government for greenhouse gas emissions above a certain cap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the permits would raise up to $300 billion a year by 2020. Since companies would pass their...