Senate Democrats adopted President Obama’s budget today, but, as happened in the House, it had to do it without bi-partisan support. Tax News reports: Not a single Republican in either chamber voted in support of the budget, laying waste to Obama’s ideal of building a bi-partisan consensus for his economic recovery strategy. Seventeen House Democrats also rejected [...]
Tags: News · Tax Policy
“Whats it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? Whats it all about when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more than we give Or are we meant to be kind?” - Burt Bacharach, Alfie - Maybe Andrew Lloyd Webber was right. Telegraph.co.uk reports that British actor Michael Caine, star of [...]
Tags: News · Tax Policy
Welcome to the first issue of The Politics of Taxes. To give readers a feel for how the right and the left see American tax policy, each installment in the series will provide links to articles and blog posts found on both conservative and liberal websites. In this issue we discuss the topic of the Tax Day Tea Parties. From [...]
Tags: Politics of Taxes
The Washington Post in an article titled Obama Defends Push to Cut Tax Deductions for Charitable Gifts reports that, President Obama defends his proposal to cut the tax deductions that wealthy Americans can claim for their charitable donations by arguing that the shift would not have an adverse effect on giving, but two independent analyses [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · Tax Policy
The battle over the proper role of the federal government has raged ever since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson was fearful of an overly powerful central government and Hamilton, ever the federalist, favored a strong federal government. Hamilton believed that the average American was too ignorant to make decisions for himself. He also knew that making the [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · Opinion
Desperate times produce wacky measures. I am watching in real time, our President, Mr. Obama, reiterate his plan to reduce the value (increase the cost) of charitable deductions made by rich people. This is nutty stuff and we have pointed it out before. Every tax deduction (not just charitable deductions) is worth more to a rich [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · News · Tax Policy
The Orlando Sentinel opposes President Obama’s plan to pay for health care reform partly by reducing the value to Americans of gifts made to charitable organizations: Mr. Obama’s budget calls for reducing the value of itemized tax deductions for families earning at least $250,000 starting in 2011, the same year he would allow the Bush tax [...]
Tags: Individual Taxation · Legislative Watch
