Free Republic

Margaret Thatcher once famously pointed out the core problem of socialism: “They always run out of other people’s money.� California has been intent on demonstrating exactly what Thatcher meant with its highly progressive income-tax system that relies heavily on hitting the higher-income earners to fund their government. As the state has been discovering for the past few years, it’s a recipe for amplifying disaster in an economic downturn: Gov. Jerry Brown wants to hit California’s highest-income taxpayers with billions of dollars in new taxes, and is jousting with other groups with their own tax-the-rich measures over which, if any, will...

Gene Sperling, director of the White House's national economic council, said today at an official meeting that "we need a global minimum tax": “He supports corporate tax reform that would reduce expenditures and loopholes, lower rates for people investing and creating jobs in the U.S., due so further for manufacturing, and that we need to, as we have the Buffett Rule and the individual tax reform, we need a global minimum tax so that people have the assurance that nobody is escaping doing their fair share as part of a race to the bottom or having our tax code actually...

President Obama is now campaigning all of the country in the name of “fairness” especially how it relates to the US Tax Code. According to President Obama, “fair” means a progressive tax (where as one makes more money, they pay a higher percentage in taxes). What he’s trying to do through his “fairness” campaign is make the progressive tax more progressive by increasing tax rates on those that have higher incomes. According to the Obama administration, it is more “fair,” to raise taxes on the rich. I’m here to tell you that this isn’t true. Of course all of that...

Much has been made already about President Obama’s comments yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast concerning the Christian faith’s teachings about social responsibility. During his time at the breakfast, the president opined that getting rid of tax breaks for wealthy Americans amounted to a Christian obligation: In a time when many folks are struggling and at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone. And I think to myself, if...

When I hear others say "fair share," I know what is coming -- a diatribe against the wealthy followed by recommendations to more heavily tax "millionaires and billionaires." The specifics usually follow. I learn that it isn't just millionaires and billionaires who are targeted. The actual income threshold is $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples, and it is business and investment income that constitute the real target. You know: the evil capitalists. Today, the current top tax rate of 15% for capital gains and dividends is getting a lot of attention because of the recent release of Mitt...

America no longer enjoys a peacetime economy. I speak not of Iraq or of Afghanistan. I speak of the class warfare economy officially imposed on the nation in Barack Obama’s Osawatomie speech. I say “officially” because this speech is merely a logically outgrowth of Obama’s long-held redistributionist ideology, finally manifested in the “spontaneous” “Occupy Wall Street” movement—the phony rage aimed at “one percenters” who fail to “pay their fair share in taxes”—phony, because if it were real, it “Occupy Wall Street” would move uptown and become “Occupy General Electric.” Such class warfare is much older than Obama or OSW or...

Though I applaud the refreshing boldness that Mr. Cain had shown by proposing to America an actual plan for tax reform, there are two serious drawbacks to his solution that show his fiscal naivete. Most critics would point to the unsavory proposal of having both a sales and income tax in force at the same time, making it possible for future Congresses to increase rates and turn us into Europe. But it is actually the plan’s impact on Social Security that is most devastating. Cain’s plan would eliminate the Social Security tax and related withholding, and cover retirement pensions as...

We live in interesting times. Even as our own civilization hangs on the precipice of financial solvency, the priorities of the uninformed masses as so distorted that many will actually camp out in front of a Best Buy store in order to be the first in line to save $100 on a big-screen TV. In a time when the very problems of society are rooted in over-consumption and too much television, the everyday pleebs place such high importance on expanding the size of their mainstream media hypnosis devices that they will physically fight each other to get one of these...

Thirty companies paid no U.S. income tax 08-10: report Photo 12:52pm EDT By Kevin Drawbaugh (Reuters) - Thirty large and profitable U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010, said a study released on Thursday that arrives as Congress faces rising demands for tax reform, but seems unable or unwilling to act. Pepco Holdings Inc, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate, at negative 57.6 percent, among the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied. The statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, but over the 2008-2010...

...Businesses not only have to absorb these costs, but also those imposed by income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, workmen’s compensation taxes, and other payments to federal, state, and local forms of government. When all is said and done, government taxes compose 47.82 percent of the cost of the average kid’s costume, $11.66 of the average price. But the government’s tricks don’t end there. The Halloween season brings with it $2 billion in candy purchases. Due to excise taxation on sweets in addition to the burden of taxes placed on the confectionery...

