American Republic Online

Just a friendly reality check for those believing the lie that Bush’s tax cuts helped the rich and hurt the poor.  Sorry, the numbers don’t lie. We know, sometimes the truth hurts… the liberal world view.

Washington is teeing up “the rich” for a big tax hike next year, as a way to make them “pay their fair share.” Well, the latest IRS data have arrived on who paid what share of income taxes in 2006, and it’s going to be hard for the rich to pay any more than they already do. The data show that the 2003 Bush tax cuts caused what may be the biggest increase in tax payments by the rich in American history.

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he’s going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that’s also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street Journal has a piece that shows that even though food prices are at all time highs, farms are still a great way to spread around some political love:

We can’t wait to hear how Members of Congress explain their vote this week for the new $300 billion farm bill. At a time when Americans are squeezed at the grocery store, they will now see more of their taxes flow to the very farmers profiting from these high food prices.

This year farm income is expected to reach an all-time high of $92.3 billion, an increase of 56% in two years, making growers perhaps the most undeserving welfare recipients in American history. But that won’t stop this bill from passing the House and Senate by wide margins. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was once a farm subsidy skeptic, but she now has some 30 freshman Democrats from battleground rural districts to protect. So more than $10 billion a year in giveaways to agribusiness is a necessary taxpayer sacrifice to keep her majority.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right since leaving the White House the Clintons have sure found a lot of GREEN. They couple’s recently released tax returns show that they have made $109,200,000.00 since 2007. That’s an average of $15.6 Million per year. Which makes you wonder if Hillary has her fingers crossed when gives campaign speeches about how she’s going to stop the evil rich or when she explains how she can empathize with the poor and downtrodden in this country.

Something I’ve always wondered: if the Big Wig Democrats actually believed the things told to the adoring masses, why don’t they donate their own money to the government? I mean it’s a widely held democratic belief that the rich are “bad” and can “afford” to give more of their wealth to the government… so where is the leading by example? I think this question could be asked of any multi-millionaire Democrat, (I’m looking at you Hollywood) but particularly a leader of said political movement. If the government is the best method to more justly/correctly/fairly distribute the money that the rich don’t need to help those that do need…. doesn’t it follow that wealthy politicians (that claim such beliefs) should just give the portion of wealth that they don’t need to the government? I mean sure raise taxes as soon as you can, but you don’t have to wait to help the masses with your money - right? Right?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Bush administration is going to propose new regulations in the financial markets, and propose consolidation of regulatory power.  It is dressed in an “effort to limit Washington’s role in the market.”  But I’m not so sure.  The idea of consolidating power is, not surprisingly, unappealing to me.  This is especially true for an organization such as the Fed that has remained somewhat politically independent to this point.  Indeed, the Fed must be as politically independent as possible.   Can you imagine a room full of politicians deciding (even discussing) the issues faced by the Fed?

Well, what about a Fed that must answer to political posturing?  A Fed that must answer to Congress’ every whim and fancy.  In fact, the Fed is facing this very issue.  John Mauldin fills us in:

Basically, there are two vacant seats on the Fed. President Bush has nominated two very qualified people with distinguished records and backgrounds who have hands-on experience in real-world banking, as opposed to being academicians. These are not political appointments, but serious economists.

[Senator Chris] Dodd refuses to allow these nominations, or any others, to move forward…

Read the rest of this entry »

Hillary’s husband, Bill, recently stated that

“We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

And you know what? He’s right. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (at least to the magical 1990 level everyone favors for some reason), our economy would suffer a serious set-back. Less transportation, less industry, etc. Few have been willing to admit this. Others shrug it off willingly as an easy sacrifice. Although I doubt the majority of people would agree. You see, environmental-consciousness is a luxury of developed societies. When one is struggling to survive for a week, or even a day, issues that might face future generations are pretty low on the to-do list. It’s rather easy to tell someone to live a salt-of-the-earth lifestyle while sitting in air conditioned rooms, next to refrigerators, down the road from grocery stores, benefiting from formal education, etc. Oh wait, the Kyoto Treaty doesn’t force itself on developing countries, only those who can afford the changes. Why not? Because of the harm it would do to their economies. Do the “struggling middle class families that have been walked over by the Republicans” mind if his wife “slows down our economy” to fight global warming? Hmmm….

Tennessee’s very own Senator Corker stands up to Bush’s stimulus package (sorry):

“What I see in this package is nothing but a political stimulus,” said Corker. “It’s a stimulus to make the American people think that we, as a body, are doing something to actually cause the economy to be stronger. “

He’s right. Fiscal stimulus such as that being considered in the Senate have not been proven to help the economy. The only thing they help is re-election campaigns. It’s good to hear some sanity coming from Washington.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a shocking defeat to the world’s friendliest Dictator President, the people of Venezuela voted down Hugo Chavez’s brave new socialistic world. The reforms included:

• ending presidential term limits
• appointing local leaders under a redrawn political map
• ending the central bank’s autonomy
• reduction in the working day to six hours
• creating a social fund for informal workers
• further establishing community councils where residents can decide how to spend government money

Isn’t it great how socialism can promise reduced work and increased spending? It’s magic! The best part, of course, was the brilliant speech by Hugo himself as he provided the political analysis from the state-run TV networks:

“Perhaps I made a mistake in the timing of my proposals, that could be, that we (the people of Venezuela) are not politically mature enough,” he said.

Read the rest of this entry »

The demographic reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new “party of the rich”. More and more Democrats represent areas with a high concentration of wealthy households. Using Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation identified two categories of taxpayers – single filers with incomes of more than $100,000 and married filers with incomes of more than $200,000 – and combined them to discern where the wealthiest Americans live and who represents them.

Democrats now control the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

This new political demography holds true in the House of Representatives, where the leadership of each party hails from different worlds. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, represents one of America’s wealthiest regions. Her San Francisco district has more than 43,700 high-end households. Fewer than 7,000 households in the western Ohio district of House Republican leader John Boehner enjoy this level of affluence…

It should be noted that income and wealth are often confused. Due to the IRS, income data is much easier to come by, but not a reflection of “wealth” or net worth. For instance, you could make $120,000 in southern California and be financially unable to purchase a house. You could also have a net worth north $100 MILLION dollars, but show an IRS income of less than $100k. (Which is actually how we got saddled with the AMT).

Read the rest of this entry »

Disguised as a “fix” for the Alternative Minimum Tax, the Dems have proposed a 4% surcharge on anyone making over $150k ($200k for couples). This coupled with the decision to let the tax cuts that spurred our economy to new records expire (an easy way to raise taxes) means the top bracket for individuals will become 44% in the US. For comparison, the average for developed countries is 35.7%.

Now some of you may say that such wealthy people can afford to give us all their money. Unfortunately, small businesses owners and farmers, often pay taxes as individuals not as businesses (like corporations do). So if you’re out to screw the rich - remember that when the family loses their farm, or the small business down the street has slow customer service because they had to lay off some help to pay the new 9% of taxes.

And it’s actually even worse: the 4% increase is a surcharge not a rate hike. The difference? Surcharges are applied before tax deductions. Got a kid in college? Paying all that mortgage interest? Gave a large donation to Katrina relief? Doesn’t matter… 4% on it ALL.

So on top of punishing the successful, we’re now going to take away their incentive to give money to charity? Though, I guess if we just take even more of their money away it won’t matter if they give to charity ’cause the government can fill that void as well. Well at least until they rich take their money & income to another country to avoid the taxes. 50%, 70%, even 100% of nothing is less that 35% of something. Read the rest of this entry »