Virginia Farmers Protest When Fines Are Threatened For Hosting A Kids Party

The Blaze has a great story as the title implies. Bureaucracy continues to encroach on our lives even on the simplest of events. The video is in the linked story.

John Roberts

John Roberts: Portrait Of A Coward

PORTRAIT OF A COWARD

Club for Growth defends Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan

From: Washington Times

The influential anti-spending Club for Growth defended Republican presidential contender Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan against attacks from his GOP rivals, saying that those who warn the federal sales tax component would simply hand Congress another way to levy taxes on citizens "miss the mark."

"Of course a future Congress could raise taxes above the 9 percent levels, but under our current monstrosity of a tax system, Congress already can raise taxes at any time and often has," said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth. "It is on a path to do so yet again next year with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts."

Mr. Cain's plan, he said, may not be perfect, but "it is a truly revolutionary tax reform that would amount to a massive job creating tax cut on investments, savings and income."

"Instead of tearing down ideas that would create economic growth and jobs, the other Republican presidential candidates should produce their own plans to achieve a flatter and more growth-oriented tax code," Mr. Chocola said.

Mr. Cain's plan vows to eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends, combined with the proposed reductions in corporate and income tax rates would "create an unparalleled economic boom," Mr. Chocola said.

Warren Buffett Doesn’t Seem To Agree With Obama’s Version Of ‘Buffett Rule’

Lautenberg "we got to eliminate the rich"

Good news: Top tax rate to jump to 62%

A great article from The Blog Prof. An absolute must read.

From: The Blog Prof

The Founding Fathers set up a system where we live under the law, rather than the whims of man. In that regard, teh federal government was supposed to be by design limited. And it was until the 1930s when entitlements came into being despite their being unconstitutional. We no longer live under a limited government, and I'd like to see someone claim we do when that government steals 62% of the fruits of your labor: A 62% Top Tax Rate?

Will Obama Be Forced To Raise Taxes On the Middle Class?

The New Republic says the numbers require a middle class tax increase.

From: The New Republic

Because so much of what passes for political debate in this country takes place in a faux-fact zone, it is a welcome change to read Reihan Salam’s latest essay in the National Review. During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama famously promised that taxes would either stay the same or go down for households making less than $250,000 a year. But Salam points out that there’s no way of reducing the budget deficit to acceptable levels, let alone financing the kind of federal government Obama favors, while relying solely on income and payroll tax increases for households making more than that figure. Of course, there’s not much that can be squeezed out of the bottom four income quintiles (households making less than $100,000 per year). On the other hand, relying solely on the rich for added revenues would imply tax rates in excess of 75 percent. But what about the well-off but not rich—those in the fifth quintile who earn between $100,000 and $250,000 a year? Can they really be held harmless?

To dramatize the problem we’re facing, let’s consider the analysis the Urban Institute’s Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane published in January, which looked at taxes and benefits for households in different income brackets. The average couple earning $112,000 and retiring in 2010 will have paid $140,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes, but is expected to receive lifetime Medicare benefits totaling $343,000. Twenty years from now, the same couple would have paid $171,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes and would receive $530,000 in benefits. (Technical note: These amounts are in constant 2010 dollars, adjusted to present value using a 2 percent real interest rate. In calculating net benefits, the authors have taken into account premiums as well as payroll taxes.)

Or consider the analysis USA Today published last week, which found that Americans are paying the smallest share of their income for taxes since 1958—23.6 percent, versus about 27 percent in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. On average, a person making $100,000 this year will pay $23,600 in combined taxes—federal, state, and local, income, payroll, and sales—versus $28,700 in 2000 and $27,300 in 1990. Even when the one-year Social Security tax cut ends, the tax gap between now and a decade ago for individuals making $100,000 will still be more than $3,000.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income

From: Fiscal Times

• Households received $2.3 trillion in government income support in February.
• Government cash accounts for79 percent of household income growth since 2007.
• Since 2007, household tax payments have fallen by $312 billion.

With President Obama’s deficit-reduction plan now on the table, the political left, right and center are ready to rumble over how to assure long-term fiscal stability. The big questions are where to slash and by how much, but over the next year or two, the most important question for the economy might well be how quickly the cutting should begin. Households have become unusually dependent on the government for income support and removing that prop too fast could put the recovery at risk.

