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POPSObama's Fair Tax Mr. Warren, a man of the cloth, has done us a great service by asking the candidates to answer a pretty secular question: What kind of income makes an American "rich"? Maybe in the more secular setting of an upcoming debate, one of our nonpastor moderators could ask the candidates the moral question: What specific rate of individual taxation would it take for the rich to be paying their fair share?
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POPSNo Tax Increase Needed for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid... If Congress were to act responsibly (yes, an oxymoron), it would hold down the growth of spending, as was done in the late 1980s and late 1990s, and eliminate those government programs that do not meet a reasonable cost-benefit test. As has been shown before, such actions would quickly eliminate the deficit.
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POPSCigarette Tax Burnout In New York City and State, tobacco taxes have been raised so many times that the retail cost can exceed $9 a pack -- about double the national average. Few budget-savvy smokers in the Big Apple pay that tax. Patrick Fleenor, an expert on tobacco taxes at the Tax Foundation, estimates that there is "now a 75% gap between cigarette sales in the city and cigarette consumption." In other words, three out of four cigarettes are bought elsewhere or are contraband. In New Jersey, about 40% of the Marlboros and Virginia Slims that are lit up escape the $2.57-a-pack tax. In Washington State, evasion was so rampant that the legislature decided in 2005 to lower the 75% tax on cigars and other tobacco products as a way to raise revenue and help state retailers.
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POPSMore on Obamanomics Obama's economic plan also calls for mandating a "living wage." He plans to saddle retailers with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation, along with a mandate to provide seven days of paid sick leave to workers. Obama assumes business owners will just eat the added costs.
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POPSObama's Tax Redistribution ...Obama's plan would greatly accelerate the decades-long trend toward a federal government that depends for tax revenue almost exclusively on a few high-income people. I guess you can call greatly accelerating in the same direction, "change". Hodge acknowledges that some Americans may cheer this dramatic dependence on the highest earners, but he says the shift should be part of a larger national discussion asking questions such as: * What is the long-term effect on the economy if so few households shoulder such a large share of the tax burden? * When a majority of Americans are paying so little for government, will that majority then demand even more services than they would have otherwise? * Can a tax system so focused on redistribution be compatible with economic growth? The new study, "Hard Numbers on Obama's Redistribution Plan," is available online at www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23319.html.
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POPSBaltimore's Capital Punishment Policies Back in the good old days, Baltimore had a smaller percentage of residents living in poverty (22.7%) than the nation as a whole (27.8%), and a greater percentage of families (23.1%) earning a middle-class income of at least $44,600 in today's dollars than the rest of the country (19.1%). Today, the city has a population that is almost 50% smaller, and about 40% of families with children live at or near the federal poverty line. Among the country's 100 most populous cities, Baltimore ranks a shameful 87th on median household income. There are now at least 30,000 housing units in Baltimore that are abandoned and waiting to be demolished, while even old, upper-crust neighborhoods now have a seedy look. Property taxes are so high – as well as the strong likelihood they will soar even higher in the future – that even maintenance, no less capital improvements, are a losing proposition.
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POPSWhat's Wrong with Republicans? To the degree McCain can articulate the above, he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster. No one can out-Obama Obama.
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POPSThe Price of Gas Again, while just over nine percent of the price of a gallon of gas goes to oil company profits, approximately twenty percent of the price of a gallon of gas is composed of federal, state, and local taxes. Those who want the government to step in and do something about the high price of gas are either forgetful of recent history or too young to remember the oil crisis of 1979. During that time, restrictions on the price of gasoline led to the inability of some to find gas at all. Price ceilings always lead to shortages. The only thing worse than having to pay "too much" for gas is not being able to find gas at any price. Let us not be swayed by politicians out for power or by reporters out to create news where none exists. Facts and economic logic should prevail rather than rhetoric.
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POPSShocker: Audit Reveals Abuse of Government Credit Cards In the fraudulent category, a longtime employee of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Debra K. Durfey, wrote convenience checks worth more than $640,000 from 2000 to 2006 to a live-in boyfriend, who used the money for gambling, car expenses and mortgage payments In a case the GAO deemed "abusive," the Postal Service spent $13,500 in 2006 on a dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steak House in Orlando, including "over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold." The tab came to more than $160 a head for the 81 guests, the report said. The GAO found that 41 percent of the transactions it examined did not follow government purchasing rules. The problem was worse with larger purchases: Forty-eight percent of transactions over $2,500 were in violation of federal rules, the report said.
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POPSLone Star Statement I'm not the biggest fan of Gov. Perry, but I give credit where it's due. Governor Perry is saving Texan businesses $260 million all told in unnecessary unemployment taxes. In recent months he has also directed the state to rebate $170 million that employers paid into the trust fund in 2007.
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POPSCarbon Copies - Emissions Taxes Based upon a widely accepted formula originated at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, if the entire United States adopted the original Kansas legislation, it would prevent a total of 0.11 degrees F of global warming per century. Read that again, because it's not a typo: Eleven one-hundredths of a degree in 100 years. Instead, let's apply the original Kansas legislation to every nation on the planet that agreed to limit its emissions under the infamous 1997 Kyoto Protocol...The new law would prevent 0.27 degrees F of warming per century. That's an amount too small to measure, because global temperatures vary by more than that from year-to-year -- global warming or not.
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POPSThe Evil Oil Companies Dear Nancy, Exxon's profit margin was 11.59 percent. Google's profit margin was 26.9 percent. You should raise the taxes on Google for their "excessive profits." (What ever the definition of excessive profits is.)
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POPSFree Market Solutions to G.W. "The most important thing we can do is not to impede production of wealth...People in the developing world desperately need prosperity. Blocking their development on the flimsy promise of climate "fixes" will only make hard lives harder. Their primitive environments are killing them."
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POPSWhere to Put Your Money From an article on the author of Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment , a summary of professor and star investor David Swensen's advice for how individuals should be investing in markets driven by full-time professionals like him. While perhaps unconventional, Swensen would certainly seem to have the authority to advise on such matters. Yale University recently announced a 23 percent return on its investments, swelling its endowment to a whopping $18 billion. The man behind that investment success is David Swensen, one of the most gifted investors in the world. He's made an average 16 percent annual return over 21 years — better than any portfolio manager at any other university.
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