Tag: taxes

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ideological culture

Party Like It’s Versailles

Met Gala, equality, hypocrisy

It was quite the party. All the big names were at the Met Gala, coughing up $30 thousand per ticket. Representative Alexandria “Woman of the People” Ocasio-​Cortez (D‑N.Y.) turned heads with her stunning dress … emblazoned with the big red words: “Tax the Rich.”

Other women at the event sported similar ideological markers: “Equal Rights for Women” and … excuse me … “Peg the Patriarchy.”

The most common comment? The sheer elitist effrontery. 

This was of and for the poshest of the posh: celebrity culture. And couture. 

The stars and politicians and multi-​millionaires presented themselves proudly, smiling, unmasked — while waited on by staff all masked up.

It takes a certain amount of gall to parade before the plebes, maskless while they are masked — though we are told the celebs masked up once the red carpet parade was over. To pretend to be “with the people” and somehow against the rich while hobnobbing with the super-​wealthy is one thing, but twirling and smiling and showing off while the lowly servants are not even allowed to show their faces … undermines that whole “tax the rich” theme.

Meanwhile, the president expressed pent-​up anger at those who resist being vaccinated (“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin”) and the vice president tweeted that one way to “end the pandemic” is by “protecting the vaccinated.”

The vaccinated are allegedly protected — by their vaccines.

All this echoes Marie Antoinette — had she ever possessed the temerity to parade about as Jean-​Paul Marat.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability local leaders tax policy

Balking in Baltimore

Baltimore, taxes

So far, the besieged businessmen of the Fells Point area of Baltimore are only threatening to withhold payments of taxes and fees to the city.

If and when they follow through, the plan is to place the withheld funds in escrow. The money would then be turned over to the city government if and only if the city again meets minimal standards of performance. 

Tax resistance? Sure. But not in the usual mode.

Fells Point shop owners are rebelling against a “culture of lawlessness” in their streets, streets managed or mismanaged by the city. They want police to do more — be free to do more — about crime.

In a letter to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and other officials submitted not long after several shootings in the area, thirty-​seven Fells Point businessmen demand that the city “Pick up the trash. . . . Enforce traffic and parking laws. . . . Stop illegal open-​air alcohol and drug sales. . . . Empower police to responsibly do their job. . . . Please do your job so we can get back to doing ours.”

What will happen? I fear that, despite this worthy protest, city officials will continue to turn a blind eye. I fear that they will regard the protest as a PR problem, one that will go away and allow them to go on with the usual business of government — the way they see it. Their evasive initial responses to the letter are not encouraging.

Baltimore businesspeople are not trying to dodge city taxes here. They understand very well that one cannot expect to get something for nothing. They just want to get something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies tax policy

The Six-​Trillion Dollar Man

spending, taxes, government

“Mr. Biden is making a six-​trillion dollar bet that promoting popular programs will be popular,” offered NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday, “and that he’ll be rewarded for getting things done, long before the actual bill comes due.”

That “Six trillion dollars”? New splurging “on social spending, infrastructure, climate change, health care and more.” 

The host intoned that this constitutes the “return of big government.” 

“We have to prove democracy still works, that our government still works,” Joe Biden, the 47th president, implored Congress last week, “and we can deliver for our people.”

Spend = Deliver. 
Deliver = Democracy. 
Democracy = Spend!

So goes a federal “democracy” wherein voters never get a straight, democratic choice on how much government should spend and tax.* Instead, politicians opt for their beloved “deficits forever” method. Purchase votes today — “People like it when you give them money” — and leave for future generations of voters the tax burden needed to pay that bill. No pain, all gain. 

Smart re-​election strategy, some say. 

“Democratic strategists are betting that the infighting in the Republican Party, the extremism on display during the Jan. 6 attack … and the sheer scale of the trillion dollar programs Democrats have pushed through this year,” reports The Washington Post, “leads to a reorienting of partisan divisions that can overcome historical patterns.” Meaning Democrats avoid the traditional loss of congressional seats for a president’s party.

“Will voters care about the scope of Mr. Biden’s plans?” Todd inquired. “… care about the price tag?” 

Likely to the degree they notice paying that price. 

“President Trump and the Republicans may have made it a bit easier for Mr. Biden by spending big themselves,” reminded Todd.

He’s not wrong there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Colorado voters have such a choice: a vote on any tax increase and on government spending increases. It’s called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) and was passed by citizen initiative back in 1992. The politicians and lobbyists just hate it, as I detail here. 

