Free Republic

The Senate health-care bill would raise effective marginal tax rates on lower and middle-income singles and families up to 41%. The effective marginal tax rate is the answer to the question: "If I earn $1 more, how much less than $1 do I get to save or spend?" If you can keep that full dollar for your disposal, the effective marginal tax rate is zero. If earning another dollar does not raise your disposable income by even a penny, the effective marginal tax rate is 100 percent. Consider, then, the figure below constructed for a two-earner family with two school-age...

... [T]he signature domestic issue in President Obama’s first year in office — health care reform — is shaping up to be the antithesis of President Reagan’s supply-side economics. The starting point for Ronald Reagan was the idea that people respond to incentives. The incentives that he most worried about were those provided by the tax system. According to his budget director, David A. Stockman, Mr. Reagan would regale the staff with stories of how he, as an actor, used to alter his work schedule in response to the tax code. “You could only make four pictures, and then you...

I was asked this past Thursday morning on Fox News about the impact of President Obama spending the day in New Jersey campaigning for the immensely unpopular sitting governor Jon Corzine. I was asked if it was a good use of the President's time. I was asked if there were bigger things he should be focused on. I was asked if it might not even backfire against Corzine or other candidates in the immediate electoral future. Obama dedicated not just a speech, but the entire day to the Corzine cause. My response is simple, "It's what he has to do."...

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act. The bill cut personal income tax rates by 25% across the board, indexed tax brackets for inflation and reduced the corporate income tax rate. The anniversary is worth commemorating as a seminal moment that continues to influence policy for the better in the U.S., and around the globe. The achievement of Reaganomics can only be fully understood by recalling the miserable state of affairs a quarter-century ago. Newsweek summarized the national mood when it wrote in 1981 that Reagan "inherits the most dangerous economic crisis since Franklin...