Tag: taxes

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ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy too much government

Not a One-Time Thing

California, taxes, wealth tax, billionaires

Proposition 40, in California, calls itself — in the title — a one-time tax.

But does anyone truly believe that?

The federal income tax was originally sold to Americans as something only for the rich. And the first year of the tax, only the top 2 percent of earners paid the modest amount of 1 percent. But then came the War to End All Wars, and soon nearly everybody was paying Uncle Sam, the top marginal rate climbing to 67 percent by 1917. 

Prop 40’s tax is also new, in America. It’s a wealth tax, designed to levy “a one-time 5% tax on the accumulated wealth of taxpayers and trusts with covered assets valued over $1 billion, including shares of capital stock, bonds or other evidences of indebtedness, and any legal or equitable interest. . . .”

To entice voters, the measure dedicates the proceeds of the tax “to fund state health care programs, food assistance programs, and public education.”

Will that be enough to hoodwink voters into forgetting that a precedent will have been set, giving the green light to the usual march of tax hikes and increases in reach of marks, er, eligible taxpayers?

The Democratic Socialists of America have endorsed it, not just because it’s a tax targeted against the rich — but because they want it to be much more than a one-time thing. Those who love total government are insatiable in their lust for other people’s money. In this case, it’s money from wealth that has never been taxed before, including unrealized capital gains (i.e. not yet in existence).

Interestingly, there is another measure on the ballot, one not endorsed by the DSA: Proposition 42, placed by Prop 40’s opponents specifically to prohibit new taxes on “mere ownership of assets such as investment accounts, business interests and personal property.” 

Let’s hope Prop 40 fails . . . and if not, that Prop 42 passes and nullifies it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Kill the Class Warfare

wealth, taxes, socialism, capitalism, envy, resentment, Mises, egalitarianism

In his 1922 book Socialism, Ludwig von Mises explained why socialist policies are, in reality, forms of “destructionism.” They create nothing, just erode and destroy the economic bases of civilization.

The motive animating the socialists’ rationalizations — exploded in systematic detail by Mises — is resentment and envy.

Which are also behind a new tax on billionaires slated to appear on California’s November 3 ballot as Proposition 40.

Billionaires haven’t done anything wrong merely by earning great wealth. Typically, they’ve done something right. They’ve been industrious and entrepreneurial and helped people improve their lives. Typically, they earn their billions; which, incidentally, they don’t stuff under a giant mattress but invest further.

This doesn’t stop the tax’s demagogic proponents, like Ro Khanna, from claiming that the interests of the “donor class” are inherently opposed to those of the “working class.”

Khanna wants government to privilege one “class” over the other. But as Dmitri Bolt points out, neither should get a government-enforced advantage. “The real choice is between freedom and its absence: between an economy in which people are free to work and keep the fruits of their labor, and one in which politicians get to decide how much success is too much and which class deserves to pay for everyone else.”

Investors create opportunities for everybody, of whatever “class.” And when the walls seem to be closing in economically, it’s often because politicians like Khanna have “chosen to restrict one group’s freedom while pretending [to expand] opportunity for the other.”

Californians have a great opportunity to choose freedom over internecine class warfare in November.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Bad Move

Donald Trump, political advertising, taxes, media

“Because the GOP is in such a bad spot, five weeks out from the midterms,” Ali Velshi told his The 11th Hour audience, “the Trump administration is now also using your taxpayer dollars to air . . . political ads that feature the president.

“Not only is that a blatantly wasteful misuse of taxpayer money,” Velshi continued, “it’s unethical and likely illegal.”

And here is the zinger: “But it’s also a bad political move.”

It’s not every day that I’m this simpatico with an MS Now host. 

What is Mr. Trump thinking? It’s simply the wrong way to govern: Using the public purse to broadcast pro-yourself messages to the people. 

And is there any constituency — outside of Mr. Trump — for these television spots? One that would override the stench from misusing public resources in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue?

The White House calls these ads public service announcements. 

The whole thing smacks of leader-worship. Plus, the messages are purely political. The timing seems awfully vote-solicitous: “Together we will defeat.”

The third spot, “The Final Battle,” recycles a 2023 political ad, with Trump promising that (once again) “we” will “demolish the Deep State,” “expel the warmongers from our government,” “drive out the globalists,” “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” and “throw off the sick political class that hates our country” and more.

Trump is not on the ballot, but his policies are. So, by all means, Mr. President, get the word out. 

With private funds. 

“It’s a great message. I like the message,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered, “but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”

That’s common sense, I agree. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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fraud ideological culture Internet controversy political economy

X Marks the Success

Elon Musk, grift, government contract, private enterprise, taxes, technology

Yesterday, I defended the honor, so to speak, of Elon Musk against Eric Peters’s charge — published, on his website — that the high-tech magnate is a “grifter.”

I focused only on the free speech angle. But Mr. Peters (“the libertarian car guy”) didn’t limit himself to criticizing X. He also criticized Tesla, SpaceX and DOGE.

