Free Republic

The citizens of Pittsburgh are getting an unpleasant lesson in the consequences of punitive taxation, courtesy of their beloved NFL franchise. Inside the Pittsburgh Steeler boardroom, a fraternal squabble is under way over future ownership—thanks in part to a sacking from the realities of estate and capital gains taxes. One of the league's iconic teams, the Steelers have been owned by the Rooney family since 1933. The five sons of the original owner, Art Rooney, control 80%—and they are getting into their 70s. With the team's value estimated at $700 million or more, the 45% federal death tax rate could...

If you've seen HBO's "The Wire," you know why those of us who live in Baltimore are often asked whether our city really is the hellhole it is portrayed to be on TV. Our answer is, well, yes. Baltimore deserves the Third-World profile it has developed because it has expanses of crumbling, crime-riddled neighborhoods populated by low-income renters, an absent middle class, and just a few enclaves of high-income gentry near the Inner Harbor or in suburbs. This wasn't what Baltimore looked like in the 1950s. Then it was a prosperous, blue-collar city. [Snip] Today, the city has a population...

It all boils down to one simple question: will cows be taxed for burping and farting?The complex debate about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change is causing panic among farmers. The release of the Garnaut report yesterday only served to increase their fears. Ross Garnaut's report acknowledges the initial difficulties of measuring gas emissions on Australia's 155,000 farms, but says a broad-based scheme should include agriculture at some stage. The only question now is whether it will be included in the initial 2010 version of the scheme or introduced at a later date. Every major...

Liberals dismiss studies that show a link between abortion and breast cancer, claiming they are biased because the people promoting the studies are "anti-choice." For the same reason, no one should believe the Democrats' "energy" policies. Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles. Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their insane global warming theory. Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry...

In 2007 this subsidy cost the American taxpayer $300 million, and it’s projected to cost the American taxpayers $600 million next year,� said Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz. The scam — as Shadegg and others call it — is known as “splash and dash.� It stems from an existing $1 subsidy for every gallon of biodiesel fuel blended with regular diesel in the United States. Here’s how it works: Biodiesel is produced abroad using South American sugar cane or Asian palm oil and shipped to the United States, where it’s blended with just a “splash� of regular diesel. A typical tanker-load...

American History Recovered by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 13, 2008 Because of the game of teapot that American academic historians have been playing for decades, vital portions of U. S. history are in danger of becoming lost to future generations. Fortunately, scholars just outside the academy, who do tend to be more scholarly, are doing archeological digs, metaphorically speaking, to unearth this country’s past. What the former usually do is quote each other. The latter actually dig up the primary documents that tell the actual story. Hoover Institution scholar Alvin Rabushka has done just that in his epic study of...

ATLANTA - All of the talk among political candidates about a federal gas tax holiday to offset soaring prices at the pump misses a critical fact: state taxes are, for the most part, even more costly for drivers. And in some states, gas taxes are rising even higher, with a handful set to jump at the height of the summer driving season. The average state sales tax on gasoline is 28.6 cents a gallon, according to the American Petroleum Institute. That's a dime more than the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents a gallon. (snip) The national average price rose...

Impatient with the glacial pace of federal regulators on greenhouse gas emissions, the Bay Area air quality district voted last week to assess fees on about 2,500 polluting businesses that they regulate. The fees aren't large - the majority of businesses will pay less than a dollar - and they will mostly fund the district's administrative costs related to climate change, such as doing an emissions inventory for the Bay Area. But the precedent is significant: The district is the first in the nation to impose fees. Its success or failure will be a model for both the state and...

WASHINGTON - President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday, calling it a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices in the face of a near-certain override by Congress. It was the 10th veto of Bush's presidency. But since it passed both houses of Congress with veto-proof majorities, his action will likely be overridden. The president calls the legislation fiscally irresponsible and says it gives away too much money to wealthy farmers, yet his criticism didn't faze lawmakers from both parties who voted for increased crop subsidies, food stamps for the poor and...

To close California’s huge budget gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a plan: get a Wall Street investment firm to lend the state $15 billion against future proceeds from its rather unsuccessful lottery program, with the lending firm taking large risks for a low-yield return. And if that fails, the state’s sales tax will go up a penny over the next few years. The lottery idea with a tax increase only as a backup reflects the severity of California’s $17.2 billion budget gap and Mr. Schwarzenegger’s unwillingness to reverse course on a longstanding pledge not to raise taxes and to continue...

Los Angeles Democrat Karen Bass was sworn in Tuesday as speaker of the California Assembly, the first black woman to lead either house of the state Legislature. Bass told her fellow lawmakers and the California political and cultural figures who attended the ceremony that she feels the weight of history on her shoulders. "If we could only harness the power of our common humanity, I don't think there's anything we couldn't do for the people of this state," she said. The 54-year-old becomes the 67th speaker, succeeding fellow Los Angeles Democrat Fabian Nunez. He is relinquishing the post because he...

This is the latest tax reform poll that I have seen. This is from an interesting website in which members develop their own polls.

As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pick through this state's primary results come Tuesday, the last person on their minds will be Bart Peterson. Yet the Peterson ghost may well come looking for the eventual Democratic nominee. Mr. Peterson was, until recently, the popular Democratic mayor of this fine city. Then voters went to the polls in November and threw him out in favor of an unknown and underfunded Republican. It was among last year's biggest political upsets, and marked the first time in 40 years Indianapolis voters had canned a sitting mayor. The source of their anger? Taxes. In...

Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy. The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has...

Some guests are included in today's quotes - not all are founding fathers... “The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay... If such a law is not abolished immediately it...

SACRAMENTO - Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way. The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent. Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction. "The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just...

Here's a modest suggestion for improving the roads in and around the Hampton Roads area. And it's an idea that I'm sure will appeal to the cracked staff at the local papers who are constantly advocating one tax after another to pay for our road construction program. My brilliant idea: A sales tax on the Virginian Pilot. Ta...daaaaa! Now before you click away from this page let's run the numbers. The Virginian Pilot has a paid daily circulation of about 200,000. Let's say that a sales tax of 50 cents per paper is imposed. That would bring in over $36...

Coulda been worse. With mega-majority control by the Democrats of the House, Senate, and Governor's mansion, it's critical to highlight the good, not just the bad: * The legislative jihad against the initiative process totally imploded thanks to all of us working together. Bills that would have shut down the signature gathering process were clearly illegal, unconstitutional, and aimed at endangering citizens -- that's why the Democrats pushed so hard for their approval. But six weeks on non-stop emails, phone calls, faxes, and letters from all of you -- and scathing editorials and columns in every newspaper -- successfully beat...

Now the taxman gets the power to turn up unannounced to your home and demand to see tax recordsBy BECKY BARROW - More by this author » Last updated at 01:10am on 14th March 2008 Tax inspectors will be allowed to come to your front door under new powers to come into force next year. Posed by model Inspectors will be allowed to make lightning visits to taxpayers' homes, under powers due to come into force next year.  Under the extraordinary new rules, they will be able to turn up unannounced and demand to see tax records. They will not...

We have to stop talking about Americans in terms of "the rich" or "the poor" - or even in terms of economic "class" envy altogether. America was not designed to have any set of socio-economic classes, which would be used by ambitious politicians to exploit every American via class warfare. We are individuals, each with different dreams and talents and desires. We are equal only in opportunity and the rules of nature which dictate only that failure, equality and success are individual rights achieved only by individual effort. The only "us against them" that really exists in America is "us...

Provided that we are rich enough so that it doesn’t matter, the Democratic Party’s remaining Presidential Candidates have all promised to take things away from us for the common good. One of the first things these individuals both think should be taken away for “the common good” are the reductions that George W. Bush made in the Federal Income Tax Rates. Senator Barack Obama has the following to say about The Bush tax cuts. This year alone, the average person in the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans will receive more than $55,000 from the Bush tax cuts, while the average...

Global Poverty Act of 2007 - Directs the President, through the Secretary of State, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day.

"...electronic voting system shut down across the board..."

WEST COLUMBIA — When private property gets in the way of a road project, its owners will be moving out of the way, one way or another, in almost every case. With a widening of Highway 36 on the horizon and state and federal officials ready to drive the Trans-Texas Corridor through the Lone Star State, many land-owning Texans are preparing to defend their property from their own government. Brazoria County residents troubled by the looming eminent domain fights came to the Gulf Coast Christian Center on Saturday morning to voice their views to Tom Lizardo, chief of staff for...

This Comprehensive Annual Financial Report has been prepared in conformance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for governments as promulgated by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). It is presented in three sections. The Introductory section includes this transmittal letter with narrative commentary on matters of interest to the reader, the State’s organizational chart, and a listing of principal officials. The Financial section includes the independent auditors’ report, management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A), basic financial statements, notes to the financial statements, required supplementary information (RSI), and combining financial statements. The Statistical section includes selected financial, economic, demographic and operating data...

The Washington Post Absurdly Argues Fight To Keep Spending Low Will Add To Deficit "Stopping irresponsible spending increases doesn't add to the deficit – it cuts the deficit. And stopping irresponsible tax increases is good for taxpayers, good for the economy, and prevents more uncontrolled spending in the future. We are on the path to a balanced budget, and that's where we intend to stay." – White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto, 12/15/07 The Washington Post incoherently asserts that " Bush's steadfast stand against Democratic spending, coupled with his equally resolute opposition to tax increases, could raise the federal...

