The health care plan President Obama recently released is mostly a combination of the different plans passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. But in one major way it breaks with long-standing precedent, proposing a fundamental wrong-headed change to both entitlement policy and tax policy. He proposes for …
After a long-week of negotiations, unions have won an exemption from the excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance plans. The excise tax would fall on health insurance plans that cost more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,00 for families (the union deal reportedly slightly increases these thresholds) starting in …
The House and Senate are working to reconcile their differing health care reform bills into one final bill. Tax increases remain a stubborn sticking point. The House prefers a surtax on high-earners and the Senate an excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans that cost over $8,500 for individuals …
The failure of the stimulus package to create jobs and generate economic growth becomes more apparent each day – despite preposterous claims from the White House about all the jobs they say it has created and saved. Counter intuitively (at least in the sane world outside of Washington), the stimulus’ …
A widely propagated myth contends that raising top tax rates doesn’t hurt small businesses because only a small percentage of them pay rates at that level. But the number of businesses that pay top rates is economically meaningless. By this more accurate measure it is obvious that raising top income …
On this week’s season premiere of the popular AMC show “Mad Men” viewers were reminded about the punitive high tax rates in the 1960s: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx8bQ-hqIUY[/youtube] This episode of Mad Men takes place in 1963, when the top income tax rate was 91 percent on incomes over $200,000 ($400,000 for married …
Virginians will celebrate their annual “sales tax holiday” this weekend—August 7 through August 9. On these three days, the state’s 5 percent sales tax will be exempted from school supplies, clothing, and footwear. Each eligible school supply item must be priced at $20 or less, and each eligible article of …
