Tag Archives: tax cuts

Changing His Tune On Taxes

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The Democrat Party claims to be for the working man, yet when it came time to vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) which cut taxes for the working man, the Democrats in Congress voted against it. Just for the record, the passage of that bill raised federal revenue 3 percent last year. As I have previously reported, “According to the latest “Monthly Treasury Statement,” revenues in FY 2026 came in at just over $5.4 trillion while spending was just under $7.4 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.992 trillion.” But the Democrats are still complaining that the tax cuts increase the deficit–no, the excess spending grows faster than the increased revenue from the tax cuts.

On Saturday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a tax cut Senator Adam Schiff is actually supporting.

The article reports:

A family in Ohio has worked hard and sacrificed for three generations to keep their small-town grocery store in business, serving a community they live in and love.

A billionaire in California who invests some of his money in the movie industry lives in a beachside mansion in Malibu.

For which of these two entrepreneurs would Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., support a tax cut?

It would be the moviemaker.

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act came up in Congress in 2017, The Heritage Foundation published a report summarizing what it would do. “The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the most sweeping update to the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years,” said Heritage’s analysis. “The recently released bill would lower taxes on businesses and individuals and unleash higher wages, more jobs, and untold opportunity through a larger and more dynamic economy.” 

“The framework lowers rates for almost every tax bracket,” said the analysis. “The current seven brackets remain, but with new generally higher income thresholds and lower rates.” 

Schiff, who then served in the House of Representatives, was outraged by the proposal. 

He argued that he was standing up for the little guy and against increasing the federal debt.

“I just voted NO on the Republican tax plan,” Schiff said in a 2017 Facebook post. 

The article concludes:

“A study published just this week found that the share of production spending by U.S. studios on movies that are made primarily or partially in the U.S. declined from 74% to 24% over the last quarter century,” said Schiff. “That is a staggering loss in the industry, but this tax credit, which is a base credit of 20%, with additional 5% credits going up to 30% of a tax credit, is layered upon whatever the state of California or other states do. That is powerful enough for the first time to really bring not just TV production back, but film production back, and all the multiplier impacts that has on the economy.” 

“We’ve got to get this done,” said Schiff. 

So, the opponent of the Trump tax cuts that reduced the tax burden on small family-owned business all across the country now believes that tax cuts—at least for the movie and television industries in Hollywood—can help this nation’s economy. 

Did someone offer him a starring role?

About Those Medicaid Cuts…

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On Tuesday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the ‘Draconian Medicaid cuts’ some Democrats are crying about.

The article reports:

When the Treasury Department released its final budget numbers for fiscal year 2026 on Friday, what little coverage there was focused on the deficit, which came in just a hair’s breadth short of $2 trillion.

But what the “news” media missed was the much bigger story the report told. Namely, that the ongoing claims about “massive” cuts to Medicaid are one big, pre-Ozempic-fat lie.

According to the latest “Monthly Treasury Statement,” revenues in FY 2026 came in at just over $5.4 trillion while spending was just under $7.4 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.992 trillion.

News outlets such as CNN tried to blame Trump’s 2025 tax cuts, saying they are “starting to have an effect.” But revenue this year is up 3% over last year, which is ahead of GDP growth.

On the spending side, most news outlets focused on interest payments on the national debt. But that accounts for only $82 billion of the $385 billion spending increase this year. Where did the rest of it come from.

Most of it was entitlements. Social Security spending was up $86 billion, Medicaid up $76 billion, veterans’ benefits up $39 billion. And, believe it or not, Medicaid.

Yes, Medicaid. You know, the program that Republicans allegedly “slashed” with “draconian” cuts that were going to cause untold horrors. Even now, the media are peddling the claim that Republicans cut Medicaid to the bone, causing hospitals to close and cost thousands of people their lives.

Just for the record, I do not consider Social Security an entitlement. If the government wants it to be an entitlement, it needs to stop collected money for it from working people!

The article includes the following chart:

The article concludes:

Incredible as it might seem, Medicaid spending is projected to be higher under Trump’s “draconian” budget cuts than under Biden through 2031.

It’s only after that, when spending forecasts become completely unreliable, that the spending lines cross the other direction.

And already, spending under Trump is exceeding the CBO’s forecast.

According to the Treasury report, federal Medicaid spending in FY 2026 was $723 billion – which is $15 billion higher than the CBO had projected just seven months ago.

The question the mainstream press should be asking the Trump administration is: Why is Medicaid spending still going up nearly four times the rate of inflation?

Because any time the government gets involved, the cost goes up and the quality of service goes down.

Looking Behind The Curtain

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In approximately six weeks, Americans will go to the polls and vote in the mid-term elections. Spending in the mid-term elections is projected to exceed $1 billion. That is an indication of how important these elections are. Let’s look at some of the people who want the Democrats to win the mid-terms and what the consequences of that victory would be.