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Photo by Anno Málie

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national politics & policies responsibility

The Accelerators

tax, spend, inflation, bankruptcy

“We can do $10 trillion,” declared Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-​Cortez (D‑NY) last week.

“I know that may be an eye-​popping figure for some people,” explained the photogenic pop-​eyed pol, “but we need to understand that we are in a devastating economic moment, millions of people in the Unites States are unemployed, we have a truly crippled health-​care system and a planetary crisis on our hands, and we’re the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.”

In other words, the sky is falling … and we still have checks.

The Bronx congresswoman, described as “one of the most influential members” by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, trumpeted that tidy sum in response to last week’s “go big” proposal by President Joe Biden to spend a special new $2.2 trillion under the loose label of infrastructure, which AOC argued “is not nearly enough.”

This new two-​tril spending bill is “a follow-​up to the $1.9 trillion stimulus approved in March.” And just Part 1 of a two-​package infrastructure and other stuff Biden plan. 

“The White House is reportedly willing to spend $4 trillion across the two packages,” Business Insider reports, “a sum that would bring recovery spending under his term to nearly $6 trillion.”

Biden’s term has been only 76 days.

A couple trillion here, a couple trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money … except under Modern Monetary Theory, which Ocasio-​Cortez embraces. The idea being: government can print as much money as politicians want to spend. 

While this road to bankruptcy has been paved with the partisan political intentions of big spending politicians of both major parties, right now it is the Democrats hitting the gas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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tax policy

Just Never Satisfied

taxes, wealth, poverty, freedom

The top federal income tax rate is currently 37 percent.

It’s been higher — 94 percent at one point during the Second World War, 91 percent in the 1950s … on income above a certain threshold.

Back in the 1890s, the federal government briefly taxed income at 2 percent. It was quickly struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional. 

Those were the days.

In 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified, giving Congress “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes” overriding the constitutional provisions that the high court had cited in 1895. The first federal rates were 1 percent for the lowest income bracket, 7 percent for the top bracket, on income above $500,000.*

By 1916, the lowest percentage was 2, the highest 25, on income above $2,000,000.

The good news: skyward tax rates aren’t set in stone. The bad news: once a precedent for a new tax has been established, you can expect worse to come.

So what happens if California Assemblyman Rob Bonda gets his way? He seeks a tax of “just” 0.4 percent on the accumulated wealth of “just” “the top 0.15%” wealthiest Californians, “about 30,000 people.” If these wealthiest leave the state, they would still be subject to the tax for ten years(!). 

Presumably, this latter, and quite brazen, aspect of an already brazen tax would be subject to constitutional challenges.

If Bonda’s proposal is enacted and upheld, would the scope of its reach stay put at 0.4 percent of holdings and 0.15 percent of Californian taxpayers?

It would not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* That was a lot of money back then — worth $13 million today.

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deficits and debt tax policy too much government

No Shock and Awe

Benjamin Franklin, Death and Taxes,

They’ve crunched the numbers and the shocking truth is … Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden wants to raise taxes and debt.

The word “shocking” needs quotation marks, of course, for sheer lack of any shock whatsoever.

Also not shocking is who pays.

You see, “80 to 90 percent of the total proposed tax increases in Biden’s plan would fall on the top five percent of earners,” according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That is the target taxpayer cohort, anyway. Economists know a hidden truth: the incidence of a tax’s burden shifts. All taxes siphon off production, but — because production is engaged in for consumption’s sake — in the end consumers pay.

In politics, of course, the idea is not to acknowledge this, instead focusing on the targets, tempting voters to get on board with spending and taxing and borrowing just so long as some other (preferably non-​voting) people pay. 

“While tax burdens would rise by 0.2 to 0.6 percent for most households, they would rise by 2.3 to 5.7 percent for the top 20 percent of earners and by 13.0 to 17.8 percent for those in the top 1 percent in 2021.” The Democrats would have the highest earners in America pay an extra “$300,000 per year” and call that a benefit … to those who would pay less.

Meanwhile, the “additional revenue that would be raised through Biden’s tax plan would only pay for a portion of his overall spending agenda.” It would take “$6 trillion more … to stabilize debt-​to-​GDP at today’s near-​record levels.”

According to the CRFB, because of pandemic panic spending, and before any proposed Biden add-​ons, “debt will grow from 79 percent of GDP before the crisis to 101 percent by the end of 2020 and 118 percent of GDP by 2030.”

Have our politicians set out to revise Ben Franklin’s maxim? There is nothing more certain than death and taxes — and debt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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