Senator Rubio continues to impress with his Reagan-like efforts to restrain government and promote growth. His latest initiative is legislation to curtail rogue IRS bureaucrats who are seeking to use regulatory edicts to overturn 90 years of law. Here are excerpts…
Daily Analysis
Tax Warning: Will Barack Obama Do to America What Leftists Already Have Done to Illinois…and England…and…?
Now that the debt-limit fight is basically over (the Senate will join the House in approving it later today), we need to immediately prepare for the next stage in the fight to stop big government and restore economic liberty. President Obama and other leftists clearly…
Deconstructing the Revenue Side of the Debt-Ceiling Deal: Yes, There’s a Real Threat of Higher Taxes
Politicians last night announced the framework of a deal to increase the debt limit. In addition to authorizing about $900 billion more red ink right away, it would require immediate budget cuts of more than $900 billion, though “immediate” means over 10 years and…
Does the Boehner Plan Include a Tax Increase Trap?
In an ideal world, GOPers would hold firm and not pass any debt limit until Democrats agreed to enact something like the Ryan plan/Cut-Cap-Balance. But I’ve never thought that was a realistic strategy. When we got to the drop-dead point, Obama would have Geithner or…
Debunking the Left’s Tax Burden Deception
I testified earlier today before the Joint Economic Committee about budget process reform. As part of the Q&A session after the testimony, one of the Democratic members made a big deal about the fact that federal tax revenues today are “only” consuming about 15…
You Should Support a Value-Added Tax…if You Want Bigger Government and More Debt
I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee earlier today. As always, my trip inside the belly of the beast was an interesting adventure. The tax-writing committee was holding a hearing on the value-added tax. I was on a panel with five other witnesses,…
Taking on FATCA and Proposed Section 911 Elimination
Sound tax policy is hard to find these days. As CF&P has extensively covered, Congress included the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act as part of the HIRE Act, passed in March 2010. FATCA takes a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to tax policy. Rather than…
The Short-Term Problem Is Obama’s Ideological Stubborness, the Long-Term Problem Is American Decline
As a Washington policy wonk somewhat involved in the current debt-limit fight, I will confess that it is very frustrating that the White House has never produced a deficit-reduction plan. I’d much prefer a spending-restraint plan, of course, but I’m flummoxed that…
Is Obama a Conservative?
That seems like a joke question, but it’s an apparently serious belief of Bruce Bartlett, a former supply-sider and Bush Administration official who has flipped sides and joined the left. I’ve known Bruce for decades and he’s a fun guy to hang out with, but he’s gone…
Inside the Debt-Limit Negotiations, a Love Song from Obama to Boehner
I hope the Speaker resists this siren song and says no to higher taxes.