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NBC's David Gregory interviewed President Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" Sunday, and a conversation ensued that would have been more fitting for a show called "The President Meets One of His Many Mainstream Media Enablers." Let's take a look at just some of the exchanges and fantasize how different the nation's political and electoral climate might be if the liberal press were doing its job as watchdog instead of taking sides. Obama said, "We're seeing signs of recovery ... in employment numbers improving." Might Gregory have asked Obama how he can continue to put an unrealistically positive spin on...

Matt Damon, the actor who once gave $2,000 to Dennis Kucinich, is giving up on politics. He told Playboy, “It’s easier now more than ever in my life to feel the fix is in, the game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.” Liberal Hollywood elites are not the only ones disappointed with failure of President Obama to deliver on his 2008 promise to change Washington. Heck, even left-leaning newspapers are blaming – albeit inadvertently – his Washington for the fiscal cliff fallout. When consumer confidence took a sharper than expected...

Like most people, I’m a sucker for a heartwarming story around the holidays. Sometimes, you get that nice feeling when good things happen to good people, like you find at the end of a classic movie like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But since I’m a bit of a curmudgeon, I also feel all warm and fuzzy when bad things happen to bad people. That’s why I always smile when I read stories about taxpayers moving across borders, thus preventing greedy tax-hiking politicians from collecting more revenue. “Where’s our tax revenue?!?” I’m glad when that happens to French politicians. I’m glad...

The last year has been a tough one for conservatives. The hope that four years of failed policy would be enough to repudiate the liberal/progressive ideology of the Obama administration ended when the majority of the American public voted to maintain their entitlements -- so long as someone else paid for them. And the conservative response to the debacle has been for the various factions within the movement to declare war on each other. It's time for conservatives to give serious thought to what they believe and how they can make a more persuasive case that conservative principles offer the...

One wise donor has pointed out a devil’s bargain that too many advocates for charities are willing to make in their campaign to protect the charitable deduction. Kimberly O. Dennis, head of the Searle Freedom Trust skewers the illogic of groups like the Independent Sector, which explicitly endorse President Obama’s lust to raise taxes on the wealthy, even as they also plead to keep the charitable deduction untouched. If nonprofits knew what was good for them, they would be focusing less on preserving the charitable deduction and more on economic growth and wealth creation.

Contrary to popular opinion, U.S. tax rates aren’t low, says Edward Prescott, a Nobel laureate economist at Arizona State University. “Tax rates are already high, much higher than is commonly understood, and increasing them will likely further depress the economy, especially by affecting the number of hours Americans work,” Prescott and Lee Ohanian, a UCLA economist, write in The Wall Street Journal. …

Is it possible to have a principled opposition to raising tax rates to avoid the fiscal cliff? It seems that Joe Scarborough doesn't think so. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough suggested that those on the "far, far right" in the "conservative entertainment complex" and in the ranks of political consultants who oppose tax rate hikes do so out of base material motives. According to Scarborough, speaking of such "far, far right" tax-increase opponents, "conservatism is a racket for a lot of people to get very, very rich." View the video here.

The fiscal-cliff negotiations seem to be foundering on Barack Obama’s insistence on higher tax rates on high earners and House Republican leaders’ insistence on opposing them. The president believes he has a mandate from voters for his position, and House Republicans believe they have a mandate from voters for theirs. The real argument here is over the size and scope of government. Under Barack Obama, federal outlays — the technical term for federal spending — have increased to over 24 percent of gross domestic product. That’s a higher level of federal spending than in any year since 1946, when we...

The fiscal cliff negotiations seem to be foundering on Barack Obama's insistence on higher tax rates on high earners and House Republican leaders' insistence on opposing them. The president believes he has a mandate from voters for his position, and House Republicans believe they have a mandate from voters for theirs. The real argument here is over the size and scope of government. Under Barack Obama, federal outlays -- the technical term for federal spending -- have increased to 24 and 25 percent of gross domestic product. That's a higher level of federal spending than in any year since 1946,...

US President Barack Obama has said in an interview that he would consider lowering top tax rates as part of a wider reform of the tax code in 2013. The White House also signalled that it might agree to increase taxes for the wealthiest earners to less than 39.6%. Spokesman Jay Carney left open the option that rates would not have to rise to that Clinton-era level. Lawmakers are deadlocked in efforts to avert steep spending cuts and tax rises due to take effect on 1 January. Mr Carney said the "major obstacle" in reaching an agreement was a Republican...