The recent Occupy Wall Street ruckus and the drumbeat rhetoric of Democrats in Washington that the rich pay too little shows the dangers of placing power in the hands of those who have no real interest beyond self-interest in the governance of the nation. One rallying cry of our forefathers when the British Crown sought to impose taxes -- really, very modest taxes -- on the colonies without the consent of us colonials was "No taxation without representation!" The logic of that slogan ran something like this: if I have no say in who passes taxes that I must pay,...

The U.S. Department of State has bought more than $70,000 worth of books authored by President Obama, sending out copies as Christmas gratuities and stocking “key libraries” around the world with “Dreams from My Father” more than a decade after its release. The U.S. embassy in Egypt, for instance, spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of Mr. Obama’s bestselling 1995 memoir. Six weeks earlier, the embassy had placed another order with the same book seller, Kalemat Arabia, for more than $9,000 for copies of the same book, federal purchasing records show. Around the same time, halfway around the world,...

....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...

Behavioral Experiment Transparency vs Burden Solicitation Number: TIRNO-11-Q-00349 Agency: Department of the Treasury Office: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Location: National Office Procurement (OS:A:P) Solicitation Number: TIRNO-11-Q-00349 Notice Type: Combined Synopsis/Solicitation Synopsis: Added: Sep 16, 2011 11:03 am The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to issue a sole sourced purchase order to the University of Minnesota's Social Behavior Science Division Research Professors: Marsha Blumenthal and Laura Kalambolidis, for research experiments, data to explore the impacts of Behavioral experiments of alternative reporting regimes: transparency vs. burden. BACKGROUND: The project involves a three-stage laboratory experiment to explore taxpayers' willingness to accept increased reporting...

When my friend Brian told me the American tax police were after him, I thought he must be nuts. Brian is a worrier. He gets a little paranoid sometimes. “We haven’t filed a U.S. tax return in 20 years,” he said. “Now our accountant says we have to – or else.” Brian and his wife are from the States. He took out Canadian citizenship years ago. They’ve lived and worked in Canada for decades. They have no U.S. income or assets. They are 100-per-cent tax compliant – in Canada. “Forget about it,” I advised. “What could they possibly do to...

Because the Supreme Court declared Marxism effectively unconstitutional in 1895, Congress set about carving out itself a new source of funding by altering the Constitution to circumvent the Supreme Court. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the Marxism’s income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. This 16th Amendment gave Congress the legal authority to tax income and then to imprison anyone who resisted. That decree opened the door to the escalating expansion of government put in place tyranny that not even former monarchs could get away with. The lack of term limits created a...

In a trend that continues to worsen, more Illinoisans found themselves unemployed in the month of July. Illinois lost more jobs during the month of July than any other state in the nation, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report. After losing 7,200 jobs in June, Illinois lost an additional 24,900 non-farm payroll jobs in July. The report also said Illinois’s unemployment rate climbed to 9.5 percent. This marks the third consecutive month of increases in the unemployment rate. Illinois started to create jobs as the national economy began to recover. But just when Illinois’s economy seemed...

When we usually speak of taxes we tend to personalize it. For all the hyper-morality we tend to wax fancy about on the macro level, taxes are the one thing we always seem to have to do a little philosophic double-take on. Messing with your money is messing with your own self, your own identity. Really, it is.Income tax, of course, effects most of us--but seemingly, unfortunately, never enough of us. Property tax is in the news every time the liberal sadists here throw a school levy up for vote. Usually we're all connected in some way to the guilt-fest,...

Class Warfare: The president has spoken incesantly about "shared sacrifice" and the importance of everyone paying his or her "fair share." Yet the people whose taxes he wants to raise already shoulder the biggest burden. Throughout the debt-ceiling debate, President Obama rode his talking points hard. He punctuated his lectures about deficits, the debt and the debt ceiling with demands that the debt he and the irresponsible members of Congress have rung up be paid for through a "shared sacrifice" of Americans who pay their "fair share." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Democrat from Nevada, worked in a variation...

A Senate committee listened Tuesday to the pros and cons of expanding Maryland's sales tax base to include more services, as well as goods purchased over the Internet. The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee spent the day in Annapolis receiving briefings on taxes, the federal debt ceiling, education funding and toll increases. Legislative committees meet occasionally between the 90-day General Assembly sessions. Tangible products, but few services, sold by Maryland retailers are taxed at 6 percent. This year, the sales tax is predicted to generate $4.2 billion, about 30 percent of the state's general fund revenue, according to the Department...

