Double Taxation

The article by Dan Mitchell at the Cato Institute (linked below) is rightly critical of large company CEO's who have supported higher personal income tax rates. Beyond that, if you click the link on "dividends" it will take you to another post by Mitchell. In that post you will find another link to a report by Ernst and Young on the taxation of capital gains and dividends.

It's worth looking at all of this stuff, but if all you do is read the Executive Summary of the report, you will have a better understanding of the current debate on taxes than most folks you know. Most folks have no idea that the integrated rates on capital gains and dividends in the U.S. are among the highest in the world already, and are about to go higher. The result will be a drag on capital formation. There is a lot more to the "fiscal cliff" debate than whether the "rich" should "pay just a little more".

Crony Capitalists Endorse Higher Taxes on Their Small Business Competitors

How to Stop Mass Shootings

Further evidence that liberals refuse to let facts influence their thinking...

We Know How to Stop School Shootings

The Anti-Bernanke

Until a few moments ago, I had never heard of Leszek Balcerowicz. Now I wish like hell he was Fed Chairman. 

It rekindles my dwindling hope to see that there are lonely voices of sanity out there.

Leszek Balcerowicz: The Anti-Bernanke

Refuting Buffet

Warren Buffet has become a darling of the left for his views that higher marginal tax rates are good policy. In a recent New York Times op-ed he claimed that higher rates would have no effect on investment. The article below strongly argues otherwise.


The Grumpy Economist: Buffet Math

Tax Cut Myth

While Obama has told the public repeatedly that the Bush tax cuts "got us into this mess", his own economists say otherwise. Question: is Obama unaware of this data, or is he simply a deliberate liar?

White House data debunk claim that Bush tax cuts caused deficit

Keep Your Powder Dry

Below are some headlines from the Drudge Report on shoppers' behavior on Black Friday. 

 

Now ask yourself: if people will act like this while trying to buy Christmas presents, what will they do in a crumbling economy when loaves of bread are scarce?

 

Gang fight at Black Friday sale...

 

Man punched in face pulls gun on line-cutting shopper...

Shots fired outside WalMart

Shoppers smash through door at Urban Outfitters

Customers run over in parking lot...

Fight breaks out over phones...

Shoplifter tries to mace security guards...

Mayhem at Nebraska mall where 9 murdered in 2007

Men steal boy's shopping bag outside Bed Bath & Beyond

A Recurring Theme

I recall back in 1992, when Clinton was running against Bush the elder, Slick Willie was claiming that the economy was "the worst it's been in 50 years". Must've been pretty bad. Except that it wasn't. The economy had come out of a brief recession and was growing at something like 4% when Clinton won. Of course, the media failed to report on it till after the election.

Then, in 2001, when Bush the younger took office, the media downplayed the fact of a recession that occurred under Clinton's watch had only just ended. Faced with a weak economy, Bush was able to push through the much-maligned tax cuts which, predictably, led to a stronger economy. Now those tax cuts are blamed by the current administration as "the old policies that got us into this mess". And most of the media dutifully and complicitly ignores the fact the federal housing policy is what got us into this mess, not tax cuts.

If exit data from the election is accurate, 53% of voters blame our current economy on Bush. They bought the false narrative peddled by Obama. But this con could not have worked without his media lap dogs.

My point here is that the ignorance of the American voter is willfully encouraged by a left wing media that takes orders from its liberal masters. The article linked below continues this theme. In just 10 days since the election, with Obama safely back in office, we are learning that, surprise!, the economy is actually worse than we were told.

Obama's Economy: What We've Learned Since Re-Election

Cartoon of the Day

Dodd-Frank: Worse than most people know

The following article on Dodd-Frank makes clear that the intent of the Act is the effective nationalization of the financial sector, just as the goal of Obamacare is the nationalization of health care. Unfortunately, I suspect that most voters think Dodd-Frank is merely designed to rein in those greedy bastards on Wall Street.

The Election & Dodd-Frank: This Act puts the entire U.S. financial system at the mercy of unelected regulators

Game Changer?

Turns out that diplomats in Libya made repeated requests for more security, and the administration turned them down. No wonder the administration has repeatedly lied about the attack on the consulate.

Maybe this will convince independents that Obama is in over his head...

