Free Republic

The City of Plano and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital are expected to approve an agreement that would let the hospital sponsor four city recreation centers. It's a new and innovative way for the city to collect revenue at a time when budget shortfalls have become common. Once the deal is approved, the hospital's logo will be on the upstairs jogging track. Signs will be placed on walls that are now bare, and also on outside monuments.

A neurosurgeon, vetted by Levin's staff, calls Mark and talks about what he knows about Obamacare Death Panels. From 11/22/11

Republicans offered a debt reduction blueprint that includes meaningful tax reform, needed spending cuts, and at least $300 Billion in increased federal revenue -- the piece of the puzzle the Left relentlessly focuses on. Yet Democrats just aren't interested:

I’m a day late on this but it’s too intriguing not to blog. You can read the actual letter, which is exceedingly tame, on Mike Simpson’s website. Among the signatories: …Ron Paul. The bad news? If this happens, some people might be paying a little more. The good news? We’ll never have to read another “time for a grand bargain” column from Tom Friedman again. Dude, I think we should take the deal. A group of 40 House Republicans for the first time Wednesday encouraged Congress’s deficit reduction committee to explore new revenue as part of a broad deal that...

Two interrelated issues confront the taxpayers: The insolvency of the federal government and its seemingly never-ending barriers against the production and distribution of affordable energy. The assertion that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population but consumes 26 percent of its energy fails to mention that the U.S. produces 26 percent of the world's industrial output. Another contrived assault against expanded domestic oil production is that the U.S. has only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. This number is questionable, especially since the federal government either has made it illegal to explore for oil...

Last year, as a debate over the runaway national debt gathered steam in Washington, Social Security passed a treacherous milestone. It went “cash negative.” For most of its 75-year history, the program had paid its own way through a dedicated stream of payroll taxes, even generating huge surpluses for the past two decades. But in 2010, under the strain of a recession that caused tax revenue to plummet, the cost of benefits outstripped tax collections for the first time since the early 1980s. Now, Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury. This year, it will add a projected...

Remember when President Obama was a U.S. Senator talking about how raising taxes is about "fairness?" We do. In the following clip, Charlie Gibson explains how history shows lowering the capital gains tax actually increases government revenue. Gibson asks Obama, with the facts showing lower tax rates actually increase revenue, why raise the capital gains tax at all? Then Senator Obama responds by saying raising taxes is about fairness. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/07/15/flashback_obama_says_raising_taxes_not_about_revenue_but_about_fairness

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, hit the two leading Republican presidential candidates this morning - one for spending issues and the other on his much-discussed tax plan. Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., "thinks there's some sort of virtue in not criticizing Bush's [big spending] mistakes," Norquist said. Romney could correct that mistake, but Norquist was even less sanguine about Cain's 9-9-9 plan. "Having three taxes, all of which can grow - it's like having three needles in your arm taking blood out, it's much more dangerous than having one," Norquist explained. Norquist praised Cain for trying to...

Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax reform is attracting enough attention to become the focus of this week's Presidential debate. As a plan for overhauling revenues and unleashing the private sector, it's a bold gambit that shows Cain is willing to take chances and shake up the Capital. The 9 percent business tax is a stroke of genius. It would give us the lowest business rates in the world and would make us the "tax haven" for investment from everywhere. The stock market would barely be able to stay abreast. The 9 percent personal income rate would eliminate all the deductions and...

....Of Mr. Cain's many ideas, the most well-known -- in part because of its clever sound-bite name -- is his 9-9-9 plan which aims to replace most current federal taxes (including income tax, death tax, payroll tax, capital gains taxes, and double-taxation of dividends) with a 9% flat tax for business income, a 9% flattax for individual income, and a 9% national salestax. The plan would eliminate almost all deductions. While Mr. Cain's consistent results-oriented approach is admirable -- not least for its contrast with the other candidates -- voters should be wary of the 9-9-9 plan despite its initial...

WASHINGTON — It's not just millionaires who'd pay more under President Barack Obama's latest plan to combat the deficit. Air travelers, federal workers, military retirees, wealthier Medicare beneficiaries and people taking out new mortgages are among those who would pay more than $130 billion in new government revenues raised through new or increased fees. These fees are advertised as "savings" in administration budget documents.