There is what is going on Wisconsin where Unions are trying to "punish" good Republican state senators with recall efforts. There is also the phrase from the American Revolution: No Taxation without representation. Clearly our liberal Democratic US Senators want to tax people who do not want to be taxed. Obama used the ridiculous phrase that 80% of Americans really want new taxes. Right. What is Obama smoking this week or pills he is popping? In the case of Wisconsin, conservatives are upset about the recall effort. The reason: Governor Walker compaigned on the pledge that he would do away...

California, the Golden State is now experiencing an exodus of businesses both large and small as the state ranks 49 or 50 among the states in business friendly, depending on which study or article you read. But the common denominator is taxes, regulations, and litigation make doing business costly and difficult.

On Wednesday’s The Ed Show, MSNBC analyst and Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alter claimed that the "massive tax cuts" of the Bush administration did not create jobs, and went on to credit former President Clinton for the low unemployment rate existed for a time during the Bush years. He ended up lecturing fellow panel member Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation that Tea Party activists would support President Obama’s budget plan if polled and that they are "not as obsessed with tax cuts as you are."

Rarely has class-warfare rhetoric been so overwrought. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) “explained” the GOP’s motive in withdrawing from stalled debt-ceiling negotiations this way: Why? To protect oil companies. To protect the owners of yachts and corporate jets. To protect corporations that ship jobs overseas. To protect millionaires and billionaires from paying their fair share. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) fleshed out this explanation with a few specifics: When our Republican colleagues talk about defending against tax hikes, they are talking about . . . protecting the top 400 income earners in the country who, on...

Interesting map, showing what each state charges in taxes for gasoline, per gallon....

Prospective presidential candidate Michele Bachmann says she wants a national sales tax, but can’t vote for it because she believes Congress would just add it to the current income tax system. In a profile in The Wall Street Journal, Bachmann says she loves the FAIR tax proposal but just cannot bring herself to back it in the House. “If we were starting over from scratch, I would favor a national sales tax," the three-term Minnesota congresswoman says. But the reality is that if it were enacted, the chances are “we would end up with a dual tax, a national sales...

In my last post, I wrote about “Fanniegate“, the scandalous goings on by well connected Democrats that trashed the nation’s financial system. It was not that Republicans didn’t join the fun or that Republican malefactors of great wealth weren’t abusing the public trust in other ways. The moral and intellectual meltdown of the American elite is a robustly bipartisan affair and there is plenty of mud to throw at all sides. But Fannie Mae represents a special problem for the Democratic Party and Democratic ideas. It is not just a vitally important institution led by prominent Democratic figures and part...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Now that Republican lawmakers have voted against a renewal of expiring tax hikes, Democrats are turning to another, more complex way to generate revenue. A bill proposed by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and narrowly approved last week would dramatically expand the taxing powers of local governments, school boards and other jurisdictions. But the bill, SB23-1X, would lead to such a complicated latticework of taxes that opponents say Steinberg is merely pulling a stunt to ramp up pressure against Republican lawmakers. The Sacramento Democrat said his legislation would give public schools and law enforcement agencies a firmer...

Happy with high taxes America? Thank an unwed single mother! From The Heritage Foundation: In fact, roughly 75 percent of all families on welfare are single-parent families. With the number of unwed births skyrocketing over the last five decades (more than 40 percent of births in the United States today are to single moms), the cost of federal welfare has mushroomed. Currently, Washington operates more than 70 welfare programs at a cost edging toward $1 trillion annually. Yet poverty and government dependence aren’t the only problems connected to single-parent families. Children raised without fathers are at greater risk for a...

There is an old argument about rights that has enjoyed resurgent popularity in these days of “spreading the wealth around.” It is the assertion that while human beings undoubtedly have rights, they also have responsibilities. In fact, it is said that for every right there is a corresponding responsibility that is its complement. One should not be surprised that this line of reasoning appeals to statists of all varieties, because they see in it a way undercut rights and dress up their schemes of plunder and domination as “responsibilities.” However, it does not take the clear-thinking mind long to see...