Obama Administration Denied "Repeated Requests" for Increased Security in Benghazi

Health Care Costs

The data on the cost of Obamacare is coming in. It doesn't look good, although it was entirely predictable.

And it's going to get worse.

Another Broken Obama Promise: The Healthcare Cost Monster Emerges

Climate Realism

Following is a nice summation from a warming skeptic...

Climate Realism

 

Zero Tax Rate

Given the demagoguery from the left on the low effective tax rates paid by Romney, the following article is worth reading. Dan Mitchell argues that the tax rate on capital gains should be zero. I agree, but explaining the concept to those for whom class warfare is more important than good tax policy and economic growth will be a tough sell.

The Wall Street Journal's Primer on Capital Gains Taxation

We're No. 18!

 Those of us who believe that economic freedom is the key to prosperity will be dismayed, though probably not surprised, by the following:

U.S. Plummets to 18th in New Economic Freedom of the World Rankings

Trade

Regarding trade, Obama (and most other politicians) has it exactly backward.

Classic 1978 Milton Friedman Lecture on Trade

QE3

The Federal Reserve Bank announced a few days ago that it would begin implementing another round of pumping money into the economy, i.e. buying $40 billion of mortgage bonds per month till further notice. This is called Quantitative Easing, or QE. This particular round is called QE3, because the Fed has already tried QE1 and QE2. It's sort of like a doctor putting the paddles on a patient's chest and yelling "Clear!"

The implementation of QE3 suggests that QE1 and QE2 did not have the desired effect of pulling the economy out of the shitter. Isn't this an example of Einstein's dictum regarding insanity, i.e. repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result? Or is it simply an attempt by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to keep the economy on life support long enough to get Obama reelected?

Memo to Politicians: Stop Trying to Fix It

One of the reasons the economy is down the shitter is that government doesn't know when to leave things alone, and therefore repeats the same old mistakes. The usual cycle is as follows: 

 

1) Free (or relatively free) markets make a mistake, which happens from time to time.

 

2) Rather than let relatively free markets correct those mistakes and punish those who make them, which markets are uniquely qualified to do, politicians decide they must do something, presumably to justify their existence.

 

3) Politicians enact regulations which they claim will fix the problem that markets would have fixed anyway.

 

4) Politicians pat themselves on the back and tell voters they're looking out for the little guy.

 

5) Since regulatory bureaucrats are not smart enough to anticipate all the issues that may arise in a complex economy, and since regulations distort market signals, and since the regulated entities are usually pretty good at figuring out ways around the regulations, more problems arise.

 

6) Politicians then have to fix the problems that they essentially caused by not letting markets work in the first place.

 

7) Go back to step 1 and repeat.

 

 

The following is worth a read. Here's one nugget I especially like: "...capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell."

 

Dodd-Frank: Pimps for Fannie and Freddie 

Doing Nothing

What if we had a recession and no one did anything?

Thomas Sowell: An Economic 'Plan'?

How Soon We Forget

What do you get when you combine 1) a willing accomplice to revisionist history in the form of the mainstream media, and 2) the incredibly short memory and ignorance of the American public? Answer: the surreal specter of Bill Clinton posing as an economic policy genius. And getting away with it. The fact is that Clinton was a major architect of the 2008 economic collapse.

Housing arsonist Clinton now portrayed as heroic firefighter.

More on GM

More on the democrats' claims about Obama saving GM...

Although not mentioned in the article below, a new report is out which concludes that GM is losing as much as $49,000 for every Chevy Volt it sells. Only a government-run business could think that such a business model is sustainable.

The Democrats' GM Fiction

Saving Detroit

We have heard a lot from democrats, especially during their convention, about how Obama saved the auto industry from bankruptcy, which the evil Romney would have allowed to happen. This story has become perhaps the central theme in the narrative about Obama's successful stewardship of the economy. But as the article below points out, Americans have a remarkably short memory. Chrysler and GM did in fact go through managed bankruptcies, as Romney suggested they should. The difference is that Obama wasted a lot of taxpayer money before it happened, and screwed secured bondholders in the process so he could help out the unions.

I pass this along in case one of your liberal friends tells you that Obama is the auto industry savior he claims to be.

Obama DID let Detroit go bankrupt.

