I’ve already commented on the proposal from the Chairmen of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission (including a very clever cartoon, if it’s okay to pat myself on the back). Now we have a similar proposal from the so-called Debt Reduction Task Force. Chaired by former Senator Pete Domenici and Clinton Administration Budget Director Alice Rivlin, the Task Force proposed […]

Back during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama proposed several tax increases. Some of those tax hikes, such as the proposed higher income tax rates on investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers, have received a lot of public attention. But it’s also important to guard against stealth tax hikes, and Obama’s proposal to […]

The White House recently released a video, narrated by Austan Goolsbee of the Council of Economic Advisers, asserting that higher tax rates on the so-called rich would be a good idea. Since Goolsbee’s video made so many unsubstantiated assertions and was guilty of so many sins of omission, here’s a rebuttal video, narrated by yours truly. […]

Eli Lehrer has an article on the FrumForum entitled “Five Revenue Raisers the GOP Should Back.” He argues it would be good to get rid of preferences such as the state and local tax deduction and the mortgage interest deduction, and he also asserts that there should be “user fees” for things such as transportation. […]

Thanks to the Obamacare legislation, we already know there will be a new 3.9 percent payroll tax on all investment income earned by so-called rich taxpayers beginning in 2013. And the capital gains tax rate will jump to 20 percent next year if the President gets his way. This sounds bad (and it is), but the news […]

In the battle against higher taxes and wasteful spending, I’ve never thought that witches would be an ally, but Romanian politicians apparently voted down a proposed tax because they were afraid of being cursed. We curse politicians in America all the time, of course, but in a different way. And since that milder approach doesn’t […]

Here’s a clever video produced by the Winston Group, comparing the tax policies of two Democratic Presidents. Having previously highlighted Kennedy’s tax-cutting approach, it is painful for me to observe the class warfare approach of the Obama Administration. What’s especially fascinating is that JFK intuitively understood the Laffer Curve, particularly the insight that deficits usually […]