Redstate

Posted at 8:20am on Jun. 11, 2008 MI Morning Update: Mark Sanford Comes to MI - Who are the rich exactly? - Walberg Fights for Lower Gas Prices

By saul anuzis

146 Days until Election Day

June 11, 2008

MORNING UPDATE:

GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD...of South Carolina was the guest of honor at the Reagan Tribute Dinner in Oakland County last night. He gave a great speech about sticking to conservative principles and values as we move our party forward. Special guests included Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, U.S. Senate candidate Jack Hoogendyk and many other party leaders.

Posted in Mark Sanford Barack Obama | Michigan Republican Party | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | taxes | Tim Walberg — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:07pm on May 6, 2008 "The FairTax Cult"

By Jeff Emanuel

That's the title of Chris Farris's outstanding piece on the "FairTax," posted over at my Georgia blogging home, Peach Pundit.

In his post (and please do read the whole thing), Farris addresses the publicize-at-all-costs tactics used by the program's supporters, and lays out the problems that can, and likely will, occur if and when the FairTax proposal leaves the Ivory Tower and becomes a seriously-debated policy prescription.

More below the fold.

Posted in Congress | Economy | Elections | FairTax | taxes — Comments (26) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:55am on Apr. 15, 2008 On Tax Day: Robert Greenwald attacks the free market, advocates tax increases, and attracts a loyal white supremacist following

By Erick

Has something gone wrong with the world? I ask that seriously. Have we forgotten the past thirty years?

We have Barack Obama out quoting Karl Marx to rich trust-funders in San Francisco. We have Hillary pushing her nationalization schemes. And now we have this Robert Greenwald guy and his documentary company "Brave New Films" pushing a war on capitalism in a rather unfunny video advocating tax increases on tax day.

You can see it here if you really want to.

This Greenwald guy wants to be the next Michael Moore, without any humor. And his prescription is the same old nonsense Moore peddles -- raise taxes on businesses. To hell with us heading into a recession.

Read on for why this matters . . .

Posted in Liberals | Robert Greenwald | taxes | white supremacists — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:29am on Apr. 8, 2008 It's Official: Taxpayers now underwriting Hollywood (because they need our money)

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Want a job in Michigan?  Move to Hollywood.  It's almost literally come to that.  In a mixed up, crazy, backwards world la-la-land always seemed like the world of dreams, where movie magic happened.  Now, thanks to you, fair tax payer, it's also the land where your hard earned dollar goes.  And the worst part?  That's the good news this morning.

Posted in Breaking News | Michigan | taxes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:33am on Mar. 21, 2008 MI Morning Update: Michigan Primary Do-Over Dead- Ideas for Tax Reform

By saul anuzis

229 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

Democrat Speaker Andy Dillon pronounces that the “do over” Democrat primary is all but “dead”…Clinton forces are trying to maneuver a comeback/winback…if anyone can pull this off and snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat…it’s the Clinton team?!?

I’m reading Grover Norquist’s new book “Leave Us Alone” and he points out that California, Arizona and Nevada have all enacted constitutional amendments requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature to raise taxes. Umm, I like that idea!!!

Posted in Do-Over | Michigan Republican Party | Primary | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | taxes — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:25am on Mar. 19, 2008 The Benefits Of Tax Havens

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Courtesy of the always-excellent Dan Mitchell. A taste:

First, if you live in a developed country, your taxes are probably much lower today than they were 30 years ago, thanks in part to tax havens. In 1980, top personal income tax rates in OECD countries averaged more than 67 percent, and corporate rates that year averaged nearly 50 percent. To compound the damage, countries routinely imposed extra layers of tax on capital, including dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, and wealth taxes. These policies discouraged saving and investment, stifling economic growth and causing significant economic hardship.

Beginning with Reagan and Thatcher, however, governments have been racing to cut tax rates and reform tax regimes. Top personal tax rates now average only about 40 percent, and corporate rates have been reduced to an average of about 27 percent. It is largely globalization--not ideology--that has driven this virtuous "race to the bottom." Governments are cutting taxes because they fear that jobs and investment will flee across national borders. Tax havens, by providing a safe refuge for people seeking to dodge confiscatory tax rates, have played a critical role in these positive developments. Better to get some revenue with modest tax rates, lawmakers have concluded, than impose high tax rates and lose out.

Second, European duchies and Caribbean isles aren't the only places that welcome tax refugees. The United States, for instance, could be considered the world's largest tax haven. The U.S. government generally does not tax interest and capital gains received by foreigners who invest in America. And since the IRS does not collect data on those payments, there is rarely any information to share with foreign tax collectors. Moreover, U.S. corporate structures, such as Delaware and Nevada companies, are excellent vehicles for foreigners to manage their investments. Thanks in part to these attractive policies, foreigners today have more than $12 trillion invested in the United States. Yet if Merkel's efforts are successful and all nations are saddled with the obligation to help enforce foreign tax laws, it is quite likely that a substantial share of that job-creating capital will flee the United States.

Finally, there is even a moral case for tax havens: They play a critical role in protecting people who are subject to religious, ethnic, sexual, political, or racial persecution. Most of the world's population lives in regimes that have inadequate human-rights protections, and people with assets often are targets of oppressive governments. The ability to put money in a tax haven offers important protections for these potential victims. Even the United Nations, in a 1998 report attacking tax havens, felt compelled to admit that, "For much of the twentieth century, governments around the world spied on their citizens to maintain political control. Political freedom can depend on the ability to hide purely personal information from a government."

Read it all. Once we get past the stereotype of tax havens as "loopholes for the rich and powerful," we easily see that they actually serve a very beneficial purpose.

Posted in Economy | Tax Competition | Tax Regimes | taxes — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:08pm on Mar. 6, 2008 BREAKING: Michigan Gov and LG busted by Feds for failure to pay taxes after passing largest tax hike in State history!!!

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

So after all that talk about the importance of new revenues the woman didn't even pay her own taxes?  Shocking details are emerging today that indicate Michigan's most prominent tax-hike advocates, Governor Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry, are in trouble with the federal government for, get this... refusing to pay their taxes!  The kind of trouble you don't get in for a minor offense.  The kind of trouble that only comes after repeated notifications from the federal government.

Posted in Breaking News | Cherry | federal government | Governor | Granholm | IRS | liberal hypocrisy | Michigan | taxes | Treasury — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:17pm on Mar. 3, 2008 Redstate Roundtable #4: The GOP/Conservative Domestic Agenda 2009-2012

By Neil Stevens

For this week's roundtable, let's discuss what Republicans in general and conservatives in particular should pursue as our top domestic federal legislative priorities over the next four years. Obviously, if McCain is elected, or if the GOP recaptures at least one House of Congress in November, we will have a foothold from which Republicans can propose a legislative agenda of our own. If none of those things happen, we should still consider what our agenda should look like besides (as the late Bill Buckley would say) simply standing athwart Obamania shouting "stop."

Read on for the discussion...

Posted in Earmarks | Medical Care | Policy | Redstate Roundtable | Schools | Social Security | Spending | taxes — Comments (64) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:22am on Mar. 3, 2008 Still working on that "cutting to the bone" thing while Lansing talks new taxes (again)

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

It's no secret that Lansing democrats are hoping to raise our taxes again.  It was only weeks ago that Speaker of the House Andy Dillon told the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association that a lame-duck vote to spike the gas tax was "probable."  The man took a lot of heat for that accidental confession so you know he's enjoyed the thaw these last couple of days, the damage it's caused to the roads and the corresponding action at the State Capitol.

While drivers across the State try and often times fail to dodge some of the biggest pot-holes in recent memory (near record setting snowfall and cold will do that to roads, Al Gore) a group is meeting in Lansing to discuss the future of State funding for roads.  There's no time like the present to find a handful of angry motorists who are willing to charge themselves an extra nine cents a gallon if it means charging every other Michigander hundreds of millions of dollars.  At least that's the way the thinking goes.  

After all, there's still an entire political party full of activists, bloggers, political hacks, elected officials and taxpayer funded public employees who didn't mind the last $2.4 billion tax hike, don't mind the thought of a new $8 billion tax hike on natural gas and electricity and wouldn't mind at all if we chalked up another hundred million here or there to protect their pet political projects and government waste.  

What they constantly hope taxpayers will forget is that money is fungible.  It can be spent on anything.  Similarly, it can be saved from anywhere.  It can be applied, reapplied or, as is often the case under the Capitol dome, misapplied.  