Section 1504

While the country was sleeping, Section 1504 of Dodd-Frank has been put into effect. It will come as no surprise that Section 1504 is a lousy deal.

I would wager that if you asked every friend you have if they know about 1504, not one would have a clue. This is not an indictment of your friends, because most of mine wouldn't know, either. I didn't know about it till today.

My point is that there is so much going on that gets little attention that even those of us who follow these things have a hard time keeping up with how thoroughly we're being screwed. Yet most voters would doubtless consider themselves to be well informed.

Question:  If Obama was merely stupid, wouldn't the law of averages dictate that some of his decisions were in the best interests of the country?

Obama's Oil & Gas Folly

Not His Brother's Keeper

After lecturing us about being our brother's keeper, this is not a story Obama wants people to hear.


I hope the Romney campaign produces an ad with George Obama saying, "Barack, my brother, why won't you help my sick son? Please, I beg you. By the way, I found your birth certificate. Should I just stick it in the mail?"

How I became George Obama's "brother."

Investor-in-Chief

Here's a quiz...

Under what circumstances would you not care if you owned 500,000,000 shares of stock where your break even point was $53 per share and it just closed at $20? Answer: when you bought the stock with other people's money.

Hell, you might even brag about what a good investment it was!

Is GM already on track to go bankrupt - again?

Common Sense on Outsourcing

It's too bad that the vast majority of voters will never read the following article. It's tougher for politicians to demagogue to a well-informed group of people.


What Politicians Don't Know About Outsourcing

How Obamacre Affects Jobs

More circumstantial evidence that Obama wants more people dependent on government...


Thanks to Obamacare, Small Businesses Plan on Eliminating Jobs Before 2014

Welfare Reform Reform

One of Bill Clinton's signature achievments was Welfare Reform, signed into law in 1996. Its success in getting people off welfare was so apparent that Clinton himself has crowed over the years about what a great thing it was. He neglects to mention that Republicans essentially dragged him into signing the Act, but why quibble.

One of the key provisions of the Act involved requirements that welfare recipients either be working, looking for work, or preparing for work. No longer. Obama has issued an edict that allows states to waive work requirements, basically taking the guts out of the Act. 

 

This is disturbing on two levels.  First, it would seem that Obama is actively trying to put more and more people on welfare. This apparent desire to create more dependence on government can also be seen in the administration's push to have more people sign up for food stamps, going so far as to recommend "food stamp parties," where people play games while being recruited to join the program. 

 

The second disturbing element is that the edict flagrantly ignores the language in the Act. Congress passed a law, Obama takes issue with some part of it, so he simply changes it.

 

I'm starting to wonder if the Cloward Piven strategy is alive and well at the White House.

 

For more on this...

 

Obama turns back the clock on welfare reform. 

Free Markets

“The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.”  Adam Smith.

Rationing Health Care

With regard to Obamacare and the inevitable rationing of health care that will result, I have often thought that while free markets also ration health care, better for markets to do it than government. As the article below points out, that's the wrong way to look at it.

The Market Doesn't Ration Health Care

Fixing Problems That Don't Exist

Why is it that any numerical disparity is prima facie evidence of discrimination in the fevered imaginations of liberals?

Obama May Impose New Title IX Quota on Math and Science Students

Make That Two Branches

We're getting to the point where we might as well simply disband Congress. Just abolish that branch of government. With increasing power grabs by the regulatory apparatus of the executive branch and fiats from the White House, who needs Congress?


Oh great, yet another new EPA regulation making things more expensive for everyone.

Right Wing Terrorists

Are you  “suspicious of centralized federal authority” or “reverent of individual liberty.” I am. Which means that I, and perhaps you, may fit the profile of a domestic terrorist, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Good thing the DHS wasn't around in 1776. It would have had the Founders in its crosshairs.

Love Liberty? DHS may label you a terror suspect.

TWA Flight 800: 16 Years and Still No Questions

American Thinker

July 17, 2012

 By Jack Cashill

 I got involved in one of the two great media scandals of our time -- the Obama ascendancy being the other -- fully by happenstance.

In the year 2000, investigative reporter James Sanders came to Kansas City to talk about his research into the fate of TWA flight 800, the plane that crashed into the waters off Long Island on July 17, 1996, sixteen years ago today.