Musk, Peters notes, “has just become a trillionaire by dint of the IPO of his Space Xcrement grift.” Folks bought into SpaceX, he says, because “they believe there is a Tesla roadster in orbit around the Earth and that we’ll soon be able to buy tickets for a trip to Mars.”

Is Peters suggesting that Musk did not send a Tesla Roadster into space? Is this some new sort of (forgive me) “conspiracy theory”? Truth is, the Roadster orbits the Sun, coming back from beyond the Martian orbit.

What does he think is really going on here? What Musk’s investors “have bought into is the grift of government contracts,” he says, “which are paid for with dollars fleeced from the tax sheep. People who buy Space Xcrement stock can share in the grift, of course. But it does not change the nature of the grift.”

While the bulk (but definitely not the whole) of SpaceX’s clients are government agencies, most importantly NASA, remember something that one might forget while reading Peters’s fun rant: Musk is indeed putting objects into orbit, with new and astounding technology of amazing efficiency, and NASA has announced that SpaceX’s biggest and best will soon take astronauts back to the Moon.

As for Tesla, these cars are on the road. They work. I wouldn’t buy one, but I wouldn’t call it a grift a million times, or even once. And Musk himself has said he’d happily produce cars without the subsidies. But he continues to use the system set up for more than just him — the usual businessman rationale.

Criticizable? Yes. Wholly a grift? No.

And as for DOGE, it’s not as if Musk did not try. He just got little support from Congress . . . or the President. Too bad. Still not a grift.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs national politics & policies regulation tax policy

How to Lower Gas Prices

Iran, gas prices, oil, spending, taxes

Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. The Iran War is to blame, but the President has not been able to bring it to an end.

Still, he has offered a small fix. A federal gas tax suspension!

In its favor, this temporary measure would offer some relief. In addition, the federal government shouldn’t be attaching an excise to fuel sales anyway. The states already burden our fuel bills with their own taxes.

As if to seize a political win, Senator Josh Hawley (R.-Mo.) declared he will introduce a bill to enact that suspension.

Cutting off a source of revenue would increase the deficit, of course. But there is a simple solution to that: spend less. For example, the fuel taxes are supposed to fund road repairs. All but two percent of U.S. roads are state roads now. During the emergency, suspend the two percent spending on repairs and let the 98 percent of spending carry on, as it does now, at the state level.

Adam N. Michel at Cato argues that the best way to spend less would not only reduce the deficit but also lower gas prices: end the Iran War. 

And not just rhetorically. 

But Michel and his Cato colleagues offer a more politic plan, too: don’t merely suspend the tax, end the tax forever and end the highway spending burden along with it. “States know what their infrastructure needs are,” he contends, “and they have the fiscal tools — gas taxes, sales taxes, user charges, debt, and privatization — to meet them without a federal middleman.” 

Before October, Congress is supposed to re-authorize the federal highway program. Don’t. Dismantle it all. 

For good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall tax policy too much government

The New Property-Tax Revolts

property taxes, protest, revolt, taxes

Decades after a famous revolt by California homeowners led to the relief provided by Proposition 13, taxpayers acting to resist sky-high property taxes are making waves throughout the country.

Just a few of the many examples reported by The Epoch Times:

Ohio. The elderly couple who paid off the mortgage on their home long ago but cannot now afford the property taxes is one reason that people are signing a statewide petition to eliminate local property taxes. It will take about 413,000 signatures, collected by a July 1, 2026 deadline, for the measure to reach the November ballot.

Florida and Texas. Legislators in Florida and Texas hope to limit the “flexibility” that local governments enjoy in how they raise revenue.

Minnesota and North Dakota. Lawmakers are pushing a cap on property tax increases tied to inflation and population growth. Voters would have to agree to any change in the cap. Recent school-board driven increases of 8 or 9 percent would be limited to 3 or 4 percent in typical scenarios.

Montana. Lawmakers want a two-percent limit on tax hikes for “local government spending but not for schools, which consume about 55 percent of property tax revenues.” A fatal flaw? Public schools are better at bloating costs than improving education.

The author observes that 46 states and D.C. already impose some sort oflimits on local property tax increases — though “their designs and restrictiveness differ widely,” adds the Tax Foundation.

Let’s improve those designs and increase the restrictiveness ASAP.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption too much government

Gov’t Pushing Gov’t

Wisconsin, taxes, lobbying, government

Why, asks the MacIver Institute, “is the government lobbying the government?”

MacIver calls itself Wisconsin’s “free-market voice.” It is a privately funded outfit that makes the case for less government in the Badger State. It has to earn its funds from donors who can, at any moment, stop donating money.

One of the things the MacIver Institute found itself up against are other think-tanks and apparently donor-funded organizations advocating for more government in the state, for more programs, bigger programs, and more taxes to feed all the great new stuff.

And it turns out that several of these advocacy organizations are themselves funded by government! I mean, taxpayers.

I know, it’s not unheard of. It’s too common, existing in probably every state of the union.

And it is thoroughly corrupt.

