Tag Archives: taxes

Gross Misunderstanding

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And a key distinction between what the Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party want and what Conservatives and, to an extent, the Republican Party want. President Joe Biden (D) fronts for this…position…and his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made it explicit last Tuesday in front of the House Financial Services Committee:

We’ve had a global race to the bottom in corporate taxation and we hope to put an end to that.

The fact—I claim—is that the race to the bottom is a National Good, not a National Bad. Our Constitution specifies only three things our Federal Government is allowed to spend money on: to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States. The general Welfare is further specified by the remaining clauses of that Article I, Section 8.

The only legitimate purpose for taxing is to raise revenue for those three narrowly specified items.

Above that low floor (or it would be low were we not living in a dangerous world with many enemies for whom the vasty oceans no longer represent serious barriers and were it not for out Government having been so profligate with spending for so many decades), the more money left in the hands of We the People in our private economy for our spending decisions, the better.

So, yes—a race to the bottom is good for our nation, the prattle of the Yellons and the Bidens and the Party notwithstanding.

Misapprehensions

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More in a long list of Leftist and Progressive-Democrat misapprehensions. Recall that President Joe Biden has abandoned the Trump administration’s Public Charge Rule. That rule required immigrants be financially stable to become US citizens or obtain permanent residency.

Naturally, the Leftist critics are coming out of the woodwork with their objections.

…the policy hurts those trying to obtain citizenship or [permanent] residency. The Legal Aide society [sic] called the policy a “wealth tax” that discriminated against people on the basis of race and immigration status.

One misapprehension is this business about hurting those trying to obtain citizenship or [permanent] residency. No nation has any obligation to grant residency—permanent or otherwise—or citizenship to anyone wishing to immigrate (more on this in a bit). No nation has any obligation even to entertain such applications. Hence no injury is possible here.

Another misapprehension: the idea that any sort of wealth tax is being applied from a public charge sort of rule. There is no tax intrinsic or even implied in requiring prospective residents or citizens to be independent of the receiving nation’s welfare system, in requiring them to be able to fend for themselves or to rely on their own family. The only tax involved would be the added burden on the receiving nation’s extant taxpayers.

Yet another misapprehension: the idea that requiring a degree of independence or self sufficiency as a prerequisite to residency or citizenship is somehow racist. This beef suggests that prospective immigrants are, because of their race, inherently unable to see to their own welfare. That attitude itself is invidious and racist.

A fourth misapprehension: the idea that any sort of public charge criterion discriminates on the basis of immigration status. No. National borders effect that discrimination. It’s one of the purposes of national borders, it’s a part of maintaining and enforcing a nation’s sovereignty. No one, nor any collection of people, has any inherent right to enter another nation without that nation’s prior permission. Neither has that nation any obligation to grant that permission.

Progressive-Democrat Power Grab

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It turns out their Wuhan Virus “relief” bill, of which 9% actually contains money for dealing with the virus, has a blatant, deliberate attack on the federal structure of our nation. It’s an attempt to dictate to the States, individually and severally, that they’re not allowed to reduce their taxes [emphasis in the original].

The bill explicitly bars states from cutting taxes. States “shall not use the funds,” the bill says, “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” that results “from a change in law, regulation, or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit, or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.”

All of us need to remember this assault on our nation in the fall of 2021.

“Employment Levels”

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Candidates to replace term-limited Bill de Blasio (D) as mayor of New York City are coming out of the woodwork like the city’s rats. The opening sentence of a Wall Street Journal article covering their plans to “job recovery” is riddled with irony.

More than three dozen New York City mayoral candidates are vying for one of the toughest jobs in the country: leading the nation’s largest city back to pre-pandemic employment levels while trying to find the funding to do so.

The candidates—the city—do not need to “find the funding” to put folks back to work. In an actual free market environment, private employers provide the funding for their own employees. They get that funding from private citizens buying those employers’ goods and services. The city—any government—is a cost center for every business in it jurisdiction, from the taxes the city exacts (some of them actually legitimate charges) to the regulations (very few of them serving any legitimate purpose, being merely revenue centers for the bureaucracy charging them) it imposes.

Returning New York City to pre-Wuhan Virus situation levels is breathtakingly cost-free—and revenue-generating for the city: get out of the way, let the businesses reopen so folks can go back to work, let schools reopen so kids can go back to school—reducing both private and public medical costs—and letting even more folks go back to work.

It’s just that straightforward. It shouldn’t be as hard as even well-meaning, but overthinking, politicians make it.

Taxing and Spending

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Progressive-Democrats are shocked—shocked—that folks want to hang onto their money rather than send in to Government. Thus, when State profligate spending and confiscatory tax rates were exposed by the Federal income tax reform that capped SALT deductions at $10,000, and folks on whom the cap had material effect decided to relocate their incomes, their money, and their lives to other States, Progressive-Democrats squalled most loudly.

The lawmakers say the cap, created in the 2017 tax law, punishes their constituents unfairly and pushes residents to move to low-tax states such as Florida. They are pitching the break as crucial to their states’ economic recovery.

Here’s New Jersey State Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D), for instance:

Folks have been moving away in droves since our state and local tax deduction was gutted. This is key to the health of our economy, key to keeping our state strong.

Never mind that those State governments could readjust their spending and taxing priorities.

No, it’s how dare those Government subjects leave and go where they can better hang onto the money that’s rightfully theirs. It’s that money doesn’t belong to the folks who earned it; that money belongs to those States, and the Progressive-Democrats of those State governments have only to carve out a pittance and toss it back to their subjects.

The arrogance of Progressive-Democrats and their contempt for us ordinary Americans knows no bounds.