Sanders chose Kansas City because the town had historically been the headquarters for TWA.  As a result, many pilots, mechanics, and flight attendants still lived there.  The audience was filled with them.  Almost to a person, they believed what he was saying -- the plane had been shot out of the sky.

Afterwards, I went out to dinner with James and his wife, Elizabeth, and a dozen other people.  I sat next to Elizabeth, a sweet, unassuming former TWA flight attendant and trainer of Philippine descent.  She told me in painful detail how at one of the many memorials she attended after the crash -- 53 TWA employees were among the 230 killed -- she ran into an old friend, Captain Terrell Stacey.

Stacey had flown the 747 that would become TWA Flight 800 from Paris to New York the night before it was destroyed.  In fact, he was in charge of all TWA 747 pilot activity within the airline.  So it was logical that he would be among the first TWA employees assigned to the crash investigation.

Elizabeth thought of Stacey as "a straight arrow, go-by-the-rules kind of guy" and respected him for it.  After a phone introduction arranged by Elizabeth, James Sanders and Terrell Stacey agreed to meet.  "What he told me over those first hours," Sanders would later tell me, "was one thing: 'I know there's a cover-up in progress.'" 

As a result of that one introduction, the FBI arrested Elizabeth and oversaw her conviction on federal conspiracy charges.  James and Stacey had been arrested, too.  The crime?  Stacey had sent Sanders a tiny piece of foam rubber to have tested.  The Sanderses were still on probation when I met them.  When I heard this story from Elizabeth, I thought maybe there was something there worth pursuing.

As a video producer, I talked to the Sanders about creating a documentary, but, as I explained, I had no interest unless they could prove to me beyond a doubt that the plane was shot down.  They could, and they did.  The result was a documentary called Silenced, which has been inexplicably removed from YouTube.  It is still available, however, through my website.  To explain how I know the plane was shot down would take a book, which James Sanders and I proceeded to write.  The result, First Strike, is available through Amazon, including on the Kindle. 

In the way of summary, on the night of July 17, 1996, and into the early morning hours of the 18^th, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Deputy National Security Adviser Sandy Berger huddled fretfully in the family quarters of the White House.

The election they thought was in the bag no longer was.  The air-traffic controllers had already reported in.  The radar data told a story of an unknown object striking the plane seconds before it exploded.  And now, eyewitness reports were flooding in.

The explosion had taken place right at sunset, just 10 miles off the coast, on a perfect night, with thousands of people looking out over the sea from Long Island's popular south shore.  FBI witness No. 73, an aviation buff, watched a "red streak" with a "light gray smoke trail" move up toward the airliner, and then go "past the right side and above the aircraft before arcking [sic] back down toward the aircrafts [sic] right wing."  She even reported the actual breakup sequence before the authorities figured it out on their own.

High-school principal Joseph Delgado told the FBI that he had seen an object like "a firework" ascend "fairly quick," then "slow" and "wiggle," then "speed up" and get "lost."  Then he saw a second object that "glimmered" in the sky, higher than the first, then a red dot move up to that object, then a puff of smoke, then another puff, then a "firebox."  He drew a precise image of the same.

Mike Wire, a no-nonsense millwright and U.S. Army vet, watched events unfold from the Beach Lane Bridge in Westhampton on Long Island.  Wire had seen a white light traveling skyward from the ground at approximately a 40-degree angle, sparkling and zigzagging before culminating in a massive fireball.
To control the information flow, the White House hit upon a strategy that dazzled in its simplicity and in its sheer nerve.  The Clintons' trusted point person, Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, took the investigation away from the professionals in the National Transportation Safety Board and gave it to the amateurs of the FBI.  There was one reason why.  The FBI reported to Gorelick.  The NTSB did not.

This was illegal, of course, but the media had a president to re-elect soon enough, and they were not about to scruple over details.  The second part of the strategy was as simple as the first.  The FBI would talk only to The New York Times.  This essentially made the Times Gorelick's Ministry of Truth.

Of the 270 eyewitnesses who told the FBI they saw what looked like a missile strike on TWA Flight 800, the Times would interview exactly none.  Fearing perhaps the loss of their privileged status and trusting the FBI more than they should have, the Times people followed the FBI lead.  The other media, some grudgingly, followed the Times.