Pelosi for tax reform only if it increases revenueBy Mike Lillis - 09/15/11 01:21 PM ET The top House Democrat warned Thursday that the GOP's push for sweeping tax reform would win Democratic support only if it increases overall revenues. Republican leaders have been highly critical of the nation's 35 percent corporate tax rate, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected Thursday to ask the budget supercommittee to overhaul the tax code as part of its deficit-slashing mandate. But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) preempted Boehner's speech Thursday with the stipulation that any such tax overhaul would have to...

IT HAS BEEN a little over a week since billionaire Warren Buffett called for higher taxes on the richest Americans, and now comes the reaction. Harvey Golub, a former chairman and chief executive of American Express, writes in the Wall Street Journal that he “resents” Mr. Buffett’s suggestion. I already pay plenty of taxes, Mr. Golub asserts, adding: “Before you ‘ask’ for more tax money from me and others, raise the $2.2 trillion you already collect each year more fairly and spend it more wisely.” Who’s right? Mr. Golub points out that almost half of the population pays no income...

What Obama and Democrats don't understand, is that tax cuts provide capital needed to start new businesses.

The Democrats, David Brooks claims, “have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession.” Not if you know your recent history. “Congress is locked in yet another rending slugfest over tax increases,” the Heritage Foundation reported on November 14, 1983. “In one corner is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Robert Dole (R-Kan) who set off the bruising campaign last year that resulted in a $99 billion tax hike.” “That package promised three dollars in budget cuts for every one dollar in tax increases. It turned out to be a lemon. The actual result was...

Over the last couple of days, we’ve had a good debate at Hot Air over the nature of our fiscal crisis between Jazz Shaw, and J. E. Dyer, and me. At least we all recognize that we have a fiscal crisis; some members of Congress and “intellectual authorities� (with interesting if unreported conflicts of interest) still act as though nothing at all is wrong. My friend Jazz wrote yesterday that we have a revenue problem as well as a spending problem in answer to my post rebutting David Brooks’ column, so let’s take a look at federal revenue to see...

<p>GOP Senators and Speaker Boehner set to cave and raise taxes. This is the start of the set up.</p>

Microsoft stopped giving forward guidance a couple years ago when the company hit a rough patch, but yesterday at a Rotary event in Seattle, CEO Steve Ballmer spilled some rough figures about the company's 2011 fiscal year, which ends today. As reported by GeekWire's John Cook, who was at the event, Ballmer said: There’s a reason why we’ll do almost $70 billion in revenue this year, and we will make over $20, whatever, $26, $27 billion in profits. That $70 billion would be a 12% increase from last year's revenue of $62.5 billion, and would mean a quarterly revenue figure...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Monday that a "significant" deal with Republicans on cutting government spending and raising the nation's debt limit is still possible, even as the administration hardened its stance on the need for increased tax revenue to be part of any agreement. President Barack Obama made his first direct foray into the deficit negotiations Monday. He met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the Oval Office for about 30 minutes Monday morning, and planned to meet with Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in the early evening. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama's meeting with...

Republicans should support targeted "Revenue Enhancements."

The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, proposing on his blog "a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the rich." After all, he noted, "between the late 1940s and 1980 America's highest marginal rate averaged above 70 percent. Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Not until the 1980s did Ronald Reagan slash it to 28 percent."

Among sentences I do not like to write: Andrew Leonard is mostly right about this one. Tax cuts do not generally increase revenue, and Republicans should stop saying otherwise. But he’s not quite right to treat all these statements as equivalent: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s Rep. Joe Walsh, (R-Ill.) the self-styled “conservative Tea Party activist” who upset Democrat Melissa Bean in the 2010 midterms, on ABC’s “This Week.” “In the ’80s, federal revenues went up,” said Walsh. “We didn’t cut spending. Revenues went up in the ’80s. Every time we’ve cut taxes, revenues have gone up. The economy has grown.” Walsh may...

