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  • Entitlements, Taxes & Spending

    Replace the culture of entitlement with the culture of mutual responsibility.

    House Votes to Raise Estate Tax this Week

    The U.S. House of Representative could vote as early as Wednesday of this week to increase the estate tax (known popularly as the death tax). The bill it will consider, sponsored by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-North Dakota), would extend permanently the death tax at its current 45 percent rate and … More

    Congress Considers Steep Death Tax Increase

    Leaders in the House of Representatives recently discussed the possibility of extending the death tax at its current rate and exemption levels for one year through 2010. If this proposal becomes law it would be a massive tax hike. Under current law, the death tax has a top rate of … More

    The Dirty Job That Congress Won’t Do on Its Own

    Congress needs someone like Mike Rowe to do the dirty job that politicians won’t touch. Our $1.4-trillion (and rising!) annual deficit and $12-trillion accumulated debt are not caused by the economy. They’re caused by runaway spending. Unable or unwilling to specify and enforce spending cuts on their own, some in … More

    Higher Medicare Tax Latest Proposal to Fund Health Care Takeover

    The latest proposal to pay for a government takeover of the health care system is to increase the Medicare tax for those that earn more than $250,000 a year. This latest proposed tax hike shows Congress is desperate to find more revenue to pay for its excessively expensive health care … More

    Congress and Big Labor Collaborate to Raise Taxes

    The AFL-CIO, in concert with some Congressional leaders, has proposed yet another tax hike to fund Washington’s ongoing explosion of spending. This latest collaboration between Big Labor and Big Government would be a 0.25 percent tax on all stock trades. Given the budding deficit pressures another tax hike proposal is … More

    Morning Bell: Doc Fix Digs Debt Deeper

    Yesterday at 3:00 p.m. ET, the Treasury Department updated its calculation of the U.S. National Debt to: $12,031,299,186,290.07. That $12 trillion record high comes just eight months after it hit $11 trillion and is only expected to rise faster considering the federal deficit for 2009 was over $1.4 trillion. And … More

    Non-Profits Shouldn’t Fight to Save Their Tax Subsidies

    Congress soon will seal the fate of federal death taxes. If Congress acts by doing nothing, then the federal tax rate on estates will fall to zero for all of 2010 before rising to 55 percent on January 1, 2011. That’s current law. On the other hand, it could pass … More

    Repealing the Death Tax Would Create 1.5 Million Jobs

    Congress will take up debate on the dreaded Death Tax once again in the coming weeks. It will do so because the Death Tax expires for one year starting January 1, 2010. But like the villain in a horror movie, it will rise from the dead with its full power … More

    New Study Shows Tax Cuts Most Effective Stimulus

    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’ … More

    Representative Paul Ryan Gets It Right On Entitlement Reform

    It is all too common for members of Congress to recognize the problem with entitlement spending, talk about it, but then decide to kick the can down the road, leaving the toughest choices for future generations to make. But Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been a long-time advocate of paving … More