Four weeks after the disaster, the Times would report, "Now that investigators say they think the center fuel tank did not explode, they say the only good explanations remaining are that a bomb or a missile brought down the plane."  Likely under White House pressure, and without any new evidence, the FBI immediately shifted its storyline away from a missile to a bomb, and a month later, from a bomb to a center fuel tank explosion.

As each week passed, the Clintons had to be stunned that so obvious a truth remained so thoroughly ignored.  To sustain the lie, however, insiders had to tell more lies still.

The FBI would fabricate a second interview with Witness No. 73 that never took place.  The CIA -- the CIA? -- would fabricate a second interview with Mike Wire that also never took place.  NTSB insiders would lie outright about what Joseph Delgado saw, but the election came and went without anyone even knowing who these people were.

Gorelick could not have slept easily through all of this, but the lotto was around the corner, and she knew she had the winning ticket.  In May 1997, the White House called her number.  The Fannie Mae Board picked her, a lawyer with no relevant experience, to be its new vice chair.  Gorelick would earn more than $4 million a year for the next six years, and no one in the media asked why.

They did not even ask why when she stepped down.  Always the patriot, Gorelick resigned to take one of five Democratic seats on the Sept. 11 Commission.  Who knew where talk of aviation terrorism might lead?  Someone had to keep talk of TWA Flight 800 off the table, just as someone had kept it off from 1996 to 2001.

And lest some messy scraps of information find their way to the committee's Republicans, the Clintons dispatched their most trusted adviser to do a little cleanup work.  Alas, Sandy Berger got caught stuffing evidence in his underwear, but this proved much easier to bury than TWA 800.  Democrat staffers in the Bush Justice Department arranged for a wrist slap on a Friday, the day after Terry Schiavo died and the day before Pope John Paul II did.

The media did not want to know anyhow, and sixteen years later, they still do not want to know.  Not one mainstream journalist has ever bothered to ask why the CIA was recruited to make the preposterous video that would seemingly discredit all of the eyewitness testimony.  This is a shame, especially for the family members who have been left only with their grief and their unanswered questions.

Those questions, alas, will likely never be answered for the simple reason that they have never been asked.

Read more:  TWA Flight 800: 16 Years and Still No Questions

You Can't Make This Stuff Up.

For an example of government idiocy, this is hard to beat. Oil refiners are being forced by the EPA to use something called "cellulosic biofuel" in gasoline.

Just one problem: cellulosic biofuel does not exist. Apparently, this inconvenient fact does not bother the bureaucrats at the EPA.


 EPA blasted for requiring oil refineries to add type of fuel that's merely hypothetical.

Obamacare Ruling

Following is a very good analysis of the Obamcare ruling...

Wall Street Journal: A vast new taxing power

Fast & Furious

Following is an excerpt from a worthwhile article on whether the claim of executive privilege applies in the present circumstance...


[T]he case that is most directly pertinent to Holder’s assertion of executive privilege isIn re Sealed Case (Espy), 121 F.3d 729 (D.C. Circuit 1997), which, along with Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice, 365 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. 2008), cites and relies upon Espy, contains the most up to date judicial exposition of the doctrine of executive privilege. Unbelievably, Holder’s letter never cites or mentions the Espy case. If a first-year associate wrote a memorandum for me in which he failed even to mention the most significant case, I would fire him….
But Holder’s letter completely fails to acknowledge what a weak reed the “deliberative process privilege” is in the circumstances of this case. In Espy, the court said:
The deliberative process privilege does not shield documents that simply state or explain a decision the government has already made or protect material that is purely factual….
The deliberative process privilege is a qualified privilege and can be overcome by a sufficient showing of need. … For example, where there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed light on government misconduct, ‘the privilege is routinely denied,’ on the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve ‘the public’s interest in honest, effective government.’”



Full article here:  Can Obama make an executive privilege claim stick?

Also, when you hear democrats claim that operation Fast & Furious started under Bush, consider this:  On Fast & Furious, "Blame Bush" is a lie.