The MacIver Institute identifies three outfits that receive tax money to promote more tax-funded programs: the Wisconsin Counties Association, the Wisconsin Towns Association and the Wisconsin League of Municipalities. These outfits promote more transportation funding and higher taxes. Comparing these outfits’ core pitch to “a swindler selling gullible buyers submerged swampland,” MacIver makes it quite clear how easily local leaders are bamboozled: “Your supervisors — at least many of them — are clueless that they are being used as patsies in a coordinated scheme by a taxpayer-funded lobbying machine, one that exists not to represent the public, but to represent government itself.”

People who want fewer government services and a smaller tax burden often wonder why government size always ratchets up, never down. Well, this is one reason: the government takes your money to give to groups that will push for more government.

Sadly, this ratchet racket is a part of government that works too well.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture subsidy too much government

Tip of the Socialism-berg 

socialism, immigration, welfare, communism, self destruction, suicidal empathy

“In 2024 alone, state Medicaid Fraud Control Units reported more than 1,151 convictions and more than $1.4 billion in civil and criminal recoveries,” writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason. “Federal enforcement recovers a tiny share of what is stolen. Fraud that goes undetected never appears in the data.”

And then she makes a claim that increasing numbers of astute observers make: “That’s only the tip of the iceberg.” She goes on to suggest that Medicare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and “many other welfare programs” constitute a huge hunk of fraud.

The solution? “If we want less fraud,” she argues, “we need less government.”

Fraud and big government seem to go hand in hand. At least this kind of big government, which resembles the biggest kind of government imaginable. For taking wealth from many productive American citizens and giving it to a small but growing population of refugees from distant lands, that’s not necessarily fraud, I suppose, but it is something close to socialism.

We see in Venezuela just how devastating rule by thieving socialists can be. (Hugo Chavez nationalized oil industry infrastructure and then ran it into the ground.) In Minnesota and in other states of the union, we see a similar ethic. When done on a limited basis, we could call it “helping the poor,” the folks who just cannot produce what they need. That’s how transfer socialism was sold to us.

And they could say, truthfully, that’s not full socialism.

But extending the beneficiary class from our most needy friends and neighbors to the less-and-less needy, and then to waves of refugees from other countries, that’s a recipe for disaster. Like socialism when “full.”

How far should Americans go to help “others”? To our own ruin?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people tax policy

Post California Soaking

California, taxes, wealth, government

Rumors that Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been pushing the Post in a more commonsensical editorial direction could very well be true.

A recent Post editorial slams progressives who “think of taxation the way teenage boys think about cologne: if some is good, more must be great.”

I’m no fan of even a moderate amount of that brand of cologne. But anyway. The Post is discussing a proposed ballot measure backed by the ultra-lefty Service Employees International Union.

SEIU troops are currently collecting signatures. And before they’ve even gotten enough to post it to ballot, the people being targeted have started moving. 

Out of state.

The measure would impose a new 5 percent tax on billionaires. Some of the state’s billionaires, including Google cofounder Larry Page and Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel, aren’t willing to wait and see whether it actually reaches the ballot and passes in November. Why? The measure would apply retroactively “to those who were California residents on January 1, 2026.”

Some Democratic lawmakers are saying “good riddance,” as if it’s possible to loot billionaires who don’t wait around to be looted. Or that it’s good for state coffers to lose their billionaire entrepreneur “contributors.”

The Post says the retroactivity would open the measure to legal challenges, but that if it gets passed and survives litigation, “it’s a safe bet this won’t be a one-off. Funding ongoing expenses like health care with one-time taxes isn’t sustainable. Progressives will want to return to the well until they’ve sucked it dry.”

And no one should know better than Californians how dangerous dry wells are.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

California, taxes, wealth, government

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Ax Tax-Funded Tax-Grubbing

Texas, taxes, lobbying, corruption

Some people in pursuing their business or charitable projects rely only on the voluntary support of customers or patrons. Other people rely on government funding, perhaps by default because it’s “always been that way.”

Still others not only feel entitled to government funding but are quite importunate about it, going so far as to use taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying the government for even more taxpayer dollars. 

My theory? If taxpayers weren’t so routinely robbed to fund lobbyists, fewer dollars in general would be siphoned from taxpayers’ pockets to the demanders’ pockets.

Lone Star state officials are making some progress toward ending taxpayer-funded tax-grubbing. The state attorney general, Ken Paxton, has reached an agreement with several Texas school districts guilty of taxpayer-funded campaigning against a school choice bill. They have agreed to institute safeguards to prevent themselves from doing it anymore. We’ll see.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott “has also had enough,” writes John Fund. Abbott is promoting a bill being considered in the legislature that would prevent cities, counties, and school districts from using tax dollars to hire lobbyists. Officials and teachers would still be able to talk to their representatives themselves.

“Texans are being taxed twice,” State Senator Paul Bettencourt, a supporter of the bill, explains, “once to fund local services and again to fund political lobbying they may not support.”

Yes, that’s the costly and corrupting problem all right. One that Texas is hardly alone in suffering but perhaps a ‘lone star’ in fighting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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