Redstate

Posted at 4:24pm on Jul. 8, 2008 Record Complicates Obama's "Shift" To Center

By California Yankee

UPDATED

After running a primary campaign from the far left, Obama is now trying to shift right toward the center.

Obama is impeded in this shift by his extreme left wing positions and the voting record that earned him the tittle of the most liberal senator in 2007.

According to Bloomberg:

In recent weeks, Obama said he supports gun-ownership rights, backs legislation giving immunity to telephone companies that participated in an anti-terrorism surveillance program and would consider cutting corporate taxes. On July 3, he said he would ``continue to refine my policies'' on the Iraq War.

Obama built his candidacy on the support of his party's liberal base, which favors restrictions on guns and wiretapping, raising taxes for companies, and pulling U.S. forces from Iraq. As an Illinois state legislator, he voted against a law carving out self-defense exceptions to local handgun bans; as a U.S. senator, he opposed business tax cuts and extending warrantless eavesdropping, and backed tougher gun laws. On Iraq, he has long focused on ending the war and withdrawing troops.

Obama denies that he trying to shift his extreme left wing positions toward the center:

"I get tagged as being on the left and when I simply describe what have been my positions consistently, then suddenly people act surprised," Obama told reporters in Ohio on July 1. There haven't "been substantial shifts," he said.

Read on, there is more.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Budget | Center | Shift | taxes — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:32am on Jun. 24, 2008 Barack Obama on the Social Security Tax

Wrecking America’s Entrepreneurial Strength

By blackhedd

Senator Obama recently made an important proposal in regard to taxes. We’ve known for a long time that he intends to raise all kinds of taxes, including capgains taxes and income taxes on high earners. His specific recent proposal is to extend the FICA (Social Security) levy so that it will apply to all income above $250,000.

That may sound weird to you. It is, and here’s why: today the roughly 12.5% FICA levy is only applied to a bit more than the first $100,000 of income. Of course that makes sense because Social Security benefits are only based on that amount of income: if you make more than $100,000 in any given year, it doesn’t increase the retirement benefits you get.

Obama is proposing to charge the FICA tax on the first $100,000 of income (just as today), and then stop applying it to income between $100,000 and $250,000 (again, just as today), and then re-apply the tax to all income above $250,000.

Income above $250,000 will pay the Social Security tax, but will not contribute to the benefit calculation.

What is Superman trying to accomplish with this? What does he want us to think he’s trying to accomplish? And what will be the real effects?

Keep reading…

Posted in Economy | entrepreneurs | FICA | Obama | Social Security | taxes — Comments (20)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:25am on Jun. 23, 2008 It's gas prices, stupid!

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

With the Barackstar insisting that gas prices need to continue their incremental rise, apparently attempting to teach us the "hard way" about energy independence John McCain is making waves this morning with a different solution to the same problem. He's got a new proposal to offer big-time tax incentives to Detroit's Big 3 ($5,000 a vehicle) for every flex-fuel auto they produce and sell along with a bigger prize, a $300,000,000 payday for the man or woman who can develop an automobile battery that'd be powerful enough to send a car screaming down the road and inexpensive enough to mass produce.  

Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Detroit | drill | John McCain | Michigan | oil | refinery | taxes | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:20am on Jun. 11, 2008 MI Morning Update: Mark Sanford Comes to MI - Who are the rich exactly? - Walberg Fights for Lower Gas Prices

By saul anuzis

146 Days until Election Day

June 11, 2008

MORNING UPDATE:

GOVERNOR MARK SANFORD...of South Carolina was the guest of honor at the Reagan Tribute Dinner in Oakland County last night. He gave a great speech about sticking to conservative principles and values as we move our party forward. Special guests included Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, U.S. Senate candidate Jack Hoogendyk and many other party leaders.

Posted in Mark Sanford Barack Obama | Michigan Republican Party | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | taxes | Tim Walberg — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:07pm on May 6, 2008 "The FairTax Cult"

By Jeff Emanuel

That's the title of Chris Farris's outstanding piece on the "FairTax," posted over at my Georgia blogging home, Peach Pundit.