The Lansing State Journal reports:

The state estimates it needs to come up with an extra $320 million a year in order to maintain state-managed roads at their current level. That doesn't take into account the thousands of local roads...

The governor this past month launched a task force designed to figure out how to pay for what needs fixing. And this Wednesday, the County Road Association of Michigan will host its annual meeting in Delta Township, drawing an audience of road experts from every county.

The overall theme is money and how much more must be spent if road maintenance is to keep ahead of decay, according to the association.

Liberals and conservatives, these days, read that last paragraph in two very distinct ways.  The left asks "how much more money" and "how will we raise it?"  Conservatives ask, among other questions, "how much more money" and "where can we save it?"  

They may also ask, "why do Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow continually fail to bring Michigan out of donor status in Washington DC?"  The state with, arguably, the most consistently weather-beaten roads in the nation still only receives about ninety-two cents for every road tax dollar we send to the federal government.  If there's one state that should be above the dollar threshold it's Michigan.  But alas, Senator Levin is apparently too busy readjusting his glasses.  But that's neither here nor there.

The roads are a mess, Democrats want to raise our taxes (again), `probably' plan to hold a vote in November on a gas tax hike, according to Andy Dillon, and Jennifer Granholm is creating task forces and commissions to "study" the problem and release likely-pre-drafted reports telling residents just how bleak the future looks without more "revenues."  She's... ahem... paving the way for another tax increase.  (Ba-dum-CHING!)

While the tax-hike drum beats start again it is important to remember that it isn't a gas-tax-or-nothing proposition.  If the State really does require extra money for road construction and repairs there is an opportunity to find it elsewhere in government through the elimination of wasteful spending.  

As long as Lansing continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on items like a fancy new Michigan State Police Headquarters that even MSP said they didn't need and didn't want, on full-time staff for an Office of the First Gentleman, on lifetime welfare benefits for able bodied adults... the list can go on and on... they'll have a hard time convincing anyone that Lansing has a "revenue" problem.  For the love of pete, they just swiped an extra $1.5 BILLION last year alone and that still isn't enough.  

Instead of another taxpayer funded blue ribbon panel on ways to gorge working moms and dads how about Lansing simply examine some of our local units of government who, it turns out, are finding interesting ways to save a little cash themselves.  The Detroit News reports this morning that places like Inkster have saved $10,000 by eliminating nice but unnecessary programs (and they're not the only ones).

So sorry, Santa. Inkster gave you the ax over the holidays. Mayor Hilliard Hampton tapped the Downtown Development Authority to pay for decorations, ending a long tradition of the city footing the bill.

"We made a commitment every season to purchase (the displays), but we haven't been able to do that," Hampton said. "It demonstrates that cities are forced to deal with core responsibilities. Everything else is on the chopping block...

Elected in November, Mayor Jim Fouts nixed a chauffeur who had escorted his predecessor, deploying the driver and shifting the duties to create a mobile mini police station. "It serves as an effective deterrent," Fouts said. "We're making it easier for people to report things to the police and making it more flexible and mobile. It's allowing residents to become familiar with the police."

Savings: $30,000 in overtime cuts.

Imagine how much cash a city like Detroit could save by scaling back the mayoral chauffeur service... or refusing to pay for losses in multi-million dollar lawsuits that find the mayor responsible for illegal firings, perjury and who knows what else.

Would it be nice to pay Kwame's legal bills?  Sure.  Would it be nice to pay for a driver for Jim Fouts?  Of course.  And everyone loves Santa.  It'd be nice if the city could pay for those decorations instead finding others to sponsor the displays.  It'd also be nice if we could buy iPods for every school kid and put a pony in every little girls backyard.  But alas, this is reality.  We just plain can't afford it.  

Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Free Trade | Hillary Clinton | jennifer granholm | Michigan | NAFTA | taxes | UAW | unions — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:47pm on Feb. 29, 2008 Here come the tax hikes

By Neil Stevens

Right on schedule, here come the Democrats and their plans to raise taxes, though even here in California they lack the guts to say it. No, they refer to 'closing loopholes.' Though we all know they think property rights are themselves a loophole if they can get away with it.

Posted at 11:20am on Feb. 22, 2008 Democrats raising taxes again?! Yep.

