Obama’s Buffett Rule fails, ALG responds

April 17, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement on a failed vote in the Senate to increase the capital gains tax to 30 percent for anyone who makes more than $1 million a year:

“Now that the Buffett rule has failed to go anywhere, it is time for Congress to enact real reform of the tax code. The irony is that it never occurred to Obama to cut the taxes of Buffett’s secretary. For all the talk of so-called ‘fairness,’ what about flattening the tax code to a lower rate for everybody? What would be fairer is for everyone to pay less. The government’s just going to waste all of our money on boondoggles and bailouts anyway.”

Get permalink here.

Do taxes matter?

By Bill Wilson

$2.59 trillion. That’s how much the Obama Administration anticipates it will collect in taxes in 2012. Another $1.345 trillion will be collected by state and local governments, based on 2011 data by the U.S. Census Bureau.

All together, that’s a whopping $3.935 trillion Americans pay in taxes on an annual basis — or about 24.9 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

In fact the only thing governments do more than tax is spend and borrow. This year alone, the federal government will spend about $3.717 trillion. State and local governments, according to Census, spend about another $3 trillion top of that. $555 billion of that comes from the federal government.

All together, that adds up to about $6.1 trillion of total government expenditures (38 percent of GDP), but only $3.9 trillion of taxes. That means we’re running deficits close to $2.2 trillion — every single year. We’re borrowing even more than that, because of several off-balance sheet liabilities, including certain portions of interest payments.

Therefore, governments are borrowing 36 cents and rising for every dollar they spend.

Much of that money is provided by U.S. financial institutions that purchase U.S. treasuries ($15.6 trillion) and municipal bonds ($3.7 trillion) — a market of government debt that totals $19.3 trillion (122 percent of GDP). Banks in turn get much of their money from the Federal Reserve itself, borrowing at near-zero interest rates, and then purchasing higher yielding government bonds.

So, the government has two sources of revenue: taxes, which are derived from citizens’ painstaking hours of labor, and borrowing an ever increasing sum of money, which is generated in large part by a printing press.

That’s our nation’s finances in a nutshell.

The national debt has increased every single year since 1957 according to the U.S. Treasury. It is never paid back, only refinanced. A debt crisis, such as is being experienced in Europe, is said to be impossible in the U.S. because of our willingness to continue monetizing the debt.

Get full story here.

Happy Tax Day!

Get permalink here.

Earth Day 2012: A Cloaked Celebration of Statism

By Adam Bitely

Each year on April 22, Americans celebrate Earth Day. While the “holiday” is dressed up as a day to preserve the Earth, it serves little more as a day to attack the benefits of capitalism and modern society. Does anyone really know what Earth Day is all about?

Not only is April 22 Earth Day, it is also the Birthday of Vladimir Lenin and the National Day of Communism in the U.S.S.R. Obviously, the latter holidays are less celebrated, but consider that through Earth Day, the spirit of those days lives on.

If you need to be persuaded, consider what Alexander Marriott wrote in Capitalism Magazine about the similarities between a Communist holiday and Earth Day:
Think of the parallels between Lenin and environmentalists. Lenin once said that, “It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.”

Environmentalists second this wholeheartedly when they restrict the ownership and control of private property through the guise of saving the environment. The Endangered Species Act is used voluminously to take the property of anyone if an endangered species is living on it. President Clinton cordoned off thousands upon thousands of acres of land in the form of national parks with the alleged concern of saving the natural resources thereon from development. The federal government now controls nearly forty percent of all land in the continental United States. Lenin’s goal was to destroy private property and this goal is obviously shared by environmentalists.

Marriott is exactly right. The parallels between these holidays are undeniable. And remember, the people that created these holidays share the same worldview as the communists of Soviet Russia. The green zealots of today are nothing more than thieves of private property and promoters of irresponsible government and the regulations that come along with that.

Get full story here.

‘Greenbacks’ energy boondoggles versus real energy

By Paul Driessen

Having had it with $4-per-gallon gasoline and the Obama Administration’s squandering billions of taxpayer dollars on phony “green” energy schemes, angry voters have told their senators “Enough!”

Their calls provided sufficient spinal implants in enough senators to defeat three proposals to extend the wind energy “production tax credit” (PTC). The credit gives wind project developers taxpayer greenbacks whenever they generate high-priced electricity, even if there is no market for the power at the time it’s generated. Worse, the PTC is paid on top of other subsidies, fast-tracking of wind projects through environmental review processes, and exemptions from endangered species, migratory bird and other laws.

Confronted by the gale of public outrage, Senate Democrats tried a new tack.
They offered an amendment that would eliminate various tax deductions for five major oil companies, turn the supposed new revenue stream into more subsidies for wind turbine, solar panel and electric car makers – and use any leftover crumbs to “pay down” the skyrocketing budget deficit they helped engineer.

The ploy needed 60 votes — but got only 51, despite President Obama’s vocal support. “Members of Congress,” the president said, “can stand with big oil companies, or with the American people.”

Not exactly. The American people are no longer buying the partisan rhetoric. They increasingly understand that new taxes and restrictions on oil companies are not in their best interest. In fact, a recent Harris Interactive poll found that over 80 percent of U.S. voters support increased domestic oil and gas production to create and preserve jobs, lower pump prices and increase government revenues.

They realize that only 12 percent of what they pay for gasoline goes to oil companies for refining, marketing and distribution. Another 12 percent is state and federal taxes. Fully 76% is determined by world crude oil prices — and thus by global supply and demand, and confidence or fear about world events.

They know that eliminating tax deductions for expenses incurred in producing and refining oil is the same as imposing new taxes. Those taxes would result in curtailed drilling and production, reduced royalty revenues, worker layoffs, still higher gasoline prices, and increased costs for everything we grow, make, transport and do with petroleum. Blue collar, poor and minority families would be hurt worst.

Get full story here.