Tax havens! Greedy Wall Street bankers! Hedge fund money lenders! Speculators! Shameful profiteers! President Obama's populist demagogic outcries against America's 200-year history of free market capitalism seem limitless. My immigrant grandparents are undoubtedly turning over in their graves to hear such blasphemy from the mouth of the President of the United States.
Obama's most recent target - those evil Caribbean tax havens. The current tax-deferral system is merely a ban-aid on a tax system that is openly hostile to American multinational companies. No other major industrial country treats its international business interests with such disdain and puts its companies at such a competitive disadvantage in the global economy. Then we wonder why we have such a large trade deficit.
A German firm doing
business in Ireland, say, pays no German income…
Continue reading | 8 Comments
The top 1% of U.S. taxpayers earns 22% of the income and pay nearly 40% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% pays just 3%. We are told that this is unfair, and the "rich" should pay their "fair share". It would probably not overburden the top earners to pay 43% and eliminate all taxes on the bottom 50%. After all, it would only take a 5.5% increase in the amount the top 1% already pays to eliminate the need to collect from the bottom 50%. Can the rich afford it - yes, but can the poor.
Could a house so divided prosper? Given the class-warfare rhetoric from the administration and Congress it appears that this is just the country they wish to create. Use tax credits for the bottom 50%…
Continue reading | 4 Comments
When the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. In other words, there is no problem that a bureaucrat can't solve, if only we would let them pass another regressive tax. That may well be the sum total of the creative thinking that has gone into the Obama
Cap-and-Trade plan. The Obama Administration proposes that companies buy a permit for each ton of carbon emitted, at an estimated cost, to start of $13 to $20 per ton. The permits could then be bought and sold. The theory behind this convoluted scheme is that it will somehow miraculously increase energy efficiency and renewable energy development.
Rather than focus on available technological solutions, let's burden hard working American consumers with another ill-conceived regressive tax! Who…
Continue reading | 4 Comments
As the world's
most inventive country we have the unique opportunity to patent our way out of the current recession and thrive in the 21st century global economy. What should we export to create high paying permanent jobs and redress our balance of payments? Ideas. It's what we do better than any other country. One country, the United States, accounts for more than one-third of
international patent applications. It's time to leverage what we do best, innovate, and create the jobs we need for today, tomorrow, and decades to come.
In hard economic times we should be looking ever more closely at our export markets and ask ourselves the basic question: What innovative products can we sell to the nearly 500 million inhabitants of the European Union, the…
Continue reading | 3 Comments