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Swedish furnishings giant IKEA, has promised more transparency over the firm's business affairs, saying that it has nothing to hide after a slew of allegations in recent years. "We have nothing to hide. There is no pretension to hide anything. We are going to go through everything and show that we follow each country's laws and regulations," Ingvar Kamprad, the 85-year-old billionaire who founded IKEA in 1943, told the Expressen daily. "We will make ourselves more transparent," he said. Kamprad's comments came a few months after a documentary aired on Swedish public television, SVT, alleged...

I was born in Sweden 41 years ago and since 1988 I work there. Compared to when I begun my career, wages are much higher, prices have not gone up much and taxes are way lower. Recently, our economy has displayed GDP growth figures of 7.3%. Do we Scandinavians set an example for other nations? I think we do. Germany has recently begun listening to what Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden have to say in the area of economic policy and national budget discipline. One fine day, France, Italy, Britain, Japan and the US perhaps will too.. The article: "The...

On Monday (tax day!) Rush spent a good portion of the show talking about Obama's economically-illiterate and ideology-driven "tax the rich" speech as well as the DBF* media's equally illiterate and ideological tax day coverage, such as that from dinosaur left-wing propagandists Bob Schieffer and Christiane Amanpour Rush then lays out the facts about the distribution of income tax payment in the United States. Most important is his conclusion: The reason Obama and the hard left that have taken over the Democrat Party are so hell-bent on raising taxes on "the rich" is not to balance the budget, not to...

Congratulations - your tax payment is probably your biggest purchase of the year. The federal tax burden now amounts to more than $20,000 per household, according to Internal Revenue Service data. Your contribution to the Treasury coffers will permit Uncle Sam to bankroll public services such as: * The subsidy for Amtrak to pay for empty seats on two-day train trips between Minot, N.D., and Wolf Point, Mont. * Less than a day’s pay for the chief of Fannie Mae, whose defaults have cost taxpayers scores of billions of dollars in recent years. * Seven AmeriCorps puppet shows for preschool...

Since Obama is starting up the "tax the rich" dogma again, I thought it was time to discuss exactly how much taxes the "rich" are paying. The Congressional Budget Office publishes a great deal of information about how the federal tax burden is distributed, and compiles all of it at the cited link. It provides data from 1979 to 2007, adjusted to 2007 dollars so that you can compare how it has changed, without worrying about inflation. However, I discovered that someone has taken all this information and created a series of graphs that make it much easier to understand:...

Many historians depict the Great Depression as a turning point when bitter economic realities finally led the middle class to break from laissez-faire tradition and demand bigger government. This is not entirely untrue, but it's only part of what happened. In its initial phase, the Depression also spawned a powerful movement for smaller government that included tax revolts. These revolts were not only more widespread but often more extreme than any sponsored by the tea party. Depression-era taxpayers had perhaps even greater reason to be angry than their modern counterparts. Property values plummeted after 1929 but tax reassessments lagged. Overall,...

As we consider the Federal FY 2011 Budget Compromise, I would like to put some Taxpayer dollars in some perspective. First of all let’s understand that there is no FY 2011 Budget. Thanks to Obama and the Congress, we are operating under a, don’t you just love political lingo, “Continuing Resolution(CR.)” Now let’s consider the $ 38,500,000,000 in spending cuts that may be made by April 15th. $ 38.5 Billion is an almost unimaginable amount to most Americans. However, we are told to believe that these are "draconian" cuts to the Federal FY 2011 CR. In perspective, the $ 38.5...

FULL QUESTION Are Muslims exempted from the new health care law? Is any of the following chain e-mail true? Word of the Day: Dhimmitude Dhimmitude is the Muslim system of controlling non-muslim populations conquered through jihad. Specifically, it is the TAXING of non-muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence AND as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to islam. The ObamaCare bill is the establishment of Dhimmitude and Sharia muslim diktat in the United States . Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance, and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured. Islam considers insurance...

In the ongoing battle between the fiscal conservatives and the liberal Democrats, there appears little chance of any meaningful movement toward fiscal sanity without the so-called ultimate weapon of a shutdown being employed. The conservative element of the Republicans in the House and Senate claim that only massive spending cuts can save the country from going off a financial cliff into bankruptcy. The Democrats counter that spending really isn't the problem -- the country can afford the spending and more; it is that the rich are not paying enough in taxes. That same argument is used in various state capitals...

Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That's $3,800 on a $100,000 home, etc. When did this happen? It's in the health care bill. Just thought you should know. SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill) Why 2013? Could it be to come to light AFTER the 2012 elections? REAL ESTATE SALES TAX So, this is "Change you can believe in?" Under the new health care bill - did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales...