Gas Prices

In all the back and forth over high gas prices we've heard about global markets, supply and demand, unrest in the Mideast, falling value of the dollar, etc. If the article linked below is accurate, another major factor is our transportation and refining system for oil. If that's true, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would, irrespective of other factors, put downward pressure on gas prices. On March 5, the crude oil coming out of the Canadian oil sands, called Western Canada Select, closed 40% lower than Brent crude, which is the benchmark price for oil in Europe.

Obama's obstinacy on Keystone is puzzling. He must know that high gas prices will hurt him politically. Yet today he personally lobbied Senate democrats to vote against a measure that would have increased the likelihood of building the pipeline. Equally puzzling is his insistence that getting rid of Big Oil "subsidies" is somehow part of a rational energy policy. If Big Oil was denied these "subsidies" (which in reality are sensible writeoffs that other companies get), what do you think would happen to the price of gas? He denies wanting gas prices to rise "in an election year" (based on past statements he's OK with such price increases otherwise), yet he is not willing to do anything that might ease upward pressure on these prices. He and Energy Secretary Chu and other democrats claim that increased supply, if it comes from the U.S., will not have an effect on gas prices. But apparently increased supply from elsewhere would be helpful, since they beg other countries, like Saudi Arabia, to ramp up production. I'm starting to think that the Holy Grail of green energy has rendered the administration incapable of rational thought.

The Story Behind U.S. Gas Price Pain

What Should Be Illegal?

How difficult is it to open a lemonade stand? Should you be prosecuted for building on your own land after you have obtained approval from the local government? Why does it cost $1,000,000 to be a taxi driver in New York City? Should drugs be legal? Should prostitution be legal?

The video below is about 40 minutes long. If you're willing to take the time, it's worth a look.

Soaking the Rich, Part II

As the following editorial from the Wall Street Journal points out, increasing the tax rate on dividends will not just punish the wealthy. Lots of other folks will be hurt. Does the administration care? Or does the Holy Grail of "fairness" blind them?

Obama's Dividend Assault

Soaking the Rich

Some people have very steep learning curves. Despite a mountain of evidence that high tax rates on the wealthy do not result in the anticipated revenues to government, Britain increased those rates to 50% a while back. Not surprisingly, Britain is discovering that trying to soak the rich doesn't work very well. 

 

I suppose we could hope that Washington policy makers are paying attention. But they won't.

 

Britain to Obama: More Proof that Taxing the Rich is a Fool's Errand 

 

 

Senators Breaking the Law

Question: if a large group of members of Congress willfully break the law, shouldn't there be some sanctions for their behavior?

I am referring, of course, to the fact that the Senate has failed to pass a budget, which it is required by law to do, for over 1,000 days. Specifically, Senate Democrats refuse to pass a budget. Harry Reid and Chuck Shumer have already announced that they will continue to break the law by not passing a budget this year.

The only reason I can come up with for their willful, lawless behavior is that they don't want their fingerprints on any document that could come back and bite them in the ass, politically speaking. You don't get much more cowardly and cynical than that.

Truman, Obama, & Power

Some excerpts from the article linked below...

"The 1932 Democratic platform, largely written by the party’s 1924 nominee, John W. Davis, was a clear statement of conservative, Jeffersonian principles, but FDR abandoned this platform during his first hundred days in office. So radical were the changes that by 1935, conservatives — Democrats and Republicans alike — agreed with Davis when he wrote, “If the structure of this Government is to be preserved, the courts must do it.”

"By the late 1930s, he had earned the New Dealers’ enduring enmity, and he wore with pride their sobriquet, “Public Enemy Number One."

There is precedent for the Supreme Court ruling against the takeover by government of the private sector.

Obama's Seizure and Truman's

The Buffett Ruse

Following is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal editorial. Full article linked below. I think a lot of the confusion could be cleared up if we went to a flat tax on everyone.


"The Buffett rule is rooted in the fairy tale that taxes on the wealthy are lower than on the middle class. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office notes that the effective income tax rate of the richest 1% is about 29.5% when including all federal taxes such as the distribution of corporate taxes, or about twice the 15.1% paid by middle-class families. (See "How Much the Rich Pay," January 23, 2012.)"

WSJ Editors: The Buffett Ruse

Romney's Goof

Mitt Romney missed a "teachable moment" when he released his tax returns the other day.

