The House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax committee that has jurisdiction over all taxes and revenue-generating programs (social security, medicare, unemployment) is saying “no thanks” to dealing with potentially one of the largest taxes in history, the cap and trade energy tax. From CongressDailyAM: “House Ways and Means Committee Democrats are likely to punt on their opportunity to help shape climate-change legislation, given a tiny window for action, zero agreement among panel members and a desire to focus instead on health care.
Government benefits accounted for 16.2 percent of personal income in the first quarter of 2009 according to new figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is the highest level since the data began being recorded in 1929. According to a recent article in USA Today government spending on benefits will be more than $2 trillion in 2009, which comes to about $17,000 per household. The dramatic increase is a result of poor economic conditions leading to increased spending mainly on unemployment, food stamps, and Social Security. USA Today reports: …
This picture is worth thousands and thousands of words.
From June 4th’s Wall Street Journal: Like a magician who artfully controls his audience’s attention, the government’s General Motors investment is all about financial diversion. Here’s the fancy trick: It won’t be very hard for a revamped GM to succeed at making a buck. Its debts will be cut from about $73 billion to about $17 billion. Its labor costs will be reduced by as much as $2 billion a year. On Wednesday, GM got even more help. GMAC, which funds dealers and car buyers, began issuing $3.5 billion in …
In the spring of 1989, millions of Chinese peacefully seized control of their own capital and demanded democracy. After then-Premier Li Peng declared martial law on May 19th, the people of Beijing, not just students, responded by setting up bus and truck barricades to protect the demonstrators’ command post in Tiananmen Square. But on the morning of June 4th, 20 years ago today, China’s rulers sent in tanks and soldiers to regain control. The Chinese government claims only 241 people died that day, but the Chinese Red Cross puts the …
Bloomber reports: Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits. “It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.” When Obama first unveiled his new tax plan last month, Heritage fellows JD Foster and Curits Dubay wrote:
Earlier this week the AP reported: Defense Secretary Robert Gates isn’t ruling out spending more on missile defense than what he’s asked for in next year’s budget if North Korea or other nations increase threats against the United States. Gates said the missile tests by North Korea over the past week appear to have attracted more support on Capitol Hill for missile interceptors. Seems Secretary Gates is reading Congress wll. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) writes in today’s Chicago Tribune:
The New York Times reports today: As governments worldwide try to spend their way out of recession, many countries are finding themselves in the same situation as embattled consumers: paying higher interest rates on their rapidly expanding debt. Increased rates could translate into hundreds of billions of dollars more in government spending for countries like the United States, Britain and Germany. Even a single percentage point increase could cost the Treasury an additional $50 billion annually over a few years — and, eventually, an additional $170 billion annually.
According to an AP story today reprinted in the Miami Herald, European Union countries are likely to take in several dozen Guantanamo Bay detainees. Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina spoke for the 27-nation bloc of interior ministers saying that it would be up to each individual government to decide whether to participate. This is welcome news, if it comes to pass. It is also one piece of a broader strategy to close the facility that both the Bush & Obama administrations’ have been working on for some time.
The Washington Post reported yesterday: The United Nations Conference on Disarmament last week approved a working group to negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissionable material for nuclear weapons and another to discuss preventing an arms race in outer space. The U.N. group, which met in Geneva, had been unable to agree on a work agenda for the past 10 years. That was partly because of the U.S. refusal to give in to demands by the Chinese and Russians for the conference to study prevention of arms in space. …
