Obviously, this guy isn’t an economist.
What is a severance tax? A tax on extraction of commodities from one state for resale in another state.
ConocoPhilips' canceled project was for a refinery that was - to quote the source - "to produce low-sulfur diesel fuel onsite for its vehicles and other uses on the North Slope, rather than haul the fuel there from existing refineries."
Question: How does a severance tax apply to diesel that is being extracted in Alaska for use in Alaska?
Answer: It doesn't.
I guess this jackass missed the part where Alaska HAS NO PERSONAL INCOME TAX OR STATE SALES TAX.
It's impossible to cut taxes that don't exist!
A. it sounds like she did. B. The CATO institute needs to do a clean up of their own idiot staff. They are supposed to be something like intellectual sophisticated and honest, even though they are really another bunch of K street lobbyists trying to get taxes reduced - not for you and me - but for their paying clients, BIG OIL.
Q. Why do you tax companies. A. It's like robbing banks. That is where the money is.
The real question about taxes, as Milton Friedman used to remind us, is whether or not we are getting out money's worth. Well, we aren't. But that isn't the part CATO is worried about.
BTW does anyone see the oxymoronic nature of a libertarian lobbyist group, of never done anything in their lives quasi-academics.
ok but they will love her stand on AGW and ANWR
Yeah, I guess the $500,000,000 she cut out of the Alaska state budget her first year in office doesn’t matter, either.
The Cato Cailin Institute needs to bone up on its basic economics skills.
Where did CATO find this bloviating dweeb. He should be a liberal. A cut in business license fees is only a cut that affects everyone who has a small business (CATO is for that isn't it?). Tire taxes (I guess that doens't help Alaskans who all go to work on dog sleds). Salmon fishing - aren't fishing boat owners sort of the definition of a small business.
Well, CATO just flushed its rep down the toilet.
Sorry about your guy not getting anywhere in the Presidential campaign. Sorry about him not getting picked for the VP slot.
Suck it up, bud.
Way to go, steve-b... Mitt still has a chance, doesn’t he? Sarah is obviously going to be forced to step-down, so it’s never too late.
Seriously, I love Cato — my daughter’s wedding reception was held in Cato’s lobby for heavens sake!. But critizing her record for not being libertarian enough in the less than 2 years she was there is a bit over-the-top. But I admire your persistence.
REALLY embarassing yourself.....
She's happily married. Why don't you unglue yourself from your computer, take out the pocket protector and take off the Star Trek uniform replica shirt and try and find yourself a nice single girl.
Who is doing CATO’s research?
I did some web searches and learned that the increase was only 2.5% and raised the tax from 22.5% to 25%, hardly what could be called a “windfall profits” tax. But that’s what the liberals are calling it, although their idea of a windfall tax increase is a rate of 50%.
I also discovered that at the same time she called for the bump in the production tax, Palin increased the tax exemption for exploration from 20% to 30%, which offsets the 2.5% production increase to some degree. At the very least, it negates the production tax increase as a factor which would lead the oil companies to cut back on exploration.
I found that the 22.5% tax had been levied by Palin’s predecessor in the Governor’s mansion and his cronies, and the deal they worked out with the oil companies to set the 22.5% amount was soiled by corruption. It was causing an $800,000 shortfall in the state’s budget deficit and was selling Alaska’s valuable natural resouces on the cheap.
One last thing - the tax only goes as high as 25% when the market price of oil is very high. When the price drops below a certain threshold, the production tax rate decreases also.
Who will you vote for in November?
This is the one thing that worried me last night in her speech. First she raised taxes on ‘big oil’ almost 50 percent, which resulted in such a great surplus for the state that she sent out 1200 rebate checks. This is the work of a populist governor, ala Huey Long. Could this tax increase have played a part in increased gas prices in the lower 48? It is a question that needs to be asked. Will she be a VP of all 50 states?
Alaskan’s don’t really have an individual income tax, they get paid to live there from oil money.
So sending MORE of the money to the citizens is about as “tax-cut” as you can get there.
She did raise the amount of money Alaskans would get from the oil companies for each barrel of oil the companies took from them. That is a bit of a “socialist” concept, but not a serious one — if you assume the STATE belongs to the citizens, then the resources of the state belong to the citizens, and the citizens should be re-imbursed when an individual wants to take some of those resources and profit from them.
It’s hard for me to understand how an increase in the per-barrel-pumped payment would effect the decision to build a refinery though, unless it was a retaliatory decision to “make her pay” for increasing the cost of pumping.
Now, if the oil companies actually pumped less OIL because of the increased payments, that would be a negative impact. But it appears that the oil companies are pumping as much as they can, and still making money.
Et tu, Cato?
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
If you can’t be satisfied with Palin, there isn’t anyone you can be satisfied with.