Predictably, critics on the left, and amazingly some on the right, like Gingrich, pounced on Romney's returns as proof that the wealthy don't pay their fair share. Or, as Gingrich put, being paid for "no work". As you all know, this is because Romney's income derives from capital gains on investments, which are taxed at 15%. And as we have heard before, how does it make sense that Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary? Egad! The unfairness of it all!

But a couple of points are worth noting. First, that income from capital gains has already been taxed at the corporate level. And as we all know, U.S. corporate tax rates are either the highest or second highest among developed countries in the world (depending on whether Japan has finally lowered their corporate tax rate, which I don't know). So, by the time Romney realizes a capital gain, the effective tax rate on that money can be as high as 45%.

Second, there is a reason that capital gains are taxed at lower rates. The economy benefits by having capital flowing, as opposed to being locked up. If we raised the cap gains rate to, say, 35% (the upper earned income rate), investors will be less likely to sell assets that trigger the tax. We have seen this scenario play out over and over again. When cap gain tax rates are low, people are more likely to sell assets and pay the tax. This not only keeps capital flowing through the economy, it increases revenue to the government. And as someone once said, you can't have capitalism without capital.

Why Romney didn't explain all of this is a mystery to me. My guess is that he's so paranoid about the class warfare strategy of the Democrats that he's like a deer in the headlights.

Is There a Limit on Federal Power?

Below is an excerpt from an article by George Will on the upcoming Supreme Court case on Obamacare...

"If there is no outer limit on Congress’s power to regulate behavior in the name of regulating interstate commerce, then the Framers’ design of a limited federal government is nullified. And if there is no outer limit on the capacity of this government to coerce the states, then federalism, which is integral to the Framers’ design, becomes evanescent."

Full article linked below. It's worth a read. As Will notes, it could be the most important USSC case since 1954.

George Will: A Supreme Obamacare Test

Wesley Mouch Lives

This kind of stuff is straight out of Atlas Shrugged. If someone asked these Democrats whether a company or an individual will continue to produce once the marginal tax rate reaches 100%, how would they answer?

Democratic Party Economics: The "Reasonable Profits Board"

More Solyndras

In light of the fact that Mitt Romney is getting heat from both Republicans and Democrats for his time at Bain Capital, heat which is either steeped in ignorance or political gamesmanship or both, it is remarkable that the venture capitalism undertaken by the Obama administration, with taxpayer dollars, is not garnering much attention.

It is comforting to find out that CBS has at least one journalist who takes her job seriously.

Unreal: CBS News Identifies Eleven "New Solyndras"

Emperor Obama

I am somewhat aghast at the latest example of Obama's imperiousness.

His "recess" appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau not only ignores the Constitution but Dodd-Frank as well, which created the CFPB. The Senate is not in recess. Granted, Republicans are gaveling the Senate into session every three days for the express purpose of preventing Obama from making these recess appointments, but this is a strategy that Democrats have employed in the past as well. It may be unseemly, but that's the way they do things in the dysfunctional world of Washington. The fact is that the Senate is not in recess, ergo, Obama cannot make a recess appointment. But he doesn't care. He will just do as he pleases, Constitution be damned.

Even if one were to forgive him this transgression, there is the problem of the language in Dodd-Frank. It specifically states that the director of the CFPB shall not assume authority until confirmed by the Senate. Perhaps it was an oversight by the staffers who wrote the bill, but the end result is that language forbids the use of a recess appointment, which by defintion is not confirmed by the Senate.

Obama is defending his action by proclaiming that he won't let Congress stand in the way of doing what he believes is right for American consumers. He neglected to mention that he won't let the Constitution, or the Act itself, stand in the way of what he wants. His ends apparently justify any means.

For anyone who may believe that George Bush conducted an imperious presidency, I have a question: Is it abhorrent when Bush does it but acceptable when Obama does it?

My Other Car is an Escalade

More good news for the Chevy Volt...

An interesting tidbit from this item is that the average income of Volt buyers is $170,000. In other words, we have wealthy folks being subsidized by taxpayers to buy these little firetraps, all so they can assuage their green consciences.

I just love it when government thinks it possesses greater wisdom than free markets.

Great news: GM to "call back" 8,000 Chevy Volts for "structural modifications" related to battery fires