Tag Archives: taxes

Questions Republicans Should Be Asking

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified before the House Homeland Security Committee earlier in the week on, among other things, the subject of immigration. Johnson, by the way, also is a fully licensed and accredited lawyer as well as a politically appointed politician.

A reader wrote to Power Line with some questions for Johnson and others. [emphasis added]

So Jeh says with a smug knowing wink-and-nod “just go to any restaurant here is DC” to see illegal aliens working “under the table.” So is he saying that the employers in DC fill jobs now with illegal aliens? That he knows and the employers know that they are openly, brazenly breaking our immigration and labor laws? So why isn’t he for enforcing our democratically enacted laws? Isn’t he sworn to do so? Isn’t he an attorney? Why isn’t he advocating against the state of affairs that he implies obtains? Why is he advocating open non-feasance of his duty to enforce the laws?

It’s especially rich when he talks about their “coming out of the shadows and STARTING to pay taxes”. Got that? He knows that there are thousands of illegal immigrants and their employers—let’s not forget these scofflaws—who are not paying taxes! OK…so why isn’t he going after them?….for criminal tax evasion?….instead they’re explicitly offering something way beyond amnesty of tax evasion—and a deal that American citizens normally would never get.

Usually a tax amnesty is the government’s waiving the assessed fines, penalties and interest accrued from failure to pay taxes in full and on time—but you still have to pay the actual taxes owed. So the illegal immigrants who have not paid taxes—payroll taxes, most likely since their incomes are low—not only get a tax “amnesty”, i.e., forbearance of fines, interest and penalties—they get outright forgiveness of the actual taxes owed! It is a better deal than any citizen would get if guilty of evading income or payroll taxes. Furthermore it is outright forgiveness for the EMPLOYER’s share of arrears payroll taxes as well…even IF they knowingly hired illegals and failed to pay taxes, it’s outright forgiven.

Republicans should be asking President Barack Obama, Johnson, Democrats generally, and quite a few of their own these questions loudly: in House—and Senate, starting in January—hearings; in townhalls and neighborhoods, especially the rural and poorer ones where unemployment is high and endemic; in newspaper, radio, and television interviews; in letters to the editor.

There are lots of ways to encourage immigration into our country, and we should; we benefit greatly from that immigration. The present way isn’t one of them; on the contrary, it’s highly destructive of our nation.

 

h/t Power Line

Economic Viability of Wind Energy

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Tim Phillips, in The Wall Street Journal, quoted Christopher Flavin, of the Worldwatch Institute, as saying in 1984,

Tax credits have been essential to the economic viability of wind farms so far, but will not be needed within a few years.

It’s been a few years. It’s been 30 years’ worth of “few.”

In all, wind energy “generators” get $56.29 per MW-Hr in Federal subsidies. To put that in perspective, natural gas gets $0.64, and nuclear power $3.14.

These guys are free-loading off you and me, and it’s time to put a stop to it. They need to stand or fall in the free market: if their technology is ready for prime time, they’ll have no trouble. If their technology isn’t—after 30 years—they’ve had enough of our prop-up money.

Cut off the subsidies—or more accurately, do not renew them (they expired in 2013) with finality. While the new Congress is about it, it should cut off those natural gas subsidies (those for oil, too, even though they’re similarly just walking around money) and the nuclear energy subsidies, also.

The free market is a much better watchdog for energy production than the Federal government ever can hope to be, no matter how honest or diligent those bureaucrats and regulators might be.

The Taxpayer and Union Pensions

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Here’s the state of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a Federal government entity set up to insure union-negotiated pension plans.

Overall, the PBGC has total assets of $90 billion and total liabilities of $152 billion.

The multiemployer subset of that, the section of the PBGC that “guarantees” union-sponsored pension plans to which groups of companies belong, has total assets of $1.8 billion and total liabilities of $44 billion.

The single employer subset, the PBGC section that “guarantees” the pensions of individual companies, has total assets of $88 billion and total liabilities of $107 billion.

The reason for this is that what are being insured are not just any old pension plans, but defined benefit pensions in particular. Recall that these are the plans that guarantee a pensioner a set amount of money every month for life, regardless of how much money the pension plan actually has in it. Somebody has to make up the difference and make the payments, or the plan goes bust, and the pensioner gets nothing. With the PBGC, that guarantor is you and I: us taxpayers.

Of course, the PBGC proclaims that it has never taken a penny of taxpayer money, and that’s true. But the PBGC has never been in worse shape, either, and it’s deteriorating rapidly. Last year, the PBGC was in the hole only $36 billion, compared to this year’s $63 billion pit.