In his post (and please do read the whole thing), Farris addresses the publicize-at-all-costs tactics used by the program's supporters, and lays out the problems that can, and likely will, occur if and when the FairTax proposal leaves the Ivory Tower and becomes a seriously-debated policy prescription.

More below the fold.

Posted in Congress | Economy | Elections | FairTax | taxes — Comments (26) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:55am on Apr. 15, 2008 On Tax Day: Robert Greenwald attacks the free market, advocates tax increases, and attracts a loyal white supremacist following

By Erick

Has something gone wrong with the world? I ask that seriously. Have we forgotten the past thirty years?

We have Barack Obama out quoting Karl Marx to rich trust-funders in San Francisco. We have Hillary pushing her nationalization schemes. And now we have this Robert Greenwald guy and his documentary company "Brave New Films" pushing a war on capitalism in a rather unfunny video advocating tax increases on tax day.

You can see it here if you really want to.

This Greenwald guy wants to be the next Michael Moore, without any humor. And his prescription is the same old nonsense Moore peddles -- raise taxes on businesses. To hell with us heading into a recession.

Read on for why this matters . . .

Posted in Liberals | Robert Greenwald | taxes | white supremacists — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:29am on Apr. 8, 2008 It's Official: Taxpayers now underwriting Hollywood (because they need our money)

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Want a job in Michigan?  Move to Hollywood.  It's almost literally come to that.  In a mixed up, crazy, backwards world la-la-land always seemed like the world of dreams, where movie magic happened.  Now, thanks to you, fair tax payer, it's also the land where your hard earned dollar goes.  And the worst part?  That's the good news this morning.

Posted in Breaking News | Michigan | taxes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:33am on Mar. 21, 2008 MI Morning Update: Michigan Primary Do-Over Dead- Ideas for Tax Reform

By saul anuzis

229 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

Democrat Speaker Andy Dillon pronounces that the “do over” Democrat primary is all but “dead”…Clinton forces are trying to maneuver a comeback/winback…if anyone can pull this off and snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat…it’s the Clinton team?!?

I’m reading Grover Norquist’s new book “Leave Us Alone” and he points out that California, Arizona and Nevada have all enacted constitutional amendments requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature to raise taxes. Umm, I like that idea!!!

Posted in Do-Over | Michigan Republican Party | Primary | Republicans | Saul Anuzis | taxes — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:25am on Mar. 19, 2008 The Benefits Of Tax Havens

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Courtesy of the always-excellent Dan Mitchell. A taste:

First, if you live in a developed country, your taxes are probably much lower today than they were 30 years ago, thanks in part to tax havens. In 1980, top personal income tax rates in OECD countries averaged more than 67 percent, and corporate rates that year averaged nearly 50 percent. To compound the damage, countries routinely imposed extra layers of tax on capital, including dividend taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, and wealth taxes. These policies discouraged saving and investment, stifling economic growth and causing significant economic hardship.

Beginning with Reagan and Thatcher, however, governments have been racing to cut tax rates and reform tax regimes. Top personal tax rates now average only about 40 percent, and corporate rates have been reduced to an average of about 27 percent. It is largely globalization--not ideology--that has driven this virtuous "race to the bottom." Governments are cutting taxes because they fear that jobs and investment will flee across national borders. Tax havens, by providing a safe refuge for people seeking to dodge confiscatory tax rates, have played a critical role in these positive developments. Better to get some revenue with modest tax rates, lawmakers have concluded, than impose high tax rates and lose out.

Second, European duchies and Caribbean isles aren't the only places that welcome tax refugees. The United States, for instance, could be considered the world's largest tax haven. The U.S. government generally does not tax interest and capital gains received by foreigners who invest in America. And since the IRS does not collect data on those payments, there is rarely any information to share with foreign tax collectors. Moreover, U.S. corporate structures, such as Delaware and Nevada companies, are excellent vehicles for foreigners to manage their investments. Thanks in part to these attractive policies, foreigners today have more than $12 trillion invested in the United States. Yet if Merkel's efforts are successful and all nations are saddled with the obligation to help enforce foreign tax laws, it is quite likely that a substantial share of that job-creating capital will flee the United States.