After decades of increasing tobacco taxes at the federal, state, and local levels, some states are beginning to buck this fiscally burdensome and irresponsible trend. On March 17, the New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill that would cut the state’s cigarette tax by a dime, to $1.68 per pack. Two other states with high tobacco taxes—New Jersey and Rhode Island—are also considering proposals to reduce taxes on tobacco products to make their state’s tax rates more competitive. This reversal in policy would be fiscally responsible and especially beneficial to low-income people. Many economists have noted that many states’...

On Tuesday, the president will deliver his State of the Union message. The con ventional wisdom is that President Obama will continue his "move to the center." This undoubtedly means Obama will try to seem as if he's meeting Republicans halfway on their "reasonable" demands while drawing a stark line against their "unreasonable" ones. This sort of strategizing leaves most Americans cold. These days, they're less concerned with "triangulation" than they are with the creation of good jobs that aren't bogus make-work, or paid for with money borrowed from China or our grandkids. If that's true, the solution is right...

Over the years, conservative economic policies have been the subject of heated attack by liberals seeking to justify punitive taxes and a bloated regulatory state. But far from failing, conservative economic values have delivered on every point. Liberal economists frequently claim that tax cuts -- the centerpiece of effective conservative economic policies -- harm revenues and contribute to deficits. But this claim is patently false. Out-of-control spending, not tax cuts, causes huge deficits. President Reagan cut the top tax rate to 28 percent for joint filers during the eighties. During the Reagan expansion, total revenues jumped nearly one hundred percent....

A successful parasite must keep its host alive, finding the point where it can maximize its intake without killing off its source of sustenance. So, too, with governments taxing their citizenry. With taxation, governments can reach the point where higher rates produce less revenue. An academic study found that a tax increase of just 1% of GDP causes a recession and then a permanent loss of 1.84% of GDP compared to what it would have been without the tax increase. The results of this study have some really broad and interesting implications. The punchline is that this study was done...

Weak Sales Pose Threat to Recovery in Stocks Monday, August 9, 2010 08:26 AM Weak revenue growth, which corporate America managed to mask in the second quarter by holding costs at unsustainably low levels, stands as the biggest threat to a recovery in U.S. stocks. Many of the largest U.S. companies sailed past Wall Street's expectations, their profit boosted by last year's brutal cost-cutting campaigns. Companies laid off tens of thousands of workers, sent remaining staffers out on unpaid leave and halted contributions to employee retirement accounts. Their top-line performance, though, was less stellar. Shares of blue chip companies, including...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast.

SALEM -- Oregon’s stubbornly bad economy has left a huge hole in the state budget, distressed lawmakers learned today -- $563 million that must be cut from schools and other programs over the next year unless more money comes in. The figure was reported during the quarterly economic and revenue forecast, delivered minutes ago to a somber gathering of House and Senate revenue committees. The bad financial news means that either Gov. Ted Kulongoski or the Legislature must take steps to balance the current two-year budget, which

The spring Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Fas-Fax report was released in the middle of earnings season. And so the many newspapers reporting that ad revenue was still falling, but at a slower pace, were mostly also posting circ numbers that continue to slide but not accelerate.

SAN ANTONIO - The Texas Supreme Court is deciding whether to strip away a $5 entrance fee to watch nude dancers. The court heard arguments Thursday about whether the so-called pole tax, a fee mandated by lawmakers in 2007, is unconstitutional. Texas has so far collected more than $13.6 million from the fee. But many clubs have ignored the law, which is intended to fund programs for sexual assault victims. The Texas Entertainment Association, which represents strip clubs across the state, sued to block the fee. Lower courts have sided with the clubs. Justices questioned both sides at length. Talk...

Experts: Wave of Layoffs to Hit Cash Strapped States, Cities Tuesday, March 16, 2010 01:37 PM By: Dan Weil The budget woes of state and local governments will force them to slash workers and hike taxes, experts say. State and local government payrolls react more slowly to recessions than the private sector, because government budgets are set a year in advance. So public sector layoffs are just starting to arise. /snip State and local governments also will need to raise taxes to make up for lost revenue. Another problem for state and local governments is the need to generate money...

