WASHINGTON, February 13, 2008 — Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid disclosed today that a hugely expensive bill called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Democratic Senator Barack Obama, was quickly passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. Kincaid said that the major media's cover-up of the bill, which makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations, demonstrates the media's desire to see Senator Obama elected to the presidency.
In a column posted on the AIM web site, Kincaid noted that Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was trying to rush Obama's "Global Poverty Act" (S. 2433) through his committee without hearings. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends. It was scheduled for a Thursday vote but was moved up a day, to Wednesday, and rushed through by voice vote. Kincaid learned, however, that conservative Senators have now put a "hold" on the legislation, in order to prevent it from being rushed to the floor for a full Senate vote.
The House version (H.R. 1302) was suddenly brought up on the House floor last September 25 and was passed by voice vote. House Republicans were caught off-guard, unaware that the pro-U.N. measure committed the U.S. to spending hundreds of billions of dollars. Kincaid's column notes that the official in charge of making nations comply with the U.N. Millennium Goals, which are prominently highlighted in the Obama bill, says a global tax will be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money.
Posted by Walt as Presidential Race, Taxes at 2:36 AM EST
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By Thomas E. Brewton
The experience of the Soviet Union, Japan, and China should, but will not, cause liberal activists to proceed with caution.
According to the New York Times:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy, to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration…
Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.
The logical end of Senator Clinton's prescription was first articulated by the followers of Henri de Saint-Simon, who in 1829 addressed the following to the President of the French Chamber of Deputies:
The sole effect of [the free market place] system is to leave the distribution of social advantages to a chance few who are able to lay some pretence to it, and to condemn the numerically superior class to deprivation, ignorance, and misery. [Socialists] ask that all the instruments of production, all lands and capital, the funds now divided among individual proprietors, should be pooled so as to form one central social fund…
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Presidential Race, Taxes at 10:29 AM EST
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By Thomas E. Brewton
Liberals propose to follow the same game plan that gave us stagflation in the 1970s.
As success with the military surge in Iraq increasingly belies their claim that the war is already irretrievably lost, liberals have changed the subject from Iraq to the economy and the rising possibility of a recession. Liberal Republicans and Democrats, as usual, prescribe Federal deficit spending and higher taxes on "the rich."
That is the doctrine of Keynesian economics, which advocates consumer spending as the exclusive highway to full employment and prosperity. According to Keynes, consumer and business savings must be offset by massively increased Federal spending. What the money is spent for doesn’t matter; just flood the market with money created by bookkeeping entries at the Federal Reserve banks.
Keynesian economics failed to end the Depression. Its repetition, as we saw in the bitter experience of Great Society stagflation in the 1970s, discouraged investment in projects of long term value and led to speculations that promised high rates of return in the short-run.
For example, during the 1970s stagflation, is was only marginally profitable to build rental apartments, because the rate of return on those investments was far below the inflation rate. What occurred, instead, was an unprecedented boom in hotel construction, because room rates could be increased every day. By 1980, there was a shortage of rental apartments and an oversupply of hotels.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Taxes at 10:52 PM EST
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(Alexandria, VA) — As House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) plans another push this year for an overhaul of the Tax Code, lawmakers should abandon Rangel's multi-rate proposal and follow the worldwide movement toward a simple flat tax system, according to the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU). In the mid-20th century, Hong Kong was the only country with a flat — and proportional — national personal income tax rate. Since then, 17 other countries have followed suit and introduced flat taxes, according to the World Taxpayers Associations (WTA), a coalition of 60 taxpayer-advocacy groups — including NTU — from 44 countries.
"A single-rate tax would create a more simplified and transparent Tax Code," NTU Vice President for Policy and Communications Pete Sepp said. "Instead of 'wrangling' more money from families, Chairman Rangel and other legislators should catch on to what the rest of the world is discovering — lower, flatter taxes benefit their citizens and their economies."
One recent trend many countries have followed is to introduce very low flat income tax rates — usually from 10 percent to 13 percent. Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Macedonia have introduced flat tax rates of 10 percent over the past two years. Russia enacted a 13 percent income tax rate in 2001, and Ukraine did the same in 2004, according to WTA.
Estonia, the first European country to introduce a flat tax rate (in 1994), plans to reduce its rate by 1 percent each year, with a goal of an 18 percent rate by 2011. Estonia's current rate is 20 percent. Both Lithuania and Hong Kong reduced their income tax rates for 2008, from 27 percent to 24 percent and from 16 percent to 15 percent, respectively. Jersey, Georgia, Guernsey, Iraq, Ireland, Latvia, Macau, Romania, and Slovakia also have flat income tax rates ranging from 12 percent to 25 percent.
