Taxes

Biden’s DOA Budget

Featured image Joe Biden unveiled his 2025 budget proposal earlier today. In general, presidents’ budgets are hardly worth discussing. They project revenue and spending over the next ten years, and if you go back and look at them a few years later, they usually bear no relation to reality. And, in this instance, there is zero chance that Congress will pass anything resembling Biden’s budget, which can best be seen as a »

Brown Droppings

Featured image California’s Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act requires voter approval for all new taxes passed by the legislature and two-thirds voter approval for all new special tax increases. The Act also demands clear definitions of what is a tax or a fee, along with truthful descriptions of new tax proposals. Before any tax or fee is enacted, politicians must clearly outline how the revenues would be spent, and so on.  »

Hunter Biden indicted on tax charges

Featured image A Central District of California federal grand jury has handed up a nine-count indictment of Hunter Biden on tax charges. Three of the charged crimes are felonies. The rest are misdemeanors. The detailed 56-page indictment is posted online here and embedded in Victor Nava’s New York Post story here. The gist of the case is set forth in paragraph 4 of the indictment: “The Defendant engaged in a four-year scheme »

Realize this

Featured image This morning the Supreme Court hears oral argument in Moore v. United States. It could be one of the most important cases to be heard by the Supreme Court this year. In it the Court has certified this question for review (references to “App.” are to the appendix to the petition for review filed with the Court by counsel for Mr. and Mrs. Moore): The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to »

Mississippi, Beacon of Progress

Featured image Why did one of Britain’s leading advocates for Brexit leave the U.K. to head up a policy organization in Mississippi? Douglas Carswell explains in the Telegraph: You might be surprised to learn that Mississippi, the poorest state in the US, is now wealthier than Britain. Mississippi’s GDP per capita last year was $47,190, slightly above the UK’s approximately $45,000, though still well below the overall American average of $70,000. While »

Horatio Alger Lives

Featured image I suppose America’s work ethic peaked in the late 19th century and has declined somewhat since then. Still, compared with Europeans, Americans are considered hard-working. Thus the Telegraph headlines: “How hard-working US is getting rich while the UK struggles on benefits.” The world’s biggest economy has pulled ahead of the UK and the rest of Europe on an array of economic measures since the financial crisis of 2008. What began »

Americans: Right About Some Things, Wrong About Others

Featured image Two sets of current poll data are of interest. First, Americans hate the news media. Nothing new here, but if anything the feeling has intensified. Good. Rasmussen reports: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 30% of Likely U.S. voters say they trust the political news they’re getting – down from 37% in July 2021 – while 52% say they don’t trust political news, and »

Chicago, RIP

Featured image Electing Lori Lightfoot as Mayor of Chicago was the beginning of the end for that city. Replacing her with someone even more far left is accelerating Chicago’s terminal decline. Tom Bevan notes that the death throes are under way: Progressive allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson have released a financial blueprint titled – and I'm not joking – "First We Get the Money" calling for $12 billion in new taxes, including: »

Swedish Tax Cuts In the Works

Featured image Not so long ago, American leftists held up the Scandinavian countries, especially Sweden, as exemplars of left-wing success. But times have changed. First, Sweden took a right turn away from its former, almost-socialist policies. (Although, to be fair, Swedish officials always bristled at the suggestion that their country was socialist, or anything like it.) Next, Sweden opted for freedom during the covid epidemic. As always, freedom was anathema to American »

Geraldine Tyler’s day in court

Featured image The Supreme Court heard the case of Geraldine Tyler v. Hennepin County yesterday. C-SPAN has posted audio of oral argument in the Supreme Court here. The Eighth Circuit decision in the case — the one that the Supreme Court accepted for review — is posted online here. Hennepin County consists mostly of the sinkhole of Minneapolis. It is the sinkhole in our back yard, and yet we haven’t gotten around »

Tax Me More!

Featured image Most rich people who take part in politics are on the Left, which is a major reason why the Democratic Party and its candidates consistently have so much more money than the Republican Party and its candidates. I have long been bemused by rich liberals like Warren Buffett, who tell us their tax rates are too low. Really? Guess what: the IRS will cash your check! If you seriously think »

Taxing Wealth: Another Terrible Idea

Featured image Here in the U.S., we sometimes hear calls for a new tax on wealth, rather than income. What better way to make rich people pay more? But of course, this is not a new idea. Wealth taxes have been abandoned by most developed countries. Charlotte Gifford writes, in the Telegraph: In 1990, 12 OECD countries, all in Europe, levied wealth taxes. However, most of them repealed these in the 1990s »

Sitting on $17 billion

Featured image The state of Minnesota overtaxed us by $17 billion in the last biennium and is sitting on the surplus. The funds should be returned on a pro rata basis to those of us who were compelled to fork over the dough, but that’s not what state Democrats have in mind, even when they couch their proposals in the language of “rebates.” That much I can tell you. The Star Tribune »

The three percent fabrication

Featured image Nicholas Meyer had Sherlock Holmes overcoming The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Last week President Biden fabricated the billionaires’ three percent solution to the federal income tax burden. Citing an incredibly misleading release from the Biden administration, I found Biden’s three percent solution to be “Biden’s lie of the day.” Elon Musk has now responded to Biden’s lie of the day on Twitter and readers “have added context they thought people might want »

Biden’s lie of the day

Featured image President Biden is a pathological liar. His account of the epiphany that led him to support gay marriage is only the most recent example, though it was classic and blatant. Indeed, it was so blatant as to be laughable. I have a high level of confidence that Biden lies every time he speaks in public. Take yesterday’s Remarks on Lowering Prescription Drugs Costs in Las Vegas — please. It is »

Let’s go crazy, taxes edition

Featured image Now that Democrats control Minnesota’s political branches, they are in let’s go crazy mode. I’ve lived here all my life. I don’t want to let them drive me out, but they are doing their best. I want to take my stand and go down fighting. Besides, I’m afraid Florida is so overpopulated that it will detach and capsize. The state overcharged taxpayers in the last biennium by some $18 billion. »

A Vote On the Fair Tax

Featured image The Fair Tax has been a staple in conservative circles for quite a few years. It is a national sales tax that is intended to replace the income tax. There is much to be said for the Fair Tax: as a tax on consumption, it would encourage saving and investment. It is relatively easy to administer; nearly all states already have a sales tax. And it would allow us to »