Incentives.

The 2010 census has shown that people are leaving states with high income tax rates and settling in states with low income tax rates. Low-tax states will gain seats, high-tax states will lose them | Washington Examiner. Eight states are projected to gain at least one congressional seat under reapportionment following the 2010 Census: Texas [...]

Biting the Hand.

Obama released his budget proposal today for FY 2011. We should all be petrified. Ostensibly to help fund his proposed $3.8million in federal outlays, Obama has announced a tax increase of nearly a trillion dollars on the so-called wealthy families and small businesses out there having the audacity to earn $250k. This will largely be [...]

You don’t say.

NEW YORK Reuters – Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged on Tuesday that some waste is inevitable in the spending of a $787 billion economic stimulus package, in a characteristically blunt assessment. “We know some of this money is going to be wasted,” Biden said during a roundtable discussion in New York with business leaders aimed [...]

Tax flight.

If you’ve never read Arther Laffer (he of the famous “Laffer Curve”), may I suggest you start by reading this. In a nutshell, he believes (and history bears this out), that lowering tax rates creates an incentive to work & produce more, which in turn increases tax revenue. When tax rates are increased and the cost of doing [...]

Unintended consequences, Exhibit one million and one.

One of Maryland’s budget-balancing tactics – asking millionaires to pay more money to the state – appears to be backfiring as the number of the highest-earning taxpayers dwindles with the flagging economy. A year ago, Maryland became one of the first states in the nation to create a higher tax bracket for millionaires as part [...]

Why is this so hard?

OK. Imagine you own a business. Your object of course is to produce lots of quality stuff that people want to buy at prices that will permit you to make a profit. This profit will permit you to keep making these things, and keep selling them to people who want to buy them. If you [...]

Taxes are disincentives to growth? What?

The latest from Liberal tub-o-goo Alec Baldwin on the prospect of the repeal of NYC’s 30% tax breaks to Hollywood production companies: “I’m telling you right now,” Mr. Baldwin declared, “if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse [...]

Revolution.

So how do we beat this? How do we make sure that Obama’s monster government doesn’t swallow us up whole? Here’s one idea: My goal is not to extend the misery; it’s to hasten the inevitable crash so we can recover quickly. Do I want Obama to fail?  Aren’t I, as a Christian, required to [...]

Rockin’ and a-rollin’, splishin’ and a-splashin’.

So have you heard about the Tea Party phenomenon that’s been sweeping the nation? Maybe “sweeping” is too “American Bandstand” for you, but there’s definitely a movement afoot in towns and cities across the nation to protest the abominable government spending programs enacted recently by the Obama administration. Here’s a Foxnews report: And here’s CNBC’s [...]

No confidence.

Here’s what the Dow has done since the date the stimulus passed: Sure, lots of things affect how the stock market reacts. I’ve got a challenge for you. Explain to me in terms that do not mention the stimulus, why the market has gone down this drastically since that date. Better yet, leaving out fear [...]

Hidden taxes.

Think you aren’t being taxed enough by the Obama administration? Seems like he was thinking the same thing! We’re about to be charged more for our wireless services as he attempts to extort billions from the telecom industry in the form of new licensing fees. Faced with a whopping $1.7 trillion deficit, President Obama is [...]

The Socialist.

Yes, it is a dirty word. How dirty? We’re all about to find out. [Obama] is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds. That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint [...]

Here we go.

Don’t know how this can get any plainer. When you screw the people responsible for bringing us all the goods and services we depend on to live by increasing their operating expenses, you only end up screwing consumers. Have you heard about Obama’s latest plan to screw us? WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s budget outline [...]

Sickening

Senate hastens our demise. The bill passed the House 246 to 183 and, in a vote held open for several hours, the Senate 60 to 38, both largely along party lines. President Obama is expected to sign it into law early next week. The legislation represents the start of a new ideological era that places the federal government [...]

Pot, meet kettle.

Michelle Obama’s comments from July, 2008 on President Bush’s rebate checks: PONTIAC, Mich — In response to a question about the economic stimulus checks administered by the U.S. government earlier this year, Michelle Obama said her husband believes that short-term fixes don’t solve economic problems. “You’re getting $600,” she told an audience of mostly African-American [...]

Rejected amendments to the Spending Bill.

Here’s a look at a handful of the Republican amendments Democrats rejected today: An amendment by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) to cut $47 billion in wasteful spending. An amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) cut corporate and individual income taxes and repeal the AMT. An amendment by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to require funding for [...]

CBO weighs in.

Just whistling past the graveyard, folks…. President Obama’s economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result [...]

Greeks bearing pork.

So you may have heard. President Obama published an op-ed in today’s Washington Post pleading with the American public to take Porkenstein to its collective breast and squeeze it ever so tenderly. So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington’s bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we [...]

Porkenstein.

Print this out and carry it around with you all day. Then wave it in the face of anyone trying to claim that the Obama Spending Bill is anything other than a Liberal Christmas list to Santa. Enjoy. *    $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts $380 million in the Senate bill for [...]

Bull-SCHIP

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Congress approved on Wednesday a bill expanding a health insurance program for children and raising tobacco taxes to pay for it, giving President Barack Obama a big legislative victory a day after his pick to lead a healthcare industry overhaul stepped aside. [ . . . ] Republicans had criticized provisions [...]

God help us.

Twice today, CNN has done short segments on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s declaration that To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” via The Stimulus: More Than a Million [...]

Minority party power.

Senate Democratic leaders conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy. via Senate Lacks Votes to Pass Stimulus – washingtonpost.com. This is a [...]

C’mon, kill this thing already.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday the massive stimulus bill backed by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats could go down to defeat if it’s not stripped of unnecessary spending and focused more on housing issues and tax cuts. The Senate version of the bill, which topped out at nearly $900 billion, is headed [...]

We bleed money.

Don’t raise taxes. Cut spending. Please. You wouldn’t give a blood transfusion to a patient with an open wound spurting blood all over the place, would you? No, you’d sew up the wound first, right? Don’t raise taxes to cover spending then until you sew up wounds like SCHIP: Researchers who actually study the program [...]

The Fallacy That Government Creates Jobs

Keynesian theory sounds good, and it would be nice if it made sense, but it has a rather glaring logical fallacy. It overlooks the fact that, in the real world, government can’t inject money into the economy without first taking money out of the economy. More specifically, the theory only looks at one-half of the [...]