Democrats have said that that their priorities when it comes to a fiscal cliff deal are to raise more tax revenue and make the tax code more progressive. Which is why it's odd to see them drawing a line in the sand on raising tax rates. Raising marginal income tax rates is one of the most economically harmful ways to raise taxes. (The only provisions of the tax code that are more damaging are the corporate income tax and taxes on savings and investments.) Perhaps the only explanation is that Democrats don't actually care about how to efficiently accomplish their...

The conventional wisdom has emerged that in order to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," politicians in Washington must agree to some method of tax increases ("revenue") -- which will be real, even if low taxes are not the cause of our ills -- alongside some kind of promise of spending restraint on entitlement programs, which is our problem, and which no one believes Washington will restrain. The American left and our "objective" journalists -- same thing, I know -- are not helping the nation balance its budget. As usual, these partisan hacks are obsessed with tearing the Republican coalition apart,...

If everyone in America had read Stephen Moore's new book, "Who's The Fairest of Them All?", Barack Obama would have lost the election in a landslide. The point here is not to say, "Where was Stephen Moore when we needed him?" A more apt question might be, "Where was the whole economics profession when we needed them?" Where were the media? For that matter, where were the Republicans? Since "Who's The Fairest of Them All?" was published in October, there was little chance that it would affect this year's election. But this little gem of a book exposes, in plain...

How Lower Top Marginal Rates Let The Economy Grow (or “The Monkey In Your Pocket”)Taxes are like a monkey in your pocket. Whenever you get paid, the monkey immediately grabs a cut. Whatever amount you think you need—whether just to meet obligations, or to reach your dreams—you have to earn more to feed the monkey first. And the monkey keeps tabs on your total for the year, grabbing a bigger piece as the total goes up. If you make enough, the monkey transmogrifies into a gorilla on your back, grabbing half of every dollar for federal taxes alone.* Why does...

I’ve shared evidence from around the world (England, Italy, the United States, and France) and from various states (Illinois, Oregon, Florida,Maryland, and New York) to argue that it is foolish to ignore the Laffer Curve. Not that it makes any difference. I’m slowly coming the conclusion that my friends on the left will never learn – in large part because they’re more interested in punishing success with class warfare tax policy than they are in collecting extra revenue for government.But surely there are some statists who are motivated by emotions other than spite, so I refuse to give up. Let’s look at some evidence from...

Senate Democrats balk at ending Bush-era tax rates for wealthyBy Alexander Bolton - 06/19/12 05:00 AM ET A growing number of Senate Democrats are signaling they are not prepared to raise taxes on anyone in the weak economy unless Congress approves a grand bargain to reduce the deficit. At least seven Democratic senators have declined to rule out supporting a temporary extension of the Bush-era income tax rates, breaking with party leaders who have called for letting the rates expire for people earning more than $1 million per year. That gives Senate Republicans a chance to push a temporary extension...

If you haven't seen it, here's an eye opening chart from Goldman's Alec Phillips: Goldman Sachs For top earners, the tax rate on dividends is going to hit 43.4% if there are no changes in the current law. There are many layers to this whole "fiscal cliff" drama. The spending cuts are just one, but the potential hits to the economy are numerous, and this is just one example. Ultimately, says Philips: The most likely scenario in our view is an extension of these investment-related tax rates along with other expiring tax provisions into mid-2013, at which point broader reform...

President Barack Obama has gotten a lot of mileage out of touting his “Buffett Rule” to force millionaires to pay more in taxes. Maybe he thinks earning three-quarters of a million gives him a free ride. . .

With his corporate tax reform “framework,” President Obama today added another element to his ultimately harmful economic agenda. Previously announced anti-growth policies include massive budget deficits, a huge tax hike on individuals and small businesses in 2013, and his proposal to nearly triple the dividend tax rate. His new proposal starts strong by reducing the federal corporate income tax rate to 28 percent from the current 35 percent. This is a good and long-overdue policy change. Regrettably, he marries rate reduction to a net corporate tax hike based in part on extending his policy to hammer and ultimately deconstruct U.S....

So Mitt Romney thinks his effective tax rate is about 15%. That prompts many people to express disbelief: "What?! Most people pay a higher rate than that, don't they?" ,,,, But assuming he's correct, here's why his effective rate is probably higher than most people's: The effective tax rate is always going to be lower than one's top income tax rate. And the top rate for roughly four-fifths of Americans is 15% or less, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. In other words, 80% of Americans have an effective rate below 15%.