Free Republic

How can someone who avoided more than $500,000 in taxes to fund his luxury lifestyle demand that others ‘pay their fair share’ under massive tax hikes?In his speech to Congress last Wednesday and his multi-trillion-dollar plan for “human infrastructure” released earlier that day, President Biden proposed yet another tax increase, this one on purportedly “wealthy” individuals and families. In his address Wednesday evening, Biden used the words “fair share” on no fewer than five separate occasions to justify these proposed revenue hikes.Yet with his own taxes, Joe Biden didn’t pay his “fair share.” Upon leaving the vice presidency in early...

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday called President Trump's executive order to cut payroll taxes "a reckless war on Social Security." One of the several orders Trump signed from his private club in Bedminster, N.J., Saturday afternoon directs the Treasury Department to allow employers to defer payment of employee-side Social Security payroll taxes through the end of the year for Americans making less than roughly $100,000 annually. Trump also said that he intends to forgive the deferred payroll taxes and make permanent payroll tax cuts if he is reelected in November. In an emailed statement addressing the president's order,...

BRASILIA— Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff raced on Wednesday to defuse a rebellion by legislators upset about her budget austerity plans and her handling of a corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras. Rousseff met with legislative leaders from her coalition after they unexpectedly threw out a presidential decree that would have raised payroll taxes and helped close a gaping hole in Brazil's budget. “This is very serious for Rousseff,” said political analyst Gabriel Petrus of Brasilia-based consultancy Barral M Jorge Associates. “It looks as if there is no political stability on top of the economic crisis.” The economic impact of...

CARSON CITY — Perhaps nobody at the Legislature this year has been more insistent than Nevada Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis that the state must immediately put more money into Nevada’s education system. And Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval could hardly have been more clear when he said he opposes and would veto Denis’ bill to increase payroll taxes for education. But Denis will make the case today that his payroll tax hike proposal is the best way to help Nevada’s schools next school year. Noting that Nevada consistently ranks near the bottom of state-by-state education comparisons, the Las Vegas Democrat...

Freshman Tea Party Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is incensed that Republicans caved in the payroll-tax debate, and is putting the blame squarely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “I don’t think there’s a revolt with respect to Speaker Boehner,” Gowdy said Thursday night on Fox’s "Your World With Neil Cavuto." "I think the license tag of the truck that just ran over us has Kentucky license tags. For the life of me, I cannot understand when the Senate is going to find something they care enough about to stand on policy and principle.”Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a...

Asked if Americans will wake up January 1 to a tax increase because Congress failed to act on the issue, McConnell responded: "That isn't going to happen, and obviously we'll reach an agreement." Later in the interview, McConnell declared that extending the payroll tax cut "has bipartisan support." Another conservative Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, agreed that a compromise would emerge but said he doubted it would include the oil pipeline provision. "At the end of the day the payroll tax will get extended as it is now," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding: "The pipeline's...

For more than a generation, the Republican party has stood for cutting tax rates and opposing increased tax rates. That commitment has, on balance, well served the causes of limited government, economic growth, and conservative political success. (We are not among those who imagine that we would somehow be a freer society if we still had 70 percent tax rates.) In recent weeks, however, some Republicans have put themselves in the odd position of opposing a cut in tax rates that Democrats are proposing. They risk eroding the party’s traditional advantage on taxes, and for no good reason. Sen. Mitch...

Now, Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury. This year, it will add a projected $46 billion to the nation’s budget problems, according to projections by system trustees. Replacing cash lost to a one-year payroll tax holiday will require an additional $105 billion. If the payroll tax break is expanded next year, as President Obama has proposed, Social Security will need an extra $267 billion to pay promised benefits.

A state commission appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson is expected next week to propose a rescue package for the financially imperiled Metropolitan Transportation Authority that includes a new tax on corporate payrolls and tolls on the East River and Harlem River bridges, several people informed of the plan said on Wednesday. The commission, led by Richard Ravitch, a former chairman of the authority, will also recommend an increase next year in fares on subways, buses and commuter railroads, as well as in tolls on the bridges and tunnels it currently controls. But those increases would be much smaller than...

Wealthy folks worried that a new administration will raise their taxes sharply by tinkering with Social Security are making plans now to soften the blow. Campaign trail talk by Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, D.-Ill., about shoring up Social Security with a tax on higher incomes has advisors walking clients through ways to reduce the impact. Rich self-employed people would be hardest hit. Among the possible antidotes: Taking a bonus or exercising stock options this year instead of next. Another idea is for entrepreneurs to take smaller salaries to reduce their taxable income. Tax rhetoric by politicians is powerful stuff, as...

It's one of the toughest and most divisive issues facing the American people. And how we respond will have a profound impact on future generations. Yet many elected officials refuse to even talk about it. President Bush proposed a plan to deal with the issue but couldn't even get members of his own party to go along. Congress blew its shot at reform in a flurry of distortions, sound bites and fear-mongering. And most of the presidential candidates won't go anywhere near the subject, perhaps sensing that it could cost them votes. The issue, of course, is Social Security reform....

The best specific Social Security reform proposal by a 2008 presidential candidate comes from Republican Fred Thompson — by default. That's because the plan the former Tennessee senator released last week is the only specific Social Security proposal from any of the White House hopefuls. While the other candidates apparently are wary about going beyond generalities — and some not even that far — on this thorny issue, the next Oval Office occupant won't be able to responsibly duck the tough choices required to save Social Security. President Bush repeatedly tried — and failed — to implement such reform through...

Just as Democrats in Congress were congratulating themselves on turning back Social Security reform, a new proposal has dramatically changed the debate. The DeMint-Ryan plan, if passed into law, would mark a giant first step toward personal ownership of Social Security benefits. Moreover, it addresses the Democrats' main objections to personal accounts. We will now see, in other words, whether congressional Democrats have been debating the issue in good faith, or whether they have ulterior motives. Announced last week by Sen. Jim DeMint, along with several influential House Republicans, the plan is based on the radical idea that our Social...

The Social Security payroll tax, better known to workers as FICA (or SECA for the self employed), is now levied at a rate of 12.4 percent on workers earnings up to $90,000 a year. Employees and employers split the tax, meaning that they nominally pay 6.2 percent each. The Social Security trustees now project that the program has a deficit over the next 75 years equal to 1.89 percent of the payrolls on which the tax is levied (taxable payroll). Various commentators have thus pointed out that, in theory, the entire shortfall could be eliminated by levying a tax increase...

It seems likely that Social Security reform will be Topic A for the next year or so, especially if Iraq's progress toward forming a permanent government goes well. But it also seems as though the fate of our retirement funds causes almost as much apprehension as the future of Baghdad. So in the spirit of calming fears on the Social Security front, let's examine a scare story making the rounds. It is the claim that history all but proves attempting to save enough for a comfortable retirement will be impossible. Princeton University economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman...

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan went to Capitol Hill last week and made a colossal blunder. He told the truth about Social Security. He was right, naturally. The country can’t afford to pay soon-to-be-eligible baby boomers the current level of benefits. Several members of Congress were shocked, absolutely shocked, that Mr. Greenspan would say anything so reckless. They must not read the Social Security statement that’s mailed annually to workers. This year, there’s a message from the program’s Commissioner that notes: "Without changes, by 2042 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted . . . At that point, there...

It's not enough to fire the economic team; we need to fire up the economy.

<p>About a month ago, I wrote a column criticizing politicians for giving the government more power over the accounting practices of private industry.</p> <p>That's because when it comes to "cooking the books," as they say, our elected leaders are regular Bobby Flays.</p>