An unexpected drop in state tax collections has created a mid-year budget deficit that could be as high as $400 million, adding dark new clouds to the state's bleak financial forecast as lawmakers prepare for the start of their annual session in two weeks. The news, delivered to Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration late last week by state economists, comes less than three months after the governor cut $248 million from the 2009-10 budget to adjust for shrinking state tax collections. Those cuts have led to hundreds of layoffs in state government and fell particularly hard on health care and higher...

Self-paying tax cuts are a popular delusion, except among economists. University of Michigan economist Joel Slemrod is adamant on one of the key economic issues of our day: 'Tax cuts don't pay for themselves! Period!' Hardly any economist would disagree. This is true for Republicans as well as Democrats. It is also true regardless of whether they describe themselves as NeoClassical, New Classical, Rational Expectations, Monetarist, Keynesian, Austrian or New Institutional economists. Yet, for a substantial portion of the general public, the idea that cutting tax rates will increase tax revenues has become an article of faith. The following anonymous...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Everywhere you look, people are talking about budget cuts in Oklahoma. This week, an Associated Press article reported that in the state Senate, there is a battle over the state’s $669 million budget shortfall and cuts that would need to be made to senior nutrition programs. At the end of February, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reported Oklahoma was No. 1, with the fifth consecutive quarterly drop in tax collections. Oklahoma, which had largely weathered the maelstrom, is starting to feel the effects. And in a recent editorial in The Oklahoman, headlined “We’re No. 1:...

Is al Qaeda Bankrupt? Nathan Vardi, 02.11.10, 04:00 PM EST Forbes Magazine dated March 01, 2010 Desperate for funds, the terrorist group has turned to affiliates that rely more and more on crime. Jihadists had a name for Abd al Hamid al Mujil--"the million dollar man." Al Mujil had forged a personal relationship with Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, spending parts of the late 1990s in Afghanistan. In those days the Kuwaiti-born al Mujil traveled to various Arab countries to meet with bin Laden's deputies. As recently as 2006 al...

Battle lines are drawn over lucrative traffic fines An L.A. councilman and a state senator clash over which entity should issue red-light and other citations and keep the money. By Rich Connell 5:14 PM PST, February 12, 2010 In an emerging high-stakes battle fueled by government budget woes, a Long Beach lawmaker is attempting to stop cities from launching what she calls a "raid" on state coffers by collecting and keeping traffic fines. With some tickets now costing more than $500 -- and with most of the money going to the state and the courts -- California municipalities in small...

Political and public pressure is building to bring bingo bling to Alabama’s financially ailing school and general government revenue. Republican gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne said acute issues like education and jobs are out there, but bingo is becoming the issue in an election year when all constitutional and legislative offices are on the ballot. “It’s the tail wagging the dog,” Byrne said Friday. Alabama’s main revenues continued their drop for the fourth month into the 2009-2010 fiscal year. All revenues were down 2.75 percent for the four months of the year compared with last year, according to the Revenue Department,...

First there was the "Bo-tax" on elective cosmetic surgeries. Now, a new tax on indoor tanning services could be in play, as Senate Democrats continue to hunt for healthcare revenues anywhere they can. The concept of an excise tax on tanning services, which could include salon walk-ins or tanning beds and sunlamps sold for residential use, was floated in a weekend Senate staff meeting on the health bill. Officials described the idea as preliminary and not being seriously considered at this time. But as senators continue to draft amendments to add spending or scale back other pay-fors, all bets could...

U.S. State Tax Revenue Drops Most Since 1963 Oct 17, 2009 - 04:57 PM By: Mike_Shedlock Bloomberg is reporting State Revenue Falls Most Since 1963 on Incomes, Sales. U.S. state tax collections tumbled the most in almost half a century in the second quarter as the economic recession curbed levies on incomes and sales. The 16.6 percent plunge was the biggest since at least 1963, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government said today. For the 12 months to June 30, the fiscal year for most states, revenue declined 8.2 percent, or $63 billion, about twice what states got from...

U.S. states suffer "unbelievable" revenue shortages By Lisa Lambert Fri Oct 9, 5:59 pm ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy may be creeping toward recovery after the worst slowdown since the Great Depression, but many states see no end in sight to their diving tax revenues. Tax revenues used to pay teachers and fuel police cars continue to trail even the most pessimistic expectations, despite the cash from the economic stimulus plan pouring into state coffers. "It's crazy. It's really just unbelievable," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, and called the states'...