Finally, there is even a moral case for tax havens: They play a critical role in protecting people who are subject to religious, ethnic, sexual, political, or racial persecution. Most of the world's population lives in regimes that have inadequate human-rights protections, and people with assets often are targets of oppressive governments. The ability to put money in a tax haven offers important protections for these potential victims. Even the United Nations, in a 1998 report attacking tax havens, felt compelled to admit that, "For much of the twentieth century, governments around the world spied on their citizens to maintain political control. Political freedom can depend on the ability to hide purely personal information from a government."

Read it all. Once we get past the stereotype of tax havens as "loopholes for the rich and powerful," we easily see that they actually serve a very beneficial purpose.

Posted in Economy | Tax Competition | Tax Regimes | taxes — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:08pm on Mar. 6, 2008 BREAKING: Michigan Gov and LG busted by Feds for failure to pay taxes after passing largest tax hike in State history!!!

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

So after all that talk about the importance of new revenues the woman didn't even pay her own taxes?  Shocking details are emerging today that indicate Michigan's most prominent tax-hike advocates, Governor Jennifer Granholm and John Cherry, are in trouble with the federal government for, get this... refusing to pay their taxes!  The kind of trouble you don't get in for a minor offense.  The kind of trouble that only comes after repeated notifications from the federal government.

Posted in Breaking News | Cherry | federal government | Governor | Granholm | IRS | liberal hypocrisy | Michigan | taxes | Treasury — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:17pm on Mar. 3, 2008 Redstate Roundtable #4: The GOP/Conservative Domestic Agenda 2009-2012

By Neil Stevens

For this week's roundtable, let's discuss what Republicans in general and conservatives in particular should pursue as our top domestic federal legislative priorities over the next four years. Obviously, if McCain is elected, or if the GOP recaptures at least one House of Congress in November, we will have a foothold from which Republicans can propose a legislative agenda of our own. If none of those things happen, we should still consider what our agenda should look like besides (as the late Bill Buckley would say) simply standing athwart Obamania shouting "stop."

Read on for the discussion...

Posted in Earmarks | Medical Care | Policy | Redstate Roundtable | Schools | Social Security | Spending | taxes — Comments (64) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:22am on Mar. 3, 2008 Still working on that "cutting to the bone" thing while Lansing talks new taxes (again)

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

It's no secret that Lansing democrats are hoping to raise our taxes again.  It was only weeks ago that Speaker of the House Andy Dillon told the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association that a lame-duck vote to spike the gas tax was "probable."  The man took a lot of heat for that accidental confession so you know he's enjoyed the thaw these last couple of days, the damage it's caused to the roads and the corresponding action at the State Capitol.

While drivers across the State try and often times fail to dodge some of the biggest pot-holes in recent memory (near record setting snowfall and cold will do that to roads, Al Gore) a group is meeting in Lansing to discuss the future of State funding for roads.  There's no time like the present to find a handful of angry motorists who are willing to charge themselves an extra nine cents a gallon if it means charging every other Michigander hundreds of millions of dollars.  At least that's the way the thinking goes.  

After all, there's still an entire political party full of activists, bloggers, political hacks, elected officials and taxpayer funded public employees who didn't mind the last $2.4 billion tax hike, don't mind the thought of a new $8 billion tax hike on natural gas and electricity and wouldn't mind at all if we chalked up another hundred million here or there to protect their pet political projects and government waste.  

What they constantly hope taxpayers will forget is that money is fungible.  It can be spent on anything.  Similarly, it can be saved from anywhere.  It can be applied, reapplied or, as is often the case under the Capitol dome, misapplied.  

The Lansing State Journal reports:

The state estimates it needs to come up with an extra $320 million a year in order to maintain state-managed roads at their current level. That doesn't take into account the thousands of local roads...

The governor this past month launched a task force designed to figure out how to pay for what needs fixing. And this Wednesday, the County Road Association of Michigan will host its annual meeting in Delta Township, drawing an audience of road experts from every county.

The overall theme is money and how much more must be spent if road maintenance is to keep ahead of decay, according to the association.

Liberals and conservatives, these days, read that last paragraph in two very distinct ways.  The left asks "how much more money" and "how will we raise it?"  Conservatives ask, among other questions, "how much more money" and "where can we save it?"  

