Overview for taxes

Middle Class Taxpayers Still Lose

The recent fight over the extension of the payroll tax holiday has once again shown that the Republican Party does not particularly care about the middle class tax burden. The party is quite interested though in cutting taxes on the highest earners. What gets completely ignored is the fact that …

Read more

Written by Andrew Pavelyev on Thursday December 29, 2011

The Coming Liberal Argument

Here is a real effect Occupy Wall Street is having on the liberal left. They will start to blame the current bad economy explicitly on income inequality. Here is Heather Boushey writing at the Center for American Progress: Take, for example, the housing bubble of the 2000s. It was …

Read more

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Monday December 19, 2011

Where Was the GOP's Middle Class Agenda?

Saturday night's debate provided a good example of how current GOP orthodoxy thwarts presidential candidates from talking seriously about the economic problems of the American middle class. Mitt Romney wants to offer a middle-class economic agenda. (Or anyway, his consultants have decided he …

Read more

Written by David Frum on Monday December 12, 2011

Make Schumer and Pelosi Defend Tax Deductions for the Rich

Michael Barone points out the three big tax deductions which are hard to eliminate: the charitable deduction, the home mortgage interest deduction, and the state and local tax deduction. I agree with him that elimination of the charitable deduction is wrong for Republicans. Home mortgage …

Read more

Written by John Vecchione on Tuesday November 22, 2011

Real Policy isn't Done Through Taxes

David Frum is right to attack the growing Republican orthodoxy that "nothing is wrong with this country that cannot be solved by abolishing the capital gains tax." He should take the argument a little further: a fixation on taxes above everything else--regulatory policy and excellence in …

Read more

Written by Eli Lehrer on Wednesday November 2, 2011

Perry's New Gambit

Perry’s chances of winning the Republican nomination depend entirely on his ability to sell himself as a Teastablishment candidate. Perry has a ten-year record in Texas that shows an interest in governance, and he has way with sharp rhetoric (“treason”) that sends thrills up the leg of your …

Read more

Written by Zac Morgan on Friday October 21, 2011

Here's "My Share"

A friend of mine has a sister who has been broke for years. Ten years ago he got heartsick over watching her struggle while his own career took off, so he began supporting her by supplementing her small income with his own money. He makes $300, 000 a year and gives her $30, 000 a year to help …

Read more

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Friday September 23, 2011

I'm Already Paying "My Share" Ms. Warren-And More

A video from Elizabeth Warren’s campaign tour in Massachusetts, has been circulating online. In it she justifies on moral grounds the need to raise taxes on “the rich”. As her thin platform from which to launch a tax-the-rich clarion call, she refers to a hypothetical factory owner who must …

Read more

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Thursday September 22, 2011

Just What IS the Buffett Tax?

Great novelists create characters that give each reader the opportunity to create their own vision of their appearance. The heroine may have dark hair to one reader and be a blonde to another. At the moment, the “Buffett Tax” is the stuff of great fiction. The rate and the calculation are in the …

Read more

Written by Hank Adler on Thursday September 22, 2011

A Budget Plan for the Political Center

The President has raised the curtain on his deficit reduction plan. Now the issue between the two parties is squarely joined. On one side, the GOP, pledged to the Ryan plan, the most radical redefinition of government from the right since 1964. On the other side, the President, offering the …

Read more

Written by David Frum on Monday September 19, 2011

Buffett Tax Would Cover Seven Days Spending

Warren Buffett is known as the Sage of Omaha for a good reason: his outstanding ability to find profitable investments that took him from a small portfolio owner to one of the richest people in the world. Recently, he used his formidable reputation to suggest in the New York Times , …

Read more

Written by Herbert Grubel on Thursday August 25, 2011

More Dividends Please

Bloomberg View notes that US corporations hold $2 trillion in cash. The site argues that corporate managers ought to be kicking the cash back out to shareholders. Instead: "Total dividends paid in the first quarter of 2011 fell from a year earlier. The average dividend yield on …

Read more

Written by David Frum on Friday July 22, 2011

Here's How To Get To A Debt Ceiling

Here’s the dirty little secret of the endlessly protracted debt ceiling negotiations —it actually isn’t that hard to meet the targets set out by either side. The theatrics of the past two weeks aside, the wink and the nod seem to be already communicated as the President, the Speaker of the …

Read more

Written by Steve Bell on Monday June 27, 2011

More Tax Cuts Won't Mean More Hiring

Many conservatives are arguing for another round of cuts in capital gains taxes and other taxes on capital. But these cuts might not spur businesses to add workers. A cruel joke about politics: "It's not that Mr. X lacks principles. It's that he does not understand the principles he has." I …

Read more

Written by David Frum on Friday June 10, 2011

Don't Pick on Big Oil For Having Big Profits

Congress' decision to attack oil companies is a weak diversion from their own inability to control prices at the pump. Repeal the so-called subsidies to oil and gas? Ostensibly this is a punitive measure that targets oil companies for the rise in the price of gasoline at the pump, even though …

Read more

Written by Brad Schaeffer on Wednesday May 18, 2011

Toomey's Budget: Too Good to Be True

Sen. Toomey's budget proposal promises a budget surplus achieved painlessly through a combination of tax cuts and spending increases. It's not going to happen. I am mightily impressed by Sen. Toomey’s budget proposal. It promises to achieve a budget surplus and, most importantly, it does that …

Read more

Written by Andrew Pavelyev on Thursday May 12, 2011

Obama's Next Target: Corporate Tax Loopholes

The Obama administration is moving forward with corporate tax reform proposals and, although it’s too early to judge, many of them look pretty good at first blush. The Obama administration is moving forward with corporate tax reform proposals and, although it’s too early to judge, many of …

Read more

Written by Eli Lehrer on Wednesday May 11, 2011

The Dems' Big Oil Tax Break Trap

Senate Democrats are circulating a bill to cinch up oil company tax loopholes and use the resulting revenue to pay down the deficit. Senate Democrats are circulating a bill to cinch up oil company tax loopholes and use the resulting revenue to pay down the deficit. The bill would take aim at …

Read more

Written by Jim DiPeso on Wednesday May 11, 2011