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

And you thought the Democrats in Lansing were done raising your taxes.  Silly you.  They're may have promised that they were done for this term in office but just like the Governor's promise in 2006 not to raise the sales tax on services, the promise now looks like it was more hot air than anything else.

Let's jump in the way-back machine and revisit December 2007.  Two-plus months after Jennifer Granholm and her cronies in the House and Senate Democrat caucuses (plus Valde Garcia and Ron Jelinek) decided it'd be a smart idea to take $2.4 billion out of a struggling job market suffering under the weight of a single-state recession all of the language and verbiage and promises out of Lansing were that the tax hikes were over.

Posted in Barack Hussein Obama | Breaking News | John McCain | Michigan | tax hike | taxes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:49am on Feb. 16, 2008 The Clinton/Obama Tax Plans

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

They are full of shortcomings. Alan Reynolds explains, with the assumption that either a President Clinton or a President Obama would face a $500 billion budget deficit:

The federal government now takes 33 percent of taxable income above $200,000 on a joint return and 35 percent of income above $357,700. Both Democrats would raise those tax rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively.

Even the Tax Policy Center (a think tank famously friendly to tax hikes and Democrats) estimates that raising the top two tax rates might bring in a mere $32 billion in 2010. That's 6 percent of the likely deficit - not a license to start a dozen new programs.

To squeeze a few more pennies from top taxpayers, Clinton and Obama would also phase out all personal exemptions at $250,000. That means large families would pay higher taxes than childless couples with the same income. They'd also phase out itemized deductions - which would force two-earner families in New York and California to pay more federal tax than those living in Texas and Florida.

And this politically suicidal tax discrimination against New Yorkers, Californians and big families would bring in only an extra $15 billion a year.

All in all, these tax hikes add up to, at most, $47 billion a year - only 1.5 percent of federal spending and 0.3 percent of GDP.

And even that assumes nobody makes the slightest effort to avoid the increased taxes. In reality, many two-earner families would become one-earner families; doctors would play more golf; some folks would quit working long hours and others would retire early. Top-bracket taxpayers would maximize deductions (take out a bigger mortgage, put more in the 401k) and minimize taxable income (buy municipal bonds or just spend rather than invest).

Such tax avoidance alone would cut the estimated revenue in half. The tax hikes' adverse effects on the stock market and the economy would more than eliminate the other half.

So much for the revenue enhancing prowess of the Clinton/Obama tax increases. As Reynolds explains, because the revenue intake is so much less than is needed to close the budget deficit gap, it will be used for increased spending--a fact that should shock no one anymore.

Posted in Barack Obama | Economy | Hillary Clinton | taxes — Comments (14)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:29pm on Feb. 5, 2008 My Super Tuesday Ballot [Bumped for primary day]

By Neil Stevens

Yesterday my ballot came in the mail for California's primary election on Super Tuesday, February 5.

Unlike the November 2006 ballot which was just huge, this one is pretty small. One office, and 7 initiatives (well, effectively four since four of them are nearly identical).

Here are my choices and recommendations from top to bottom, and why:

Posted in 2008 | California | Community Colleges | Fred Thompson | Indian Casinos | Infrastructure | taxes — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:10pm on Jan. 29, 2008 California & Unions Plotting to Tax iTunes, Emails, and World of Warcraft.

This is a growing national trend.

By Erick

Most of you will not know what I'm talking about. You better get very familiar with it very fast.

Out in California, a new trend is starting that we can expect to sweep across the country pretty quickly. And it's a tax scheme disguised as a modernization scheme.

All of us with phones and cable television pay a telecommunications tax in the form a utility tax that local communities use to maintain telecom infrastructure. In California, several municipalities, in cooperation with unions, are working to modernize the tax.

They are claiming they will lower the tax rate on the utility tax, but the catch is that they are expanding what is taxed under the tax. The old tax just covered phone and cable. The "tax modernization" would cover cell phones, and any transmission "of voice, data, audio, video, or any other information."

This, in effect, becomes an iTunes tax and an email tax. And since municipalities can't impose their sales tax over the internet, they are gung-ho on this tax expansion.

And why are unions backing this? Because while the old tax was used to pay for specific things relating to telecommunications, the new tax will go into the general fund.

Get educated now. This is a growing trend and it'll probably be coming to your city soon.

Posted in 2008 | California | taxes | utilities — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »