New research suggests that legislators should cut spending and enact growth-inducing policies. The reasoning? According to the study, spending cuts can positively affect economic growth and are the only historically reliable way to lower deficits and debt. The authors of the study, Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi, write that “spending-based consolidations [spending cuts] accompanied by the right polices tend to be less recessionary or even have a positive impact on growth.” (emphasis added) These findings confirm what was certainly true in past U.S. recessions. Alesina and Giavazzi also add that …
As the saying goes, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. Given that fact, it’s worth taking a look at how much it costs to live and how much it costs to pay taxes, especially on this Tax Day. The Republican Study Committee has pulled together a great chart putting these costs side by side:
We get it, the last thing President Obama wants is to be blamed for is the nation’s growing debt—or anything else, actually. But the statute of limitations on blaming President George W. Bush for everything—anything—must have run out by now. On the debt in particular, it’s sort of a hard thing to avoid considering President Obama is the first president in history to preside over four years of deficits in excess of $1 trillion. But in the time honored tradition of the Obama Administration, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner took to …
In addition to today being Tax Day, it’s also, coincidentally, “Tax Freedom Day” — meaning that it has taken from January 1 until now for Americans to earn enough money to pay this year’s federal, state, and local tax bill — 29.2% of all our income. In other words, for the first 111 days of the year, everything you earned went straight to Uncle Sam. Compare that to back in 1900, when Americans paid only 5.9% of their income in taxes and Tax Freedom Day came on January 22. The …
In a bit of scheduling serendipity, Tax Freedom Day—the day when Americans finally earn enough income to pay off the bill for all federal, state, and local taxes for the year—falls on April 17 this year. That also happens to be Tax Filing Day 2012. Absent tax changes made by Congress, Tax Freedom Day moves earlier or later in the calendar from year to year based on the economy. If the economy is stronger, then more Americans are working and wages are rising. Larger incomes mean they pay more taxes …
President Obama says his “Buffett Rule” — which imposes higher taxes on wealthy Americans and job creators — will help “stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.” But if you compare how much money his policy raises with how much he’d like to spend, you get a much different picture. The Buffett Rule would impose a minimum 30 percent tax on businesses and families earning $1 million. That would bring in $47 billion in revenue in ten years. Next to the President’s budget, which adds $6.7 trillion to the …
The U.S. Senate could vote today on the gimmicky distraction known as the Buffett Rule — President Obama’s plan to raise taxes on wealthy Americans and job creators in order to supposedly bring “fairness” to the tax code and pay down the debt. As the paper-thin justification for the proposal continues to fade away, the American people are staring down Tax Day, continued joblessness, and the prospect of a major tax meltdown coming on January 1, 2013. The facts of the Buffett Rule are simple. The President wants millionaires (and …
Americans who are scrambling to pay their taxes by Tuesday’s deadline are in store for more depressing news: The tax burden on American families has risen dramatically and will continue to climb into the future without action from Congress. This week’s chart outlines the growth of taxes over the past 45 years. Large tax increases are just months away. Jan. 1, 2013, is already being dubbed Taxmaggedon. Seven existing tax policies will end and 18 new taxes from Obamacare will begin, leading to a $494 billion tax increase at the …
Welfare cash may have been used to get a Massachusetts drug dealer “out of jail free.” The Boston Herald reports: Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges—again—when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,”’ according to a Boston police report. The EBT system provides benefits—including food stamps and cash …
Yesterday President Obama tried to sell the “Buffett Rule” under a new moniker: What Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we’re calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility; everybody doing their part. And if it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule. Securing Ronald Reagan’s economic blessing is a new trend among liberals. And no wonder: Ronald Reagan is one of the most popular presidents in …
