Free Republic

Four percent, guys. To put that in perspective, Scott Walker was still pulling five percent in one poll released less than a week before he dropped out of the race.Every now and then, just for a fleeting moment or two, I put away my fatalism and consider that maybe the Republican establishment can’t nominate anyone it wants. And then the moment passes and I return to reality.As for Trump, there’s been a raging debate for the past three months between people who think his surge is due to a cocktail of populism, “white identity politics,” and sheer alpha-male bravado...

I wrote earlier today how Trump could “surprise me in a good way” over his tax plan, and you know, he did. His personal income tax reform plan for people who don’t have stocks is really simple and something which he should be praised for.The simplification is really good and is a lot easier than the current system. Good on Trump for doing this. From a personal standpoint, I prefer either a very low flat tax (7%) or zero income tax at all. But the income tax part of Trump’s plan isn’t bad at all. I’m still not sure...

Bush's plan starts by slashing tax rates. He'd return to the top personal income tax rate of 28% that America had when Ronald Reagan left office. That top rate, by the way, was a true bipartisan reform designed in part by congressional Democrats like Bill Bradley and Dick Gephardt. The rate has since migrated up to 42%, with many Democrats longing to tax the rich well above 50%. Middle-class tax rates would fall to 10% for families with incomes up to $89,000 and to 25% for incomes up to $163,800. For singles, the thresholds are lower. But the thresholds are...

Today, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who as of-late has gone relatively gaffe-free, uttered a phrase that may not go over too well with the constituency he seeks to reach. During an interview that was live-streamed on the app Periscope, Bush told New Hampshire’s The Union Leader that to grow the economy, “people should work longer hours.” He was answering a question about his plans for tax reform and responded: “My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a...

Jeb Bush says he released 33 years of tax returns this week because he wants to be the most transparent candidate to run for president in 2016. But if that’s really the case, why is he continuing to obfuscate some of his most lucrative and potentially controversial business dealings he had before announcing his candidacy, like his work as an “adviser” for investment bank Lehman Brothers? So, if Jeb won’t tell you what Jeb exactly did while working on Wall Street, in the interests of transparency and disclosure, I will try. Not much is known about what Bush actually did...

Record-breaking transparency. Jeb takes a swipe at Hillary by releasing 33 years of personal tax returns Don’t look now, but Jeb Bush’s campaign is about to set a record in terms of releasing tax information. This afternoon, Bush will release 33 years’ worth of personal income tax returns via his website. That’s more than any other would-be nominee ever - by a wide margin. Only Bob Dole and John Kerry came close to this total, and the Bush release will outpace both of them by double digits. As the AP reports: Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush plans to release 33...

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, in a break with his party, said he could support tax increases to help reduce the federal government’s budget deficit. The brother of former President George W. Bush told a congressional panel in Washington today that he could back a theoretical deficit-reduction package that would include $1 in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts. 1 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post More from PostPolitics Obama: From dove to tough guy Aaron Blake JUN 1 THE FIX | When it comes to foreign policy, Obama’s image is starting to look a...

One of the more memorable moments during the last presidential campaign was a GOP debate in August, 2011. Fox’s Bret Baier asked the eight candidates if they would agree to $1 in new taxes for every $10 in spending cuts. Not one person raised his (or her) hand. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Richard Nixon—all tax hikers at one point or another during their presidencies—would have raised their hands, and might have been booed off stage. That’s how much the Republican party has changed. Which brings us to Jeb Bush. During his eight years as governor of Florida (1999-2007),...

Americans don’t much like the federal tax system, a recent Pew Research Center report finds. But it’s not, as you might imagine, because they think they pay too much. Rather, they think people other than themselves don’t pay their fair share.Some six-in-ten Americans in the Pew Research survey said they were bothered a lot by the feeling that “some wealthy people” and “some corporations” don’t pay their fair share. Only 27% cited their own tax bills as something that bothered them a lot, even though 40% thought they paid more than their fair share given what they get from...

Give him credit. Most elected officials are content to tinker at the edges, but Governor Jindal of Louisiana actually wants to solve problems. Look what he’s done, for instance, on fiscal policy. He sought to abolish his state’s personal income tax, a step that would have dramatically boosted the states competitiveness. That effort stalled, but he actually has been successful in curtailing state spending. He’s amassed one of the best records for frugality of all governors seeking the GOP presidential nomination. And he’s now joined the list of presidential candidates seeking to rewrite the internal revenue code. Since we’ve already reviewed...

Did my best with the limited information available to calculate how much Federal Taxes you would owe under Trumps plan. Donald J. Trump’s Tax Plan This information may be inaccurate and is not meant in anyway as legal or tax advice. Nor is this calculator an endorsement of any canidate by Money.Savvythis.com. This calculator was purely meant for educational purposes and may contain inaccuracies.

I wrote a calculator to calculate what you would pay in income tax under Donald Trumps plan.

Investment bank UBS recently published its "Prices and Earnings" research note for 2015, tracking everything from taxes, incomes and working hours to the how long it takes the average person to earn enough for an iPhone or a Big Mac. One of the graphics that comes with the report is on income taxes and social security contributions, showing just how heavy those personal and work-related taxes are around the world. The figures are for a select group of professions that UBS profiled, a full list of which can be seen below the graphic. There's a huge range, from Copenhagen where...

Donald Trump is finally showing us more of his economic plan beyond the "Make America Great Again" slogan on his red hat. America has now learned: -- He wants to tax the rich more and the middle class less. -- He wants to lower corporate taxes. -- He wants to cut government spending and stop raising the debt ceiling. "The hedge fund people make a lot of money and they pay very little tax," Trump said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg. "I want to lower taxes for the middle class." In short, Trump is willing to raise taxes on...

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working overseas on various contracts and making good money, probably two to three times what they can make in the United States. On top of that, they may even be eligible for the foreign earned income exclusion, which in 2014 meant that the first $99,200 of their total income earned overseas was excluded from being taxed at the Federal level (it’s higher for 2015). However – and I can’t emphasize this enough – they are earning it! Naturally, the best-paying jobs are in high-threat environments such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,...

Washington, D.C. gets back nearly six times, per capita, what it contributes For those who believe that the federal government should tax us, either by income tax or a fair tax, or any other direct means of taxation, must understand that doing so only creates socialism among the states (taking from one to give to another), as the following table shows (A more complete table can also be found at Tax Foundation Special Report No. 158, “Federal Tax Burdens and Spending by State). The table is from 2005 (I haven’t found a newer one, yet), so I would suppose that...

AUBURN, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage pitched his plan to reform Maine’s tax system and realign the state’s spending priorities in a “town hall” forum at Edward Little High School on Wednesday. LePage announced he intends to put a statewide ballot measure before voters in 2016 that would ask them to amend the Maine Constitution to eliminate the state’s income tax for good. He told Eileen Heidrich of Turner that that way he would be sure his goal to end the state’s income tax completely could not be undone by politicians in Augusta. “We are working on the language; we’ve...

Campaigning for reelection, President Barack Obama often talked about the importance of everyone paying their "fair share" of taxes. The assumption was that there was general agreement about what fair share means. The underlying message is that those who earn more should pay more than they already are; that what the top 10 percent are paying is just not enough. This week, a Wall Street Journal article titled "Top 20 Percent of Earners Pay 84 Percent of Income Tax" by Laura Saunders provides a different perspective than we are used to hearing regarding who pays what income taxes. Nearly "half...

Though they may seem like it, the dates that holidays fall on aren't usually random. They typically commemorate a significant event that happened on or around that day. Obviously, this makes sense. However, it's hard to guess why April 15 was chosen as Tax Day, the deadline for filing and paying your taxes. The 16th Amendment, which instituted a national income tax, was passed by Congress on July 2, 1909 and ratified on Feb. 3, 1913, but neither of these days made the cut to be the Tax Day. What gives? If the April 15 deadline to file and pay...

Gov. Tom Wolf is expected to call today for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to send him a budget that boosts state education funding and provides relief for school district property taxes while raising the rates of the sales and personal income taxes. His plan for doing so includes a proposal to raise the personal income tax rate in July 2015 from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent, while increasing the eligibility for a poverty exemption, according to a briefing document prepared by the administration. He will propose increasing the state sales tax in July 2016 from 6 to 6.6 percent while...