Free Republic

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...