"Whether it's a flat income tax or even better, a retail-level national sales tax, American policymakers should look abroad to see what's working," Sepp concluded. "Single-rate taxes represent the wave of the future for countries that want to be competitive and governments that want to respect the rights of their taxpayers."
NTU is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. Note: For further tax policy information, visit www.ntu.org.
Posted by Walt as Taxes at 12:33 PM EST
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By Frank Hyland
Food for thought.
Picture this if you will: You are on the way to a soccer game in your car with your kids and the children of neighbors in the back seat. Your SUV has been acting up and again this time the engine falters and sputters. It is running so poorly that you realize clearly that it is destined to wind up on the shoulder of the downhill side of the road, to run no more. The kids sit there disconsolately, staring out the windows, waiting for you to take some action on their behalf so that they can make it to "the game."
Now try to imagine yourself walking around to the rear of the vehicle and pushing it forward, only to realize that you and the children are approaching the edge of a cliff.
Dumb Question # 287: What do you do when you realize that the SUV is picking up speed toward the cliff’s edge? It was a trick question for anyone with more than four functioning brain cells. Of course you would do everything in your power, once you saw the danger ahead, to stop the vehicle before the children were hurt. Why, then, would anyone continue pushing your kids and others’ kids toward and over a cliff, you ask? Why, indeed.
By now you’ve figured out that the "SUV" is the federal and state programs collectively known as "entitlements," chief among them being Social Security and Medicare. Both have been the subject of repeated warnings, followed by repeated creation of commissions to investigate and recommend solutions. I would recommend, for openers, the near-term renaming of both, to become Social Insecurity and Mediscare as a means of getting the attention of those who still hope to become recipients.
In case those pushing the two programs off the cliff haven’t noticed, we’re now in the year 2008. It was one thing for proponents to put things off when we were still in the 20th Century, back in the ‘90s, and insolvency was still more than a decade away. For those who get elected every six, four, and especially for those elected every two years, that’s a lifetime and the problems can safely be "kicked down the road" for others to deal with. Depending on the date of the estimate and the source, the year of impending insolvency swings back and forth by a year or so.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Health, Social Security, Taxes at 8:31 AM EST
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WASHINGTON, D.C.— American Life League slammed the latest ad campaign of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, describing their new “safe sex” ad as a promotion tool for new abortions, and took strong exception to the fact that the campaign was paid for with taxpayer dollars.
“Planned Parenthood says it promotes sexual health, but in reality, it’s just promoting recreational sex,” said American Life League vice president Jim Sedlak. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate recently released an ad campaign to be aired on MTV, VH-1, and Comedy Central that associates Planned Parenthood with the so-called Mile High Club.
Sedlak explained, “Planned Parenthood makes one third of its income by providing contraceptives and abortions. It promotes recreational sex to keep demand for their business high.”
The Mile High Club is a slang term used to describe people who have engaged in sexual activity aboard an airplane at least one mile above the earth’s surface.
“By linking itself to the Mile High Club, Planned Parenthood’s message is loud and clear,” said Sedlak. “It is telling kids in the 18-24 age bracket to ‘Have sex! It’s fun.’ In reality, Planned Parenthood is just farming for more business.”
“What most people probably do not know is that ads such as these are paid for with taxpayer money,” said Sedlak. “The Federal Government gives at least $305 million annually to Planned Parenthood. This must end! American Life League is continuing its call to American taxpayers to sign the online petition at www.StopPlannedParenthoodTaxFunding.com and contact state and federal elected officials to cut Planned Parenthood off from our wallets!”
For more information on how to stop Planned Parenthood, go to www.all.org/stopp/planopen.htm
Posted by Walt as Cultural Issues, Health, Taxes at 11:05 PM EST
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by Thomas E. Brewton
New greenhouse-gas regulations will impinge upon personal freedom and distort the economy
Rising hysteria about the alleged greenhouse-gas role in global warming will predictably bring about a new miasma of self-contradictory and harmful regulations.
Socialism, the secular religion of liberals and Progressives, preaches that only intellectual councils, led by Al Gore, are smart enough to see clearly how everyone else must behave and to impose the necessary regulations. Universal, bitter experience demonstrates, however, that regulatory agencies cannot possibly foresee all the effects of their actions.
The free-market adjustment of millions of people can and does uncover a wealth of alternatives beyond the ken of any state-planning group and makes gradual adjustments without the unsettling abruptness of one-size-fits-all Federal regulation.
