Free Republic

Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has released a breakdown of how much the federal government forgoes in tax revenue due to various credits and deductions that benefit everything from NASCAR owners to gamblers. It's a fairly comprehensive analysis that should get bipartisan support, but one of the categories that Sen. Coburn targets to raise taxes from may be surprising: "the rich." Coburn highlights $100 billion in tax revenue that could be raised over the next ten years by ending some of these deductions only on millionaire households. Over the 2006-2009 time period, Coburn notes, millionaires deducted over $20 billion in gambling...

According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 73 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents -- and even 39 percent of Republicans -- now favor raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year. So give the people want they want. As it is, the GOP is engaged in an unwinnable scrum with Barack Obama, a man chasing the gold-plated Holy Grail of hiking top marginal tax rates on the rich and small businesses -- bringing in, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a few days' worth of revenue. Concede the Bush-era tax rate (though you wonder...

Actor Alec Baldwin has launched a war of tweets with Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos Baldwin's bombastic twitter attacks on Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos has given the Republicans a perfect foil to use to solicit campaign funds--a liberal Hollywood elite actor who wants to raise taxes. "Don't think we haven't thought of that," a Senate GOP source said when asked if Baldwin will be the focus of a fund-raising effort. Even Democrats were scratching their heads over why Baldwin took a one-day story and kept it going. "What Alec Baldwin is doing is making Dean Skelos a man of...

New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is reportedly pitching a plan for an increased "millionaire's tax" aimed at 75-85 thousand New Yorkers making $1 million or more a year. Political columnist Fred Dicker , who appeared on Wednesday's Good Day New York, says Silver secretly proposed a $1 billion tax hike on the highest income earners to Gov. Paterson. The plan would jack up a current millionaires tax another 11-percent. The current "millionaire's tax" actually starts affecting people who have incomes over $200,000. High income tax earners would pay more than 13-percent of their salary in local taxes. The...

In 2004, voters narrowly approved Proposition 63, the Mental Heath Services Act (MHSA), which imposed an additional 1% tax on personal income above $1 million. The funds generated from this “millionaire’s tax” were intended to expand county mental health programs. Taxpayer and business groups opposed the measure for a couple of obvious reasons. First, California is already a high tax, high spending state that didn’t need any more revenue. Second, as we predicted, Prop 63 would exacerbate California’s income tax volatility. Although the final vote for Proposition 63 was tallied more than four years ago, evidence suggests that California’s most...

Sinking into the (Economic) Swamp New Jersey’s Governor McGreevey is winning the race for worst. By Paul J. Gessing With Gray Davis long gone from the California governor’s seat, there has been some tough competition this year for the title of “America’s Worst Governor.” Governors Jennifer Granholm (Mich.), Frank Murkowski (Alaska), and Mark Warner (Va.) must be considered possibles for the dubious honor due to their successful attempts to raise taxes even as economic growth and state revenues have rebounded sharply nationwide. Rather than make modest spending cuts that would carry their states through to next year, when the revenue...