The state budget mess should be blamed on the states. – Out of control spending and assuming that the stock market would grow by 20% per year and generate huge capital gain taxes for eternity were stupid maneuvers by the State Rulers, as well as by those in power in DC. 

WELFARE IN THE TAX CODE – Giving people money back that they didn’t pay in is nothing more than income redistribution.

TAX CUTS FOR TAXPAYERS – NY Post Editorial

Among the Tax Cut Losers: Biased Journalists

It’s not ideological, just sound economics – Jack Kemp

Feds’ tax plan is rich in savings

Partisan sniping kills debate on tax credit

DeLay Rebuffs Move to Restore Lost Tax Credit

Middle Class Tax Share Set to Rise

Who’s fudging the budget? – As I’ve always explained, the numbers used by our rulers to describe tax law changes are complete fabrications and have no relationship to real life.  Anyone who claims that they are legitimate is not to be trusted.  

Hooray — budget cuts and no tax increases – Doing things the right way in Texas.

In Defense of the Rich

The Federal Thrift Savings Plan: A Model for Social Security Reform

GOP Chief’s Idea for Raising Alabama: Taxes  – Stupid move

Driving While Intaxicated – In Oregon, fuel efficient cars are making its 24 cents per gallon tax inadequate to cover road maintenance costs, so they are considering using a GPS spy system to monitor how many miles each vehicle drives and add a per-mile charge to the tab when the owner fills up the tank.  Obviously, Big Brother opponents aren’t happy with this new invasion of privacy.  They claim they remove the per gallon tax if this new system is implemented; but that is unlikely.  New taxes aren’t used to replace old taxes.  They are added to existing taxes.

When a tax cut becomes a welfare check  – The Left wants to give $400 per child to people who don’t pay any income taxes.

The Bush stimulus is already driving up the stock market

Prop. 13 – Bruce Bartlett celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Here’s an issue I’ve covered quite often.  Does the First Amendment protect the right of people to publish materials on how to break the law?  Tax protest scammer Irwin Schiff obviously thinks it does; but a judge in Las Vegas doesn’t. 

The legal system is now our enemy  – How our lives have changed, and not for the better, because of the fear of lawsuits. 

Proposition 13 Unraveling

Limits on taxes don’t last forever and can’t survive without constant supervision over the tax and spend fans of big government.  It’s been 25 years since the voters in the PRC set limits on property taxes that had become so bad that people were forced to sell their homes.  Those limits, and their imagined effects on tax revenues, are now right smack in the bull’s eye of PRC rulers desperate for money.  As I mentioned earlier, the power of resentment between neighbors is reaching a breaking point, where new property owners are upset about having to pay current market value property taxes, while their neighbors may be still benefiting from Prop 13 limited taxes.   Some proposals currently being discussed include:

Removing the limits just for commercial property.  While this may seem like a good idea at first, to stick it to the evil businesses, that is very short-sighted, and will just make things much worse for the economy out there on the Left Coast. As anyone who truly understands how businesses works should know, companies don’t ultimately pay taxes. They are nothing more than conduits which will either pass on their increased taxes to their customers or cut costs elsewhere to even things out.  The most likely effect will be for more businesses to relocate out of the control of the evil rulers of the PRC and relocate elsewhere.  Abandonments and sales of commercial properties will have the effect of lowering property values (based on basic supply & demand forces), pushing property tax revenues down again.  Of course, avoiding these consequences requires considering the long-term effects, which is beyond the capability of most elected officials, whose long-term horizon is the next election.          

Tax-cut punch

Naysaying Times.  The paper of record will never throw props to a tax cut. – Of course, given the NY Times’ reputation for fabricating news and printing lies as truth, what good would their endorsing a tax cut do?

Six Important Rules for Real Social Security Reform 

A company that loses money is socially irresponsible – A Peter Drucker classic

Economic Profit Vs. Accounting Profit

Why Smart Managers Do Dumb Things – Motivations for creative accounting tricks.

Give Us Disclosure, Not Audits – There have long been serious problems with the practicality of GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) in audited financial statements as investors try to make reasonable decisions.  This isn’t a new problem by any stretch of the imagination.  I can still recall this as a topic in my early college accounting classes, almost 30 years ago.  One of the biggest surprises when I started learning about accounting is there is no such thing as one way to do things.  GAAP includes a wide range of optional methods that can be used, making a truly useful side by side comparison of different companies’ published financial statements impossible.  I’m sure most people, including many financial planning advisors, are completely unaware of that fact.   

States Use Gimmicks To Tackle Deficits – What’s wrong with this picture?  Our rulers are rewarded with awesome powers and benefits for using “creative accounting” tricks to balance their books; yet those in the private sector who do the same things are prosecuted and sent to the slammer.  It’s just one of the endless examples of the double standards by which we allow our rulers to stay in power.

Rethinking Prop. 13.  Unintended consequences need attention

Debate over Prop. 13 still rages. Benefits are clear at tax time; the cost is harder to see

I always knew that eventually popular sentiment in support of the Prop. 13 limits and methods of reassessing properties would change when there would be enough people paying the much higher market value rates while their neighbors had the lower limited taxes, just because they have been there for several years.  Resentment over someone else’s lower taxes is a natural human tendency in this country.