Steve Forbes, in the current edition of Forbes Magazine (DeCAFE is Healthier http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0618/019.html ), notes a few of the destructive effects of mid-70s Congressional mandates for automobile fuel efficiency (CAFE). Among them: automobile accident death rates increased (smaller, lighter cars are more easily crushed); counter-productively, higher fuel efficiency induced more driving miles and higher gasoline consumption; and handing the automobile market to smaller, lighter cars undercut the American automobile manufacturers, leaving the industrial Mid-West a rust bowl with massive unemployment in the 1970s and early 80s.
In contrast, Mr. Forbes observes, the only really effective regulator is the free market via higher gasoline prices. In real life people ought to be able to make their own decisions about how to spend their money. The sharp decline recently in SUV sales makes clear that people can adjust rationally to economic market forces without the help of the Federal government.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Oil Production, Taxes at 10:31 PM EST
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(Alexandria, VA) — The persistence of red ink in the federal budget didn't deter most House Members from spending more on red-ink pens, travel, computers, and other items to run their own Capitol Hill and district offices, according to a long-awaited study from the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). A comprehensive analysis by NTU, the only one of its kind, provides detailed comparative figures on individual lawmakers and reveals that overall House office expenses exceeded $525 million in 2005 — representing a 20 percent rise from the year 2001.
"Anyone who wonders why Congress can't seem to get a grip on wasteful spending in the federal budget should examine House Members' careless handling of their own office budgets," said NTU Senior Counselor and project manager David Keating. "Not only have House offices largely failed to do any belt-tightening during a time of deficits, their reporting methods are fraught with errors and 'adjustments' made as much as two years after the fact."
It is for the latter reason that NTU's confidence in the reliability of House data could only be extended to calendar years 2005 and prior. In the first half of 2006 alone, every lawmaker reported at least one adjustment to their 2005 office expense data, adding up to $27.4 million for the whole House.
Perhaps more egregious, 36 House Members' records for postage contained errors, most of them for reporting more expenditures on postage for mass mailings than for all postage combined. "This is mathematically impossible," Keating noted, "leaving taxpayers to wonder if the inaccurate reports are being filed to avoid disclosure." Study findings include:
- House Members spent $525.01 million on their offices in 2005, a 4.7 percent rise compared to 2004. However, since 2001, the overall total has risen 19.8 percent (from $438.3 million). The average Representative's office outlay was roughly $1.2 million in 2005, although each office is issued a different "Members' Representational Allowance" (MRA) based on factors such as population within the district, prevailing rents, and the district's distance from Washington, DC.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Government Corruption, Taxes at 10:09 PM EDT
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by Thomas E. Brewton
Emphatically, NO.
A reader on the Intellectual Conservative website, responding to the recent post titled Savings?, posed this query:
Let me ask a silly question: Do your Social Security contributions count as savings?
The answer is that Social Security is the polar opposite of savings.
The effect of Social Security is to decrease savings. None of the money remitted as Social Security taxes is available for individuals or businesses for real savings that could support productive investment in business expansion and create new jobs, thereby enriching the people.
As soon as Social Security taxes reach the Treasury, they are removed and replaced with non-marketable, low-interest-rate Treasury debt. The money scooped from the Social Security accounts goes straight out the door to pay Social Security beneficiaries and, if any money is left over, to pay everyday Federal operating expenses. Not a penny is invested in productive assets.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Government Corruption, Taxes at 8:24 AM EDT
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(Alexandria, VA) — The Democratic Party's "New Direction for America" might attempt to steer government toward a sounder financial footing, but its course leads to $79.1 billion in new annual federal spending, according to a line-by-line analysis by the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF). Among the findings:
- Health care represented the largest spending category at $28.8 billion, or 36 percent of the total agenda. Within this category, Democrats proposed to "fix the Medicare prescription drug program," which would cost $29.5 billion annually. The plan did call for spending cuts amounting to just over $1 billion, in order to "end wasteful giveaways to drug companies."
- Veterans care was high on the list as well, at $19.8 billion. The initiative to launch a "G.I. Bill of Rights for the 21st Century" would provide increased pay, health care, and other benefits for veterans and their families. This program would increase outlays by $99 billion over 5 years, and would be offset by increasing the top income tax rate.
- Education spending, at $16.2 billion, represented approximately 20 percent of the total net agenda. The Democratic plan called for increasing the maximum individual Pell Grant to $5,100 ($4.0 billion in total annual spending), recruit science and math teachers ($3.7 billion yearly), and reduce college loan interest rates ($7.4 billion annually), among other items.
- Yet another proposal called for an "AmeriSave" account system that would establish a dollar-for-dollar federal match for the first $1,000 contributed to a personal retirement plan. This initiative would cost taxpayers roughly $7.5 billion each year.
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Posted by Walt as Economics, Taxes, U.S. Political Issues at 7:05 AM EST
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