For the first time since the Great Depression, households are receiving more income from the government than they are paying the government in taxes. The combination of more cash from various programs, called transfer payments, and lower taxes has been a double-barreled boost to consumers’ buying power, while also blowing a hole in the deficit. The 1930s offer a cautionary tale: The only other time government income support exceeded taxes paid was from 1931 to 1936. That trend reversed in 1936, after a recovery was underway, and the economy fell back into a second leg of recession during 1937 and 1938.


As then, the pattern now reflects two factors: the severe depth of the 2007-09 recession and the massive fiscal policy response to it. The recession cut deeply into tax payments as more people lost their jobs, and it boosted payments for so-called automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment insurance, that ramp up payments as the economy turns down. Plus, policy actions, including the Recovery Act, boosted payments to households by expanding and extending jobless benefits and creating other income subsidies while extending the Bush-era tax cuts and adding new reductions in income and payroll taxes.

100 Percent Tax on Those Earning $500K or More Leaves U.S. With $839B Deficit

From: CNS NEWS

When he presented his plan for dealing with the national debt last week, President Barack Obama suggested a number of ways he would like to increase taxes on people he referred to as “millionaires and billionaires.”

However, recently released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service indicate that taxing away 100 percent of the income of every American who earned $500,000 or more in 2009 would still have left the United States with a massive annual deficit.

In fact, in tax year 2009 (the last year for which IRS has published statistics), the combined gross income of all Americans earning $500,000 per year or more was about $1.03 trillion ($1,029,256,075,000.00) of which these Americans paid $256.7 billion ($256,699,499,000.00) in federal income taxes.

That left this group of Americans about $773 billion ($772,556,576,000.00) in income that the federal government had not taken away in income taxes.

Also during tax year 2009, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the national debt increased by $1.61 trillion ($1,611,544,812,899.90).

Rep Tim Scott (R-SC) is absolutely correct: Taxing those at $100,000 and up at 100% would not get us out of this year’s deficit

From: The Blog Prof



The worst part of it would be that if you indeed confiscated all the earnings of every single American making $100,000 or more per year, not only would it not plug the ginormous hole left be liberal overspending, but that those people that got their earnings confiscated won't even try to earn that much again the following year, so the hole would be even bigger. The problem isn't a lack of tax revenue. The problem is too much spending. All wealth either goes into the private sector or the government sector. Someone please argue that taking more money from the private sector that produces to the government sector that mostly cuts checks to people that don't produce is even a good idea in concept, much less the disaster it is in practice.

Would the last business leaving Illinois please turn out the lights?

From: American Thinker

Caterpillar, Inc, one of the largest employers in the state of Illinois and an iconic symbol of heartland solidity, is seriously considering a move to another state.

CEO Doug Oberhelman sent a letter to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, saying that "the pressure was on" from other states who are trying to woo the tractor maker and their 23,000 jobs away from their home in East Peoria.

The Pantagraph:

"I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what's right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest," Oberhelman wrote in the letter obtained Friday by the Lee Enterprises Springfield bureau. "The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business and I'd like to work with you to change that."

Oberhelman said he's being actively courted to move.

"I have been called, 'cornered' in meetings and 'wined and dined' -- the heat is on," Oberhelman wrote. "Before, I never really considered living anywhere else and certainly never considered the possibility of Caterpillar relocating. But I have to admit, the policymakers in Springfield seem to make it harder by the day."

Cat spokesman Jim Dugan said the letter was designed to show Quinn that Oberhelman wants to be involved in finding solutions that benefit the company, which employs 23,000 people in Illinois.

"I view it as an olive branch to offer our help," Dugan said.

[...]

"The governor welcomes frank and open exchanges between the business community and government, and we are always open to new ideas that can help our businesses grow, innovate and create jobs," Callahan said.

Illinois recently almost doubled its business tax and income taxes for employees. Oberhelman has a fiduciary responsibility to the company's shareholders to examine options that would increase the profitability of Caterpillar. He could be fired (or charged with a crime) if he failed to do so. The huge tax increase makes staying in Illinois an unprofitable option.

It would be hard to overstate the effect of Caterpillar leaving downstate Illinois. It would devastate the local economies who depend on Caterpillar and their employees to pump tens of millions of dollars into these communities.

