Two-time former Estonia Prime Minister Mart Laar visited The Heritage Foundation today, extolling the benefits the flat tax brought to his country. First passed in Estonia in 1994, Laar cited two immediate benefits he witnessed when the flat tax was implemented: First, government revenues went up as the simplicity of …
Now that the Senate has passed its “Foreclosure Enhancement Act,” attention turns to the House, which will hold hearings on its own response to the housing “crisis.” As the Christian Science Monitor reports, “at the heart of the emerging consensus is a bigger role for the Federal Housing Administration in …
With President Bush’s letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday and John McCain’s speech in Brooklyn yesterday, now all three presidential candidates and the White House are supporting plans that would expose taxpayers to hundreds of billions of dollars in housing market risk. All three plans would set extremely bad precedents …
The early narrative of the housing market collapse featured all the usual suspects: sleazy mortgage bankers, shadowy lenders and pushy Wall Street brokers – all of them preying on unsuspecting homebuyers. But now we’re starting to get, as radio legend Paul Harvey puts it, “the rest of the story.” Turns …
Polling shows that while 61% Americans oppose bail outs for Wall Street investment companies, 56% support “the federal government taking steps to help prevent people from losing their homes.” Apparently, who is asking for government help and why is crucial to public support for federal government intervention. That is one …
The White House isn’t buying the Senate housing bill. As Benton Ives reports in Congressional Quarterly, President Bush is not too thrilled with the bailout proposal. Why? “The bill will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators and passing on costs to other Americans who …
Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the World Bank Group released their 2008 “Paying Taxes” publication earlier this week. The study compares tax regimes from around the world using three indicators (number of tax payments, time spent paying taxes, and total tax rate). According to the Executive Summary “corporate income taxes only account …
Building on news that the bipartisan consensus behind the Senate’s “Foreclosure Enhancement Act” is beginning “to crumble,” the White House sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today outlining what they would accept in housing legislation. The letter includes many strong principles that ought to be congratulated, including: We …