Points to sales tax as reliable, long-term solution to fully fund public education

In its new Human Development Report calling for another $86 billion in aid to the rest of the world, supposedly to fight the effects of climate change, the United Nations acts distressed that people in "rich" countries like the U.S. don't take the theory of man-made global warming more seriously. Its answer ― and this is actually spelled out in the report ― is that too much "editorial balance" in the media has prevented "informed debate" about the need for "urgent action" in the form of higher taxes on energy. The U.N. report complains that, according to one poll, roughly...

Napoleon resident John F. “Jack” Green is 78 years old and runs about three miles every morning. He also is running for Congress in the 5th District special election as a write-in candidate. “I’m running because I can’t lose. I can only win,” Green said. “How can you lose something you never had?” While Green’s name will not be on the ballot, the names of State Rep. Bob Latta, R-Bowling Green, and Democrat Robin Weirauch of Napoleon will be. Green said he ran for the same congressional seat six or eight years ago, when no Democrat candidate was running. Green,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush demanded Saturday that Congress send him legislation that keeps middle-class Americans from being hit at tax time next year by the dreaded alternative minimum tax. Bush says because the IRS had to send 2007 tax forms to be printed before AMT is resolved, many forms will be wrong. That's not likely to happen anytime soon. Congress has adjourned for the Thanksgiving holiday. The legislation is muddled in the House and Senate. And Bush has threatened to veto any bill that raises taxes as a way of fixing the tax, known in shorthand as AMT. "I...

With a $600 million general fund shortfall - almost 6 percent of the general fund budget - some Arizonans might be tempted with a tax increase. After all, the state recently enjoyed a tax cut. Arizona is a low-tax state, right? Not exactly. It is true that Arizona's state and local tax burden is below the national average, ranking 31st highest among the states this year according to the Tax Foundation. Still, Arizona's governments take 10.3 percent of Arizonans' income. The good news is Arizona's tax burden ranking is falling. In 1980, Arizona ranked 12th highest among the states, then...

In Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,1 the Supreme Court held that state interests are more properly protected from federal encroachment by the procedural safeguards found in the federal political process rather than by judicially defined limitations.2 Justice Powell, in a strong dissent, asserted that the majority's decision reduced the tenth amendment to "meaningless rhetoric."3 In explaining its decision, the majority observed that State governments, through equal representation in the Senate, retain sufficient influence over the federal political process to insure their autonomy and sovereign interests.4 The Court, however, recognized that the seventeenth amendment, which provides for the popular...

What if there was a "just say no" movement on the part of conservative communities to REFUSE federal handouts? What if we just went back to the way it was before? What if we just say thanks but no thanks. Time was all towns lived within their means and just spent what they could afford. Why don't we go back to that?

This year, Halloween could be a bit more hair-raising for American consumers, especially if they have an Internet connection. October 31st is the last day Congress can act to extend or make permanent the Internet Tax Moratorium. If Congress chooses to do nothing (not always a bad thing in my view), the tax moratorium will expire and on November 1st, state and local jurisdictions would be allowed to impose taxes on broadband and Internet access. This would also represent the first major tax increase on consumers in almost eight years. There are about 15,000 different taxing jurisdictions, so American consumers...

The perfect liberal dream! "Now that summer is over, things are really heating up here in New Jersey – The Garden State! November is rapidly approaching and a $450 million stem cell bond question will be on the ballot for us to answer “Yes” or “No.” The question does not inform voters on what stem cell research will be performed. As we all know adult stem cells are highly successful – and do not require millions of dollars since they can be derived from bone marrow, umbilical chord blood and even from skin etc. However, this is not the type...

Whatever you made of the Chancellor’s various sleights of hand on Tuesday, lurking beneath his Budget plans was one inescapable fact. The hungry maw of the NHS is swallowing more and more resources, at the expense of virtually everything else. The defence budget is at its lowest since 1930, despite our dwindling troops being dotted across three continents. Prison overcrowding is at such record levels that Jack Straw will have to release even more inmates early in a few weeks’ time. But the health service marches relentlessly on, having hoovered up two thirds of the increase in public spending in...

...New data from the Tax Foundation and the IRS show just how nonsensical it is. In 2005, the latest full year for data, the top 1% of earners accounted for 21.2% of all income, but paid 39.4% of all federal taxes. The top 5% earned 35.8% of all income and paid 60% of the taxes. That’s right: The top 5% paid more in income taxes than the remaining 95% combined. The bottom 50% in income in the U.S. — including, by definition, half of those who are middle class — paid just 3% of all income taxes in 2005. That’s...

Anti-war presidential candidate Ron Paul says his campaign is about "restoring the vanishing American dream." And he is criticizing what he calls "the cartel controlling the banking and monetary system" in the United States. Fresh off his third-quarter fundraising surprise of $5 million, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the libertarian "revolution" he has started is growing across America. Paul told conservative activists at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" in Washington, DC, that the conference would be more aptly called the "Defending the Vanishing American Dream Summit." The Texas congressman said his Republican rivals often talk about a "flat...

If you live in Washington or just visit for a few days, you may run into the entitlement people. Some of them are former senators, cabinet officers or other previously powerful folks. Others are maverick members of Congress or agency heads, who are not in a position to set policy but are prominent enough to get noticed. They bombard you with alarming statistics about unsustainable entitlements. The U.S. government has $43 trillion in unfunded liabilities, or $350,000 for every taxpayer. Standard & Poor’s projects that in 2012, the U.S. will lose its AAA bond rating. Everyone listens and puts on...

A 62-year-old man from northern Sweden faces a date in court after trying to eat his accounts when his home was raided by police, Västerbottens Kuriren reports. Having forced the man to stop chewing his books, police conducted a search of the house and found large quantities of gold as well as almost 800,000 kronor ($120,000) in cash. In 2005 and 2006, the suspect placed a number of ads in local newspapers offering goods for sale at attractive prices. But despite an obvious entrepreneurial streak, he had failed to declare an income for several years. As tax authorities became increasingly...

The government has pledged to introduce income tax cuts worth 10.8 billion kronor ($1.6 billion) at the beginning of next year. Writing in Dagens Nyheter, the four party leaders promised that this second wave of income tax cuts, combined with the first, would result in a total increase of 1,000 kronor per month in take home pay for all those in gainful employment. "We have hereby fulfilled an important promise from last year's election campaign," wrote Fredrik Reinfeldt, Maud Olofsson, Jan Björklund and Göran Hägglund. The leaders also noted that the number of people employed in Sweden had risen by...

WASHINGTON - Offering federal aid for strapped mortgage holders, the White House outlined proposals Friday to help borrowers hard hit by credit problems and the housing slump. The initiatives, to be formally unveiled by President Bush, were intended to help homeowners with risky mortgages keep their homes. Bush also was to discuss efforts to prevent these kinds of problems from arising in the future. It was the administration's first efforts to deal with an expected wave of mortgage defaults fueled by the subprime-mortgage crisis. White House press secretary Tony Snow said he could not provide an estimate of how much...

So we are agreed. We are living in the second great Gilded Age, a time of startling personal wealth. In the West, the mansion after mansion with broad and rolling grounds; in the East, the apartments with foyers in which bowling teams could play. Or, on another level, the week's vacation in Disneyland or Dublin with the entire family--this in a nation in which, well within human memory, people with a week off stayed home and fixed things in the garage, or drove to the beach for a day and sat on a blanket from one of the kid's beds...

A reorganization of workers at the Swedish Tax Authority is partly shaped on studies of apes, according to a leaked internal report. Employees are not flattered by the comparison. The tax authority is currently undergoing its largest reorganization for many years. One of the foundations of the restructuring plan is a report which says that studies of apes show that people work best in groups of 150. The reorganization was announced earlier in the summer. Work is being moved from small towns to larger towns and cities. Around 1,350 people are affected by the move. Economies of scale are a...

President Bush Participates in Roundtable on Health Care Man and Machine, Inc. Landover, Maryland THE PRESIDENT: Today I've had a really good discussion about health care and health care problems with three business owners and employees of the small business with Secretary Leavitt and Mark McClellan and Administrator Preston. I heard a common complaint, that health care is -- costs are too high; that small business owners feel very pinched by these high costs; that they don't like the idea of having to make the decision between providing health care for their employees and not expanding their businesses. And the...

Calling the federal agents surrounding his fortified compound "guns for hire," a New Hampshire man convicted of tax evasion vowed today that he and his wife would fight U.S. marshals to the death if they tried to capture them. "Do not under any circumstances make any attempt on this land. We will not accept any tomfoolery by any criminal element, be it federal, state or local," said Ed Brown in a press conference from the stoop of his concrete-clad home in Plainfield, N.H. "We either walk out of here free or we die." Brown and his wife, Elaine, were sentenced...

Danny Riley friend of Ed Brown reveals what really happened when he was walking the dog this morning at the Browns. This is an amazing interview I recommend that you all watch it from start to finish. Danny Riley a true patriot and friend of the Browns, was doing them a favor by walking their dog when he realized that there were infiltrators close by camouflaged in ghillie suits preparing to unlawfully raid the property of Ed and Elaine Brown.

Neighbors of convicted tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown reported police SWAT teams and at least one armored vehicle converging on a field near their Plainfield home this morning. Authorities haven’t confirmed they are moving in to arrest the fugitives, but local police, the governor’s office and the U.S. Attorney’s office referred calls to the U.S. Marshal’s service, which has been negotiating daily with the Browns since their federal tax evasion conviction in January. Susan Williams, who lives a mile or so away from the Browns on Center of Town Road, said she saw police officers, SWAT team members, a...

The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail. At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying...

The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail. At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort,...