The PBGC also proudly proclaims its mission is to

encourage the continuation and maintenance of private-sector defined benefit plans.

Fine. Congress, as part of the budget bill it will pass next winter, should cut us taxpayers out of this corporation altogether. Congress should spin off the PBGC into a wholly private sector insurance corporation with no ties to the Federal government at all. Let the new company prosper or fail entirely on the private sector merits of encouraging and insuring private-sector defined benefit plans.

Pass the Bill, Anyway

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…and force President Barack Obama to sign it or to veto it. On the record. Either way, it shapes the 2016 elections, and if Obama actually signs, it’ll be good for the country.

Obama has said he’ll veto

a potential agreement to permanently enact tax breaks on business investments in new equipment and research and development as part of a plan that would renew dozens of expired tax breaks for businesses and individuals both.

Obama threatened his veto even before any such plan actually has been developed and floated. Because you have to veto the bill before you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the bill writing.

Obama said, through his Deputy White House Press Secretary, Jennifer Friedman, that he would

veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families[.]

This, of course, is nonsense. Corporations don’t pay a lot of taxes, anyway; they pass what they pay on to their customers, including working families and unemployed families, in the form of higher prices. Contra Obama, the best way to help families is to leave more money in their pockets through lower taxes and to put more money in their pockets by getting government out of the way of the economy, so that growth can occur, hiring can occur, pay raises can occur.

Pass the bill, and force Obama to do something besides talk.

Congress over the next Two Years

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This is what our newly elected Congress needs to do over the next two years.

  • Re-pass the 40 jobs bills which Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) suppressed, without changing a word. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. President Barack Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal the ACA and Dodd-Frank. Do these with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal various parts of ACA, Dodd-Frank, one by one. Do each with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Repeal most of the EPA’s regulations, particularly the ones impacting coal, oil, natural gas, and how private lands can be used. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass tax reform with lowered personal, business rates, closed loopholes and subsidies. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them.
  • Pass budgets each year that fully fund the Federal government without funding the ACA or Dodd-Frank remnants and severely restricting funding for the EPA and the Labor Department and its political arm, the NLRB. Do this with roll call votes, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign them. Make clear how the obstructionist President prefers to shut off government altogether in his temper tantrum if he can’t have his way.
  • Pass border control legislation. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass immigration entry reform legislation contingent on a decently secured border, but don’t wait on border security to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Pass legislation vis-à-vis existing illegal aliens contingent on a decently secured border and entry reform, but don’t wait on those to pass this. The contingency will allow this reform to be passed this session. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.
  • Seriously restrict regulation delegation authority. Do it with a roll call vote, forcing the Democrats onto the Congressional voting record. Obama will veto or sign.

Our Congress needs to do this against a backdrop of House—and now Senate—hearings into Fast and Furious, IRS, Benghazi, VA, Secret Service failures, immigration lawlessness, NSA snooping, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, DoJ stonewalling of those investigations. Both chambers need to pursue these investigations and associated hearings with zeal, but they shouldn’t be in attack dog mode.

Our Congress needs to take action on the findings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R, SC).

This adds up to a full slate of activities for the 114th Congress.

All cases—legislation and investigative hearings—have two purposes. The first, and foremost, purpose is to get government out of the way of our economy so we can regain our prosperity and to learn and expose the truth of what’s been going on during the Obama administration so that those…failures…can be corrected. The secondary purpose is to keep the Obama administration’s failures of policy and of behavior in the public’s eye.

Don’t waste time on an impeachment effort. They don’t have the votes to convict in the Senate, but the effort will let the NLMSM change the subject away from the Obama administration failures. Of course, the NLMSM might well attempt simply to spike the stories about the legislation and the investigations and hearings, like they did Jonathan Gruber’s truth-telling and most of them did Obama’s immigration “reform” speech last night. But it’ll be a hard thing to spike for two years.

This will be the most effective way of demonstrating the distinction between Conservatives and Democrats/Progressives, of showing what Conservatives stand for and work to achieve compared to what the Democrats/Progressives stand against and work to block. It will give Americans a choice in 2016: a President of little experience and no accomplishment—Hillary Clinton channeling one aspect of Barack Obama—a President bent on Progressive, Big Government policies without regard to the law or the American people—Elizabeth Warren channeling another aspect of Barack Obama—versus a Conservative President, bent on reducing government’s intrusion into Americans’ lives and shrinking government’s interference with Americans’ economy.

This will shape the elections of 2016.