In a response to my piece entitled, “Taxeaters”, a reader who favored progressive income taxation posed this question back to me: why shouldn’t the top 50% of income earners pay 96% of the taxes? My answer: for the same reason that they shouldn’t have to pick up 96% of the state’s collective bar tab. All knowledge builds upon what you know. That evening, I pondered his question some more and was inspired while enjoying a pub meal that Michelle Obama would ban if she could. And here is the problem with progressive income tax theory played out a fictional place...

The federal budget – whether it’s the continuing resolution to finish the current fiscal year or President Obama’s FY ’12 budget and the forthcoming counterproposal from House Republicans – remains the issue of the day in Washington and despite extensive debate, misinformation remains abound in the media. Yesterday on Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell volleyed calls for higher taxes. Brzezinski talked about the need to “spread the pain,” in reference to raising taxes on “the rich” (read: the majority of small business profits and workers). According to IRS data, here’s where “the pain” is...

California is one of the most heavily taxed jurisdictions in the world. If that weren’t bad enough, for the next few months Golden State residents will have to deal with an annoying little man in tights pedaling around the state to stump for even higher taxes. Lance Armstrong, who recently retired from professional cycling to lobby full time for higher taxes, was in Los Angeles earlier this week for a press event with California state Senator Don Perata to announce the launch of a campaign to raise the state tobacco tax. A measure that would raise the cigarette excise tax...

Former pizza chain CEO, tea partier and potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain closed out CPAC on day two, declaring that "the American Dream is under attack," and that "stupid people are ruining America." Cain said that the American Dream is being attacked by what he calls "the -ations" -- legislation, regulation, and taxation. He continued that Republicans need to repeal and replace health care reform, and also "throw out" the "messed up tax code" and replace it with a new system. The "objective of the liberals is to destroy America," he Cain continued, but "if you can get...

A depressing but highly accurate account of the live of the average Sheeple according to the all wise and powerful government found HERE.

California has the nation’s highest statewide sales tax and second highest when combined with local levies, in the United States, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation. (California is one of three states (Utah and Virginia aren’t in the top 10) that levy a statewide, mandatory local sales tax, which the Tax Foundation combines in the state sales tax. Some other sources list California’s statewide rate as 7.25%.) Californians currently are paying an extra 1%, which is due to expire July 1, which would drop California to 8th on the Tax Foundation list. Gov. Jerry Brown wants the...

My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security or Medicare. After Republicans swept into office in 1994, Bill Clinton famously said in his State of the Union address that the era of big government was over. Nearly $10 trillion of federal debt later, the era of big government is at its zenith. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this will be the third consecutive year in which the federal government is running a deficit near or greater than $1 trillion. The solution to the government's fiscal crisis must begin by cutting spending in all...

In the movie Raising Arizona (1987), H.I. (Nicholas Cage), an ex-convict, and Edwina “Ed” (Holly Hunter), an ex-police officer, are a down-and-out married couple who desperately want a child. Unable to have a child of their own, they decide to take one from the Arizonas who just had quintuplets. According to the paper, it’s “more than they can handle.” H.I. reasons that since the Arizonas have so many and they don’t have any, taking one of five should not be an ethical problem. Their baby-snatching socialism is the beginning of their nightmare. If H.I.’s approach to possessions sounds familiar, you...

“She” is Kathy Moore, a Lincoln Park friend and former public school teacher who was put in that unenviable position by the stark reality of political hide-and-seek. Or, in this case, seek-and-hide. Her reliably Democratic 11th District, which includes Lincoln Park and Lakeview, elected a brand new state representative, Ann Williams, in November, to replace John Fritchey, a popular long-time rep who won election to a seat on the Cook County Board. Fritchey began his new job in December, so Williams could have been sworn in as a state rep a month ago to represent the district in the lame-duck...

Not long ago, if you wanted steak for lunch at the Texan Restaurant, less than two minutes drive from the Nexteer Automotive assembly plant, you had to be in the door by 11 o'clock in the morning. If you arrived any later, you joined a long line with other laggards and waited for a table to open up. With noon fast approaching on a recent day, however, only a handful of customers sat in one of the restaurant's two sections and the other was closed. Asked how the decline in the U.S. auto industry has affected the local economy,...