And then there's the uncertainty:

Republican leaders, who unsuccessfully fought Quinn on the tax hike, say the letter confirms why they were opposed to the increase.

"These are the kinds of letters we fear," said Patty Schuh, spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont. "Even more worrisome are the hundreds of businesses being wooed that we don't know about."

Indeed.

CBO: Taxing mileage a 'practical option' for revenue enhancement - The Hill's Floor Action

From: The Hill

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.

The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles.

"In the past, the efficiency costs of implementing a system of VMT charges — particularly the costs of users' time for slowing and queuing at tollbooths — would clearly have outweighed the potential benefits from more efficient use of highway capacity," CBO wrote. "Now, electronic metering and billing are making per-mile charges a practical option."

The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who held a hearing on transportation funding in early March. In that hearing, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is hoping to spend $556 billion over the next six years, much of which would go to federal transportation improvement projects.

Conrad said in response that federal funds are tight, and in asking for recommendations on how to raise that money, he noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Do we do gas tax?" Conrad asked. "Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren't going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?"

Conrad argued some recommendation should be made by his committee on these issues when the Senate considers a transportation spending bill later this year.

CBO's report stressed it was making no recommendations but seemed to support a VMT tax as a more accurate way of having drivers pay for the costs of highway maintenance. The report said miles driven is a larger factor in highway repairs than fuel consumption and suggested that having drivers pay for the real costs of highways "would involve imposing a combination of fuel taxes and per-mile charges."

But CBO's assessment of "costs" was broader than just those costs associated with maintaining highway systems.

"Any given driver’s highway use also imposes costs on other users, on nearby nonusers, on the environment, and on the economy in the form of congestion, risk of accidents, noise, emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants that affect local air quality, and dependence on foreign oil," CBO said.

On how to implement the idea, CBO said it is unclear how much it would cost to "install metering equipment in all of the nation's cars and trucks."

"Having the devices installed as original equipment under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers would be relatively inexpensive but could lead to a long transition; requiring vehicles to be retrofitted with the devices could be faster but much more costly, and the equipment could be more susceptible to tampering than factory-installed equipment might be," CBO said.

The report added that VMT taxes could be tracked and even collected at filling stations. "If VMT taxes were collected at the pump, each time fuel was purchased, information would be sent from a device in the vehicle to a device at the filling station," it said.

CBO also suggested different VMT tax rates might be assessed to different vehicles because heavier vehicles do more road damage, and rates might change depending on whether miles are driven at peak use times or during less congested hours.

CBO did acknowledge that privacy concerns may be a hurdle to implementing a VMT tax because electronic tracking of miles driven might provide too much personal information to the government. However, CBO noted that some have proposed restricting the information that would be transmitted to the government.

Toilet Paper Tax?

From: Omaha.com

Mayor Jim Suttle went to Washington Tuesday flush with ideas for how federal officials could help cities like Omaha pay for multibillion-dollar sewer projects.

Among the items on his brainstorming list: a proposal for a 10-cent federal tax on every roll of toilet paper you buy.

Based on the four-pack price for Charmin double rolls Tuesday at a midtown Hy-Vee, such a tax would add more than 10 percent to the per-roll price, pushing it over a buck.

The idea came from a failed 2009 House measure by an Oregon congressman to help cities and the environment.

“I heard about it and said, ‘Well, this is simple. Let's put it on the table,'” said Suttle. “It doesn't mean I endorse it.”

The mayor says Omaha needs help with the metro area's $1.7 billion bill for federally mandated sewer improvements. The work must be done by 2024.

Suttle talked about the mandate at a Tuesday meeting held by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He didn't mention the toilet paper tax but said later that he's open to that and other ways to cover the sewer bill.

“How are we affording this ... as we come out of the recession?” he asked.

Suttle plans to ask Nebraska's congressional delegation to ease the blow to Omaha and other cities. He'd like the federal government to cover half of the cities' costs, possibly with grants.

Whether the toilet paper tax has legs remains to be seen, but Omaha's large industries that balked under significant sewer rate increases are listening.

Julia Plucker, a lobbyist for Kellogg's and Skinner Baking, says food industries carry an unfair portion of the increases.

A toilet paper tax? Sure.

“I did chuckle when I first heard about it,” Plucker said. “But this is a serious problem. We would love to take a look at any more equitable solution.”