Free Republic

POLICYTax Advice for Mr. Bush: Consider the VAT The logic of a value-added tax is compelling and may soon be overwhelming. FORTUNE Wednesday, December 1, 2004 By Bruce Bartlett President Bush has pushed through some delightful changes in the tax code over the past four years: lower income tax rates, rebates, and increased business depreciation allowances, to name a few. It's been great. Except for one thing: When you consider those measures as a whole, they don't make much sense. Bush's tax policy--although "policy" may be stretching the meaning of the word--is a haphazard mess. What's scary is that the...

Four Senate candidates get feisty on budget deficits By MARSHA SHULER mshuler@theadvocate.com Capitol news bureau Assigning responsibility for escalating federal budget deficits and raids on the Social Security trust fund prompted friction and feisty exchanges Wednesday among the four major candidates in the U.S. Senate race. U.S. Rep. Chris John blamed the Bush administration for pushing tax cuts and higher spending while the budget deficit soars to historic highs. State Treasurer John Kennedy and state Rep. Arthur Morrell said John and U.S. Rep. David Vitter -- who have been representing Louisiana in Washington -- contributed to the problem. Meanwhile, Vitter...

Libertarian Solutions: How to solve the United States' $6,736,489,356,420 problem by Bill Winter LP News Editor If you had visited the online National Debt Clock at 12:00 noon on August 1, you would have seen this figure: $6,736,489,356,420.66. That's the amount of money owed by the federal government. (Over $6.7 trillion dollars.) But if you visited it again just 30 seconds later, you would have seen a different, bigger number: $6,736,489,954,145.59. That's an increase of about $590,000 -- a half-million dollars -- in 30 seconds. It's a stark reminder of just how quickly the politicians in Washington, DC are...

<p>In these times of war, a sputtering economy and mass layoffs, most Minnesota families have tightened their belts. Families know how important it is to live within their means in these challenging times. Government should also live within its means. That common-sense principle is at the heart of my proposed budget.</p>

THERE was widespread coverage in the French press of a leaked European Commission document which will initiate the excessive deficit procedure against France for its high budget deficit. France's deficit was 3.% in 2002 and is projected to reach 3.7% in 2003 - breaching the 3% limit two years in a row. This should lead to large fines. There was also a report in the German paper, Borsen Zeitung, which has seen a copy of another commission document saying the German deficit will be more than 3% in 2003, after surging over the limit in 2002. That will mean more...

Toogood Reports [Tuesday, March 18, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ What will cost America more, taking the war to our enemies, or continuing to let our enemies take the war to us? Look around. Shortly before 911, all we heard about were federal, and in some cases, state budget surpluses. We were supposedly billions of dollars in the black. Conversely, the states are now running a combined $50 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2003 and will be running an additional $71-88 billion deficit for FY 2004. At media outlets like the New York Times, socialists respond to such grim...

Toogood Reports [Thursday, November 14, 2002; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ It was a familiar socialist tableaux: The triumphant candidate flanked by supporters from big labor and ethnic constituencies, each of whom he greets in turn. Only the victor was "conservative" Republican Governor George Pataki. How could this be? In terrible Spanish, Pataki expressed his gratitude to one Hispanic Macher after another, including Dennis Rivera, the head of 1199/SEIU, the health workers' union. Besides being a communist, the anti-American Rivera is the biggest supporter of Al Sharpton and the other criminals and traitors who have interfered with U.S. Navy exercises in...

<p>Whichever aspirant is elected governor of California today -- and the odds favor Democratic Gov. Gray Davis over Republican rival Bill Simon -- he will immediately stare into a budgetary abyss of incalculable depth.</p> <p>The state's budget crisis is so severe and so endemic that it will dominate the next governorship and perhaps the next decade. However it is resolved -- if, in fact, it is -- will alter the fiscal politics of California for a generation. It culminates a quarter-century of fiscal denial, born of Proposition 13's passage in 1978s, capped by what happened in the late 1990s, under Davis and his Republican predecessor, Pete Wilson.</p>

<p>If you heard someone cheering loudly when the movies "Vanilla Sky," "I Am Sam" and "Training Day" were mentioned at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, it might have been Gov. Gray Davis.</p> <p>In a pop culture-related announcement that has become increasingly common for the governor, Davis last week congratulated the three films for receiving Oscar bids.</p>