They may also ask, "why do Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow continually fail to bring Michigan out of donor status in Washington DC?"  The state with, arguably, the most consistently weather-beaten roads in the nation still only receives about ninety-two cents for every road tax dollar we send to the federal government.  If there's one state that should be above the dollar threshold it's Michigan.  But alas, Senator Levin is apparently too busy readjusting his glasses.  But that's neither here nor there.

The roads are a mess, Democrats want to raise our taxes (again), `probably' plan to hold a vote in November on a gas tax hike, according to Andy Dillon, and Jennifer Granholm is creating task forces and commissions to "study" the problem and release likely-pre-drafted reports telling residents just how bleak the future looks without more "revenues."  She's... ahem... paving the way for another tax increase.  (Ba-dum-CHING!)

While the tax-hike drum beats start again it is important to remember that it isn't a gas-tax-or-nothing proposition.  If the State really does require extra money for road construction and repairs there is an opportunity to find it elsewhere in government through the elimination of wasteful spending.  

As long as Lansing continues to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on items like a fancy new Michigan State Police Headquarters that even MSP said they didn't need and didn't want, on full-time staff for an Office of the First Gentleman, on lifetime welfare benefits for able bodied adults... the list can go on and on... they'll have a hard time convincing anyone that Lansing has a "revenue" problem.  For the love of pete, they just swiped an extra $1.5 BILLION last year alone and that still isn't enough.  

Instead of another taxpayer funded blue ribbon panel on ways to gorge working moms and dads how about Lansing simply examine some of our local units of government who, it turns out, are finding interesting ways to save a little cash themselves.  The Detroit News reports this morning that places like Inkster have saved $10,000 by eliminating nice but unnecessary programs (and they're not the only ones).

So sorry, Santa. Inkster gave you the ax over the holidays. Mayor Hilliard Hampton tapped the Downtown Development Authority to pay for decorations, ending a long tradition of the city footing the bill.

"We made a commitment every season to purchase (the displays), but we haven't been able to do that," Hampton said. "It demonstrates that cities are forced to deal with core responsibilities. Everything else is on the chopping block...

Elected in November, Mayor Jim Fouts nixed a chauffeur who had escorted his predecessor, deploying the driver and shifting the duties to create a mobile mini police station. "It serves as an effective deterrent," Fouts said. "We're making it easier for people to report things to the police and making it more flexible and mobile. It's allowing residents to become familiar with the police."

Savings: $30,000 in overtime cuts.

Imagine how much cash a city like Detroit could save by scaling back the mayoral chauffeur service... or refusing to pay for losses in multi-million dollar lawsuits that find the mayor responsible for illegal firings, perjury and who knows what else.

Would it be nice to pay Kwame's legal bills?  Sure.  Would it be nice to pay for a driver for Jim Fouts?  Of course.  And everyone loves Santa.  It'd be nice if the city could pay for those decorations instead finding others to sponsor the displays.  It'd also be nice if we could buy iPods for every school kid and put a pony in every little girls backyard.  But alas, this is reality.  We just plain can't afford it.  

Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Free Trade | Hillary Clinton | jennifer granholm | Michigan | NAFTA | taxes | UAW | unions — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:47pm on Feb. 29, 2008 Here come the tax hikes

By Neil Stevens

Right on schedule, here come the Democrats and their plans to raise taxes, though even here in California they lack the guts to say it. No, they refer to 'closing loopholes.' Though we all know they think property rights are themselves a loophole if they can get away with it.

Posted at 11:20am on Feb. 22, 2008 Democrats raising taxes again?! Yep.

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

And you thought the Democrats in Lansing were done raising your taxes.  Silly you.  They're may have promised that they were done for this term in office but just like the Governor's promise in 2006 not to raise the sales tax on services, the promise now looks like it was more hot air than anything else.

Let's jump in the way-back machine and revisit December 2007.  Two-plus months after Jennifer Granholm and her cronies in the House and Senate Democrat caucuses (plus Valde Garcia and Ron Jelinek) decided it'd be a smart idea to take $2.4 billion out of a struggling job market suffering under the weight of a single-state recession all of the language and verbiage and promises out of Lansing were that the tax hikes were over.

Posted in Barack Hussein Obama | Breaking News | John McCain | Michigan | tax hike | taxes — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »