With the unnecessarily painful rhetoric surrounding the U.S. "debt ceiling" subdued we can turn our attention to the revenue increases and spending cuts needed to lower annual fiscal deficits. Spending cuts are a matter of debate (will a government-funded midnight basketball league keep youths off the streets and, thus, lower petty crimes such as vandalism?) [...]
With today's noontime Senate vote providing a veto-proof majority President Obama is sure to sign into law legislation to extend the U.S. debt ceiling. Crisis averted - for now. Next up on the agenda needs to be true reform to restructure an unsound and inefficient economy. Credible plans are needed but where will they come [...]
Recently introduced legislation by Senators Carl Levin (Democrat - Michigan) and Sherrod Brown (Democrat - Ohio) would end the ability for corporations to deduct stock option expenses from their taxable income at amounts greater than those reported on their financial statements. Sounds fair, right? Read on. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation the measure known as "The Ending Excessive Corporate [...]
Step 1: Dig hole in sand. Step 2: Bend over and insert head. As the fight over raising the debt ceiling rages on the rhetoric becomes more inflexible - and stupid! Recently Congressional leadership on the Democratic side of the aisle proclaimed entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have nothing to do [...]
If your cell phone bill has reached the stratosphere it's likely because your teenager is addicted to text messaging. Thanks to texts we're not only paying astronomical fees to communicate we're regrettably learning new "words." Our kids have introduced us to a new language - one where we are happy to LOL, ROFL and LMAO [...]
A nice supporting article to our June 3rd post ("You Call This Change?") is available in today's Wall Street Journal. David Skeel, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, builds on the points we made about the GM/Chrysler bailout charade by tackling the long-term impact of government intervention on politically sensitive industries.
For everyone who's ever accused us of being a shill for the Republicans get ready to fire off an angry e-mail because we're about to blast the Orator in Chief: Partisan politics in this country being what they are we're told the paternalistic Democrats look out for the little guy while evil Republicans care only [...]
Here's what's making the rounds on Capitol Hill: Taxes: Representative Jan Schakowsky (Democrat - Illinois) introduced HR 1124 - a measure that, if enacted, would institute new and higher income tax brackets for Americans earning more than $1 million. Those earning between $1 million and $10 million would pay a confiscatory 45% while those making $1 billion [...]
A wonderful opinion piece appeared on Bloomberg a couple of days ago with an interesting perspective on entitlements and how to pay for them. It's a quick read worthy of a couple of minutes out of the day. Click here to read the op-ed.
Lately we've heard a great deal about the aggregate level of Federal debt. At just north of $14,000,000,000,000 (yes, that's trillion with a "T") we're lookin' at a whole lot o' zeros! Concerns are plenty. Is the debt too high? Is it crowding out private investment? How will we afford the interest payments? Is it [...]