State tax revenue in the second quarter plunged 17% from a year earlier, according to Census Bureau. It was the sharpest decline since at least the 1960s. The biggest drop was in state income taxes, which were down 28% in the second quarter from a year earlier. Some of the sharpest tax declines were in states that have been among the hardest-hit by the recession, in particular those with high concentrations of jobs in the battered housing sector. In Arizona, overall tax revenue fell 27% in the second quarter from a year ago. Tax revenue fell 12% in Florida and...

<p>This is pretty ugly; we were not supposed to have a negative income-to-outlay view on Social Security for another decade or so.</p> <p>Well, the recession fixed that. Tax receipts are in the toilet but outlays sure aren't.</p> <p>This, unfortunately, is terribly misleading. The Social Security "Trust Fund" contains nothing other than IOUs. That is, it does not contain money, it contains "special" Treasury Bonds that form part of the "public debt."</p>

4 weeks, 10,000 traffic tickets Heath officials say they didn't expect such a windfall Saturday, August 1, 2009 3:01 AM By Josh Jarman THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH HEATH, Ohio -- City officials say they were shocked by the number of violations recorded during the first month of traffic-camera enforcement and decided to make it cheaper to protest multiple tickets. More than 10,000 violations had been recorded by Heath traffic cameras through Tuesday. At $100 apiece, that would net the city a little more than $830,000 after paying the vendor, Redflex, its share. In four weeks, the cameras will have generated an...

They deliberately twist and use that class-envy reaction under the big lie of fairness, to gain even more control of the economy and then use that control for their ends and best interests, not the nation's. So this is why flat tax, Fair Tax, works. This arbitrary setting of rates based on what Obama thinks is rich, leads to even further diversions and divisions in the country among the population. Plus it doesn't raise any money! You know, the fascinating thing? If you were listening yesterday and you heard me say you didn't want to listen and you didn't want...

It is absolutely mind boggling how people continue to confuse higher tax rates with higher tax revenues. Numerous pundits continue to argue that we need to raise tax rates to fund the growing budget deficit. But raising tax rates is one sure way of making sure the budget deficit grows even larger.

Mark Schuster and Jeffrey Webb are immigrants of a different sort. So are Lynn Adler and Paige Warren. The gay American couples resettled in Massachusetts, where they are treated -- legally and socially -- like any other married folks. They moved in part because they wanted their children to grow up in a welcoming environment.... This month marks the fifth anniversary of Massachusetts' breakthrough -- opening marriage to gay couples: More than 12,000 have since tied the knot there. Three new studies document wonderful results: Gay matrimony has been a $111 million boost to the state's economy. The average gay...

Libya's executive and legislative bodies have voted to delay an oil distribution scheme of Muammar Gaddafi, the state news agency Jana has reported. The Libyan leader, who has advocated handing out oil revenues directly to the people to beat endemic corruption in the government, would have distributed about $32bn this year alone. The results of the vote were announced at a meeting of the General Public Congress (GPC) at Gaddafi's home town, Sirte, on Tuesday. Only 64 of the 468 Basic People Congresses (LBPCs), or municipalities, voted for Gaddafi's plan to hand out the money now, while 251 endorsed the...

California collected just $7.34 billion in personal income tax payments in April, putting further stress on the state's budget. The state controller's office said the collections in April were down from $13 billion a year earlier. About a quarter of all income tax revenue is collected in April, the agency said. In addition, the dismal April means the state is falling behind the revenue forecasts incorporated into the budget deal adopted by the Legislature in February.

I am struck by the lack of coverage in the media of the obvious beneficiary of the rise in Somali piracy. Let's just ask the question; who stands to gain from this phenomenon? It's pretty simple really. The piracy in the northern Indian Ocean raises large sums of money for fundamentalist Mullahs and puts a big hurt on Suez Canal traffic. This piracy is a de facto extension of the strategy behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat and busloads of foreign tourists. This is an attack on world trade and the civilian government of a sovereign nation by a coordinated...