Tag Archives: taxes

It Isn’t Your Money

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Or, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit.

That’s not all.  He told ABC’s “This Week”

I think the president has made crystal clear, he’s not going to negotiate over the debt limit.

But he’s willing to “work with” all comers.  Sure.

This President, and his cronies in the Senate, are perfectly willing to blow up our credit rating (or what’s left of it after their last fiasco just a couple of years ago) and shut down the government if they’re blocked from taking more of your money away from you (in their demanded higher taxes) or taking more of your children’s money away from them (in their demanded continuing borrowing) and spending ever more of your money (their demanded spending increases).

All because these…politicians…think they know better than you—or your children—what that money should be spent on, and they’re convinced it’s their money and not yours in the first place.

Cynical Goals for our Economy

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Most Democrats want tax-overhaul efforts to fund government programs or contribute to deficit reduction.

Indeed.  In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) demands that any tax “reform” raise Federal revenues ($975 billion more over 10 years is his minimum bid) for the purpose of supporting increased Federal spending.

“Contribute to deficit reduction.”  How disingenuous.

Here’s a thought: how about tax reform that reduces rates against a backdrop of reduced/eliminated government “programs,” so that the Federal government is out of the way (or at least less in the way) of our economy?  The result would be a robust and growing economy that would both raise revenue for the Feds from that increased activity and that actually would eliminate the deficit instead of cynically perpetuating it.

And from that deficit elimination, facilitate actually paying down a ruinous Federal debt.

Spinning

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From the National Republican Congressional Committee, and on the heels of President Barack Obama’s latest Presidential Bull on the economy, comes this compilation of the…pivots…that  Obama has made during his administration.

  • “Obama Aims to Shift Focus To Boosting Jobs, Economy” (Wall Street Journal, 7/18/13)
  • “Obama Pivots to Jobs Tour at End of Scandal Filled Week” (ABC News, 5/18/13)
  • “Obama’s Texas Trip An Attempt To Refocus On Jobs, Economy” (Washington Times, 5/8/13)
  • “Obama: State Of The Union To Focus On Jobs” (USA Today, 2/8/13)
  • “Obama Turns To Congress For Jobs Help” (The New York Times, 6/1/12)
  • “Obama Turns Attention To Economy After Fundraising Pitch” (Associated Press, 5/11/12)
  • “Fresh Off Debt-Ceiling Brawl, Dems Pivot To Talk About Jobs” (The Hill, 8/3/11)
  • “Obama To Focus On Jobs” (San Jose Mercury News, 1/23/11)
  • “Obama To Focus On Jobs, Spending In State Of The Union Speech” (The Tennessean, 1/27/10)
  • “Hill Democrats Set To Pivot To Job Creation” (Washington Times, 1/25/10)
  • “Obama Pivots To Jobs As Key Theme” (Politico, 1/8/10)
  • “Obama Turns Focus To Job Creation” (Associated Press, 12/5/09)

Sort of gives new meaning to the phrase “political spin.”

Federal Climate Plan and Crony Capitalism

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George Russell, writing for Fox News, had this on the efficacy of President Barack Obama’s national plan to fight “climate change:”

a separate, groundbreaking study by the National Research Council has warned that those kinds of subsidies are virtually useless at quelling greenhouse gases .

The study, which looks at the subsidies and other incentives embedded in U.S. federal tax law after the past several years of climate change initiatives, concludes that they  have done little or nothing so far to cut U.S. contributions to global carbon emissions, and are unlikely to do much more before 2035, the project’s research horizon.

And

[T]he study declared that “their combined impact is less than 1% of total US emissions” over the next 25 years, and they are a lousy bargain to boot:  “Very little if any GHG reductions are achieved at substantial cost with these provisions.”

[T]he study concluded “current tax expenditures and subsidies are a poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases and achieving climate-change objectives.”   They “achieve small reductions in GHG emissions and are costly per unit of emissions reduction.”

The full cost was something the study was unable to make entirely clear.  It estimated that the federal government had spent some $48 billion in just the past two years on “tax expenditures”—meaning subsidies, credits, and other incentives—related to the energy sector, and also noted that few were specifically enacted to reduce greenhouse gases.

Obama’s plan also ignores the erroneous nature of its assumptions about what is a significant GHG.  It includes all of their assumed GHGs, for instance including atmospheric CO2….

Worse, for the short term,

[T]he probe underlined how little is yet known about the relationship between government tax-and-spend activity and actual climate change results, especially as government spending gets embedded in a growing thicket of regulations and initiatives created to solve different parts of the greenhouse gas puzzle, but all touted to achieve the same ends.

And

[T]he plan also calls for $7.9 billion in additional funding for advanced clean energy technology, a hike of about 30%.  This includes investment in a range of energy technologies, from advanced biofuels to nuclear mini-reactors.

Never mind that this is a waste of money.  If the technology can’t compete in the free market without subsidies, it’s not commercially viable.  And so does not warrant subsidization—assuming government subsidies are ever appropriate.

The ludicrosity goes on, but you get the idea.

It’s hard to believe that Obama and his colleagues in the Executive Branch and allies in the Legislative Branch didn’t know this stuff a priori; earlier studies, for instance, have debunked the very concept of serious human impact on evolving climate.  But he, and they, do know full well the pecuniary benefit of this plan for the plan’s recipients.

The study itself can be found here.

A Thought on Global Tax Reform

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UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he hoped the G-20 countries would commit to the [OECD plan to close international tax law loopholes].

And

The plan aims to plug the gaps created by a complex web of bilateral tax treaties that has expanded since the 1920s, and which now allows for “aggressive” tax planning, where companies adopt legal structures designed to shift their profits to the lowest-tax jurisdictions, regardless of where those profits are earned.

“These gaps have facilitated tax planning by globalized players.  The goal of the action plan is to close down the avenues that we have left open,” said Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the OECD’s Center for Tax Policy and Administration.

And

The UK Parliament’s public-affairs committee has held a number of heated public hearings over the past six months examining whether large companies are paying enough tax.

Never mind that of course business executives engage in careful “tax planning”—they have a fiduciary duty to their bosses, the business owners, to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Nor is there any consideration of whether the G-20 nations (other than, say, Ireland) are charging too much in the way of taxes, cynically without justifying governments’ claimed need for OPM.

And this from Ángel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General.

Although of course we do not expect [businesses] to very happily go there and deposit their more substantive check, I think they will understand that this is a way to keep the systems running better and the trains running on time.

Shades of Alexander Hamilton:

There are some who maintain that trade will regulate itself and is not to be benefitted by the encouragements or restraints of government.  Such persons imagine that there is no need of a common directing power.  This is one of those wild speculative paradoxes among us, contrary to the uniform practice and sense of the most enlightened nations.

As Adam Smith and the empirical evidence of the US’ experience until the early 20th century have shown, Hamilton was wrong then, and Gurria is wrong today.

Here’s a thought: standardize on low/no corporate tax rates.  It’s not government’s money, anyway; the money is the property of the companies and the people who own them.