By Daniel J. Mitchell
As discussed yesterday, the most important number in Obama’s budget is that the burden of government spending will be at least $2 trillion higher in 10 years if the President’s plan is enacted. But there are also some very unsightly warts in the revenue portion of the President’s budget. Americans for Tax Reform has a [...]
How Can Obama Look at these Two Charts and Conclude that America Should Have Higher Double Taxation of Dividends and Capital Gains? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
Two well-connected government unions in California are teaming with Gov. Jerry Brown to support a multibillion-dollar tax increase. The California Teachers Association and Service Employees International Union were the top two spenders for lobbying in 2011 with combined efforts totaling more than $10 million, according to Sacramento Bee. Now they’re using their muscle to champion Brown’s tax hike. Brown’s plan “would raise tens of billions of dollars by temporarily increasing the sales tax and the income tax on wealthy Californians, generating about $35 billion over five years,” according to the … More
No Comments »
By Daniel J. Mitchell
Back in 2010, I crunched the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and reported that the budget could be balanced in just 10 years if politicians exercised a modicum of …
New Congressional Budget Office Numbers Once Again Show that Modest Spending Restraint Would Eliminate Red Ink is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Daniel J. Mitchell
I don’t blame Democrats for wanting to seduce Republicans into a tax-increase trap. Indeed, I completely understand why some Democrats said their top political goal was getting the GOP to surrender the no-tax-hike position. I’m mystified, though, why some Republicans are willing to walk into such a trap. If you were playing chess against someone, [...]
Illinois Downgrade: More Evidence that Higher Taxes Make Fiscal Problems Worse is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Daniel J. Mitchell
Austan Goolsbee, the former Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, had a column in the Wall Street Journal that argues government spending isn’t too high. That’s obviously a silly assertion, as I explain here, here, and here, but I want to focus on what he wrote about tax revenues. Here’s the relevant passage [...]
Austan Goolsbee’s Budget Math Is Wrong – More than 100 Percent of Long-Term Fiscal Challenge Is Government Spending is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Daniel J. Mitchell
My Iowa caucus predictions from yesterday were hopelessly wrong, probably because I was picking with my heart rather than my head. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Mitt Romney’s openness to a value-added tax makes him a dangerously flawed candidate, and I hoped Iowa voters shared my concern. In a column for today’s [...]
Mitt Romney, the Value-Added Tax, and America’s European Future is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Daniel J. Mitchell
To be blunt, I’m not a big fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But my animosity isn’t because OECD bureaucrats threatened to have me arrested and thrown in a Mexican jail. Instead, I don’t like the Paris-based bureaucracy because it pushes a statist agenda of bigger government. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity [...]
Why Are American Tax Dollars Subsidizing a Paris-Based Bureaucracy so It Can Help the AFL-CIO Push Obama’s Class-Warfare Agenda? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »