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    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

    Yes, $2.6 Trillion! A Closer Look at the Full 10 Years of Spending in the House Health Bill

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership are frantically trying to find enough votes to pass their giant 2,032 page health care legislation this weekend. But before Speaker Pelosi and liberals in Congress pass their big bill, the American taxpayers should be fully aware of the full price … More

    Krugman Wrong on Cap and Trade Costs

    Paul Krugman blasted opponents of cap and trade and The Heritage Foundation in his New York Times column today, saying: So where do the apocalyptic warnings about the cost of climate-change policy come from? Are the opponents of cap-and-trade relying on different studies that reach fundamentally different conclusions? No, not … More

    Passing a Shell of A Bill: Congress’ Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform

    With the President and Congress’s plan to pass comprehensive health care reform reaching increasingly high levels of unpopularity, and reconciliation becoming an impediment, the leadership of the Senate is rumored to be preparing a new secret plan to railroad the bill through the Senate in record time by using a … More

    Sales Tax Holidays: Popular Policy “Clunker”

    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 … More

    Temporary Tax Rebates Do Not Stimulate Economic Growth

    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a paper: Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Short-term Growth? The paper is a comprehensive summary of the best recent literature on the topic. CBO sorts the literature into three categories: Studies that used detailed data about individual spending to study the effects … More

    IRS to Tax Employer-Provided Cell Phones

    The Obama Administration’s desperation for new revenue to feed its massive spending appetite is becoming more apparent every day. The latest tax hike proposal, this time from the IRS, is to tax 25 percent of the value of employer-provided cell phones or Blackberries. The rationale is that workers use employer-provided phones … More

    New Tax Credit for Homebuyers Unnecessary

    Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) reintroduced his plan today to create a $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers purchasing primary residences. The goal of the plan is to jumpstart the depressed real estate market. But as we pointed out last year when Senator Isakson introduced a similar bill, it will not work … More

    The Global Warming International Flight Tax

    As liberal environmentalists and tax-happy politicians scheme over strategies to hike international flight rates to raise funds to address alleged global warming, North Dakotans are celebrating snowfalls in June. Anomalies like snow in June certainly don’t refute that the planet is warming, but there does exist a widening of disconnect … More

    Tax Freedom Day Video: We are Never Really Free

    Tax Freedom Day is the day in the year when we have earned enough income to pay our total tax bill for the year. It is a simple way to illustrate the cost of government and can be applied to countries around the world. In the U.S., according to the … More