Free Republic

There are more loopholes in President Obama's proposed "spending freeze" than in an Olympic volleyball net. Government entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) are exempt. A half-trillion in unspent stimulus money is exempt, as are foreign aid and the Democrats' proposed $154 billion jobs bill (Stimulus II). Pet federal education programs will be exempt (including $4 billion for the White House "Race to the Top" standards initiative and $1.35 billion more he just requested in the 2011 budget). Green-jobs spending will be exempt. Electorally driven tax-credit expansions will be exempt. The health-care plan isn't included. As even The New York...

Big banks have already begun poking the holes in Obama’s new rules—holes they expect their banks to pass through basically unchanged. The president promised this morning to work with Congress to ensure that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank will own, invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or proprietary trading operations unrelated to serving customers for its own profit. But sources at three banks tell us that they are already finding ways to own, investment in and sponsor hedge funds and private equity funds. Even prop trading seems safe. A person...

U.S. corporate tax hikes likely delayedTue Oct 13, 2009 5:43pm EDT By Kim Dixon WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama remains committed to ending "unfair loopholes" and tax breaks for international corporations, but congressional tax writers and others doubt that will happen without broader reforms, such as cutting the top corporate tax rate. Obama ignited fear in corporate America earlier this year when he proposed about $200 billion in tax increases over a decade through tightening corporate tax rules for multinational companies, mostly related to offshore profits. A White House spokeswoman on Tuesday said the president is committed to those...

I don’t get it. The modern-day Murrow told us last night that Joe Wilson was wrong, wrong, wrong. If a man can’t trust Keith Olbermann to tell him the truth, who can he trust? The controversy over Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s shouting out “You Lie!” at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn’t benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. “We really thought we’d resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the President’s speech last night we wanted to go back and drill down again,” said...

Rep. Wilson Outburst Leads Senate Dems to Close Loophole in Health Reform Bill In the Senate, Democrats in the so called "Gang of Six," began moving quickly to close the loophole Rep. Joe Wilson helped bring to light with his outburst during President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. FOXNews.com Thursday, September 10, 2009 The apologies are out of the way and the offense forgiven. But the underlying policy argument remains, after a Congressman drew fire from both sides of the aisle for his outburst during President Obama's speech Wednesday. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., was...

The correct vote is: "It will cost us jobs at home."

Comparing International Corporate Tax Rates: U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Increasingly Out of Line by Various Measures by Robert Carroll Fiscal Fact No.143 The U.S. has left the major features of its business tax system unchanged over the past fifteen years. Meanwhile, other countries have been changing theirs, potentially hurting the competitiveness of the United States. Perhaps most emblematic of the trend abroad is lower corporate tax rates in virtually all developed nations. As a result, the United States now has the second-highest statutory tax rate among OECD member nations. Figure 1 below tells this story: The U.S. became a low-tax...

It's time for bold solutions. Bold solutions and straight talk - or straight solutions and bold talk. We need to get the country back on track, since it keeps derailing every 10 miles. All aboard the Right-Track Express, which boasts superior cow-catching capabilities. We need to invest in a commitment to the investment of commitments. We must stop dragging the nation down by calling for fear instead of hope, division instead of unity. Just last month, special interests were calling for more fear. They proposed a 20 percent increase in fear and division. We must say no to CEOs, Washington,...

In another apparent effort to prepare Marylanders for looming tax increases, Gov. Martin O'Malley released a recorded statement to radio stations suggesting corporations and higher-income earners will be among those asked to pay more. "When given a choice between decline and progress, the people of Maryland always choose to make progress," O'Malley (D) says in the message, which runs more than two minutes and was sent to more than 50 radio stations, an aide said. "Together we can overcome the deficit in our path, and we can get our fiscal house in order in a way that improves our state...

The murky diplomatic status of a proposed Mexican customs clearinghouse in Kansas City has gotten murkier. Since last spring, local officials and the Washington office of Sen. Kit Bond all have insisted that the matter was moving through government channels. But U.S. State Department spokesman Eric Watnik said that the agency has never been formally asked to consider the proposal. “It’s off the radar screen,” said Bill Anthony, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security. Border Protection was engaged in the early planning and was widely thought to have endorsed the project and moved...

There is a same-sex domestic partnership referendum on the Colorado ballot this year called Referendum I. It extends the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage to registered same-sex domestic partners. Its supporters disingenously insist that domestic partnerships are in no way the same as marriage. The considerable moral concerns about legitimizing homosexual acts are excluded from the opposing arguments in the Colorado voters' Blue Book entry on the referendum. Observing the rampant amorality of our government and the collapse of substantive public ethical discussion, this exclusion is hardly surprising. Yet the Blue Book also neglects fiscal argument nearly as important....

RUSH: Just to once again demonstrate that I'm not off the reservation on immigration, let me tell you -- it's a very fine line here -- but I have some experts from a floor speech made by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama about the bill. This is a 500-page bill and most of the Senate has not even seen it. They've not read it all. Perhaps their staff is digging deep and reading it now, but some of stuff in here is shocking. Now, the point of this is to show you just how desperate some of these senators are...

DISCOUNTING FOR AN UNDERWATER EARTHQUAKE that sent 40-foot-high waves traveling thousands of miles across the open sea to inflict death and destruction on an unimaginable scale, it was kind of a sleepy holiday for the Washington political community, newswise. So you can understand the titillation that shimmered through the capital when the local paper announced, a few days after Christmas, that President Bush might delay his plan to "simplify" the tax code! "Bush Expected to Delay Major Tax Overhaul," said the headline in the Washington Post. At last there was something else to talk about on Inside Politics.

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. CAFTA: A New Chinese Export Platform to the U.S. "The Chinese are offering investments in areas of production in which our products will enter U.S. markets with no tariffs with new free trade agreements." ~ Hon. Hugo Guiliani Cury, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the United States, November 8, 2004 "For Dominican Ambassador, the True Challenge Is Being Heard" by Nora Boustany, The Washington Post, November 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. - John Kerry has repeatedly called for increasing taxes on the "wealthy" so the affluent "pay their fair share" for the "common good." Ironically, John and Theresa Heinz Kerry, who comprise one the richest families in the world, pay relatively little income tax. Last year, John Kerry and his wife paid just 12% of their combined income in income taxes, despite their assertion that the rich should contribute increased amounts to government coffers. In contrast, President and Mrs. Bush, who had a substantially lower income than the Kerry's, paid over 28% in taxes. "John Kerry wants other Americans...

Think you've got a right to know the names of the people paying for attack ads in a local congressional race? Curious what the Sustainable World Corp. is and why it cares who the next U.S. president is? Good luck. These mysteries and plenty more are brought to you despite campaign finance reform. This is the first presidential election since Congress tried to limit the influence of big contributors. While reformers can point to some successes, the highly touted effort has done little to tie the hands of wealthy donors, said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. "It just...

I have a hard time keeping up with what happens with this thing.It seems to me there is some loop hole by which any candidate can operate in, but I'm not that good at understanding (nor remembering) what.One syllable words work best.

<p>SACRAMENTO – Tax reformers challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday to eliminate corporate loopholes in Prop. 13 that they say have cost the state billions since 1978.</p> <p>"There is a hole at the heart of our tax system crying out for reform," said Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Association, a nonprofit backed by labor and teachers. "There was never any promise to large corporations that they wouldn't be reassessed under Prop. 13, and there's no reason for not doing it."</p>

EDITORIAL: Tax `loopholes' Most Americans this time of year begin addressing the matter of filing their tax returns. Meanwhile, some members of Congress discussing taxes remain blind to the forest as they stare down a tree. On Friday, Senate Budget Committee chairman Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, decried the myriad tax "loopholes" that he called a "shell game" and argued the budget deficit could be reduced if lawmakers addressed the issue by amending the tax code. Among the items he cited were incorrect payments made under the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides a subsidy to poor families who don't...

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee asked the Treasury Department on Friday for a list of known tax loopholes, pledging to halt abuses and plug one transaction he called "a shell game." The statement from Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles adds tax avoidance to the items under scrutiny as lawmakers work to reduce the federal deficit. "If we can ... discover some other things that are really abuse of the system, we should shut them down earlier rather than later," Nickles told Treasury Secretary John Snow during a committee hearing. Nickles said Congress should look closely at abuse...