The European Union (EU) and Canada want the Democrats to win. There is currently a proposal to make Canada an ‘associate member’ of the European Union. Why would the EU do that? America and its freedom are the only thing standing between the EU and its dream of global dominance. Our current energy prices have a lot more to do with European exchange traders in London than they do with producers. If energy prices can be kept high through early November, those high prices could impact the mid-terms. America’s increased oil production and oil deal with Venezuela may help, but that won’t totally solve the issue.

If the Democrats win the mid-terms, what happens to the war in Iran? Chances are they will end the war without ending Iran’s nuclear program, and the can will be kicked down the road as it has been since 1979. I will predict that if the Democrats win the mid-terms, Iran will have a nuclear weapon within two years.

If the Democrats win the mid-terms, the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill will go away. The price of energy will go even higher as government restrictions are put on drilling, electric plants, etc. There will also be an end to any plans for building more oil refineries in America (refineries that are desperately needed).

If  Democrats win the mid-terms, you can also expect increased attacks on religious freedom. Right now there is a case in Maine where a mother who has custody of her daughter is being denied the right to take her daughter to church. In another state, the Little Sisters of the Poor are currently being sued because they refuse to take part in euthanasia. A daughter has been taken away from her parents in Massachusetts because they did not support her transitioning to a boy. You can expect more support for those things under a Democrat congress.

Today’s Democrat party is not the Democrat party of 1960. Unfortunately, they are not the patriots they used to be–it’s party first, personal glory second, and country third. If you chose to vote for a Democrat candidate in the mid-term elections, you will be denying your children and grandchildren the freedom and opportunities you grew up with.

Ignoring The Root Problem

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According to AI, tax revenues for 2026 are expected to be $5.6 trillion, which is a 6.9% increase from 2025. That should make it obvious that our deficit problem is not due to a lack of revenue, but an overabundance of spending. The basic root of the problem is that those in Washington had decided that the tax revenue is their money and does not belong to the taxpayers. That is one of many reasons they have been so reluctant to find corruption or hold people accountable for it.

On Monday, CNBC posted an article about the looming crisis in America that will be caused by our massive national debt.

The article reports:

  • The U.S. could breach the debt ceiling at some point in 2027. Fixing it could be hard.
  • If Democrats capture one or both chambers of Congress in November’s midterm election, it would open the door to a standoff as the party tries to extract policy wins from Republican President Donald Trump in exchange for averting a bumpy ride over the fiscal cliff.
  • If Democrats win in November, Republican hopes to remedy the issue while they control Congress could also be in trouble, as some in the GOP are already disavowing raising the debt ceiling without accompanying deep spending cuts.

When President Reagan cut taxes, the deficit soared. Why? Because as tax revenues increased, which they did, the Democrats in Congress increased the spending. What we need is for Congress to cut their spending, end the fraud in government programs, use some of the increased revenue to pay down our debt, and refund the taxpayers some of their own money.

The article notes:

Even with the potential leverage, however, some Democrats are taking a cautionary tone on the debt ceiling. Past debt ceiling standoffs, though not ending in default, have harmed the U.S.′ credit standing. Fitch downgraded the U.S. from AAA to AA+ after the last standoff, saying “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management.”

Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said Democrats “always want to consider responsible financing.”

“But I think that we need to remember that the tax cut in 2017 and the tax cut last year, it’s contributing mightily to this problem,” Neal said.

Neal also added the caveat that “playing with this thing is dangerous.”

“We’d have to have an open conversation about it,” Neal said when asked what Democrats would want in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. “I know we don’t want debt default.”

That is spin. The tax cuts have increased revenue–not decreased it.

So Exactly What Has The Trump Administration Accomplished?

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On Thursday, American Greatness posted an article listing the domestic policy accomplishments of the Trump administration from October 2025 to the present.

The major highlight of the list was the One Big Beautiful Bill:

The signature domestic accomplishment of the fall and winter was not a new law, but the rollout of the law already signed—H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which Trump signed on July 4, 2025. Most of its individual-side provisions took effect January 1, 2026, and by the bill’s one-year anniversary the effects were measurable. The law permanently locked in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rates and the doubled standard deduction, which—absent the OBBBA—would have expired at the end of 2025 and triggered a tax increase on most households. The Tax Foundation estimated the average American taxpayer would see a federal tax cut of roughly $3,752 in 2026, with every state benefiting to some degree.

The bill also delivered on specific 2024 campaign promises: no tax on tips (roughly 7 million workers claimed the deduction) and no tax on overtime (28 million claimants), an increased SALT deduction cap, a $6,000 senior deduction, and reform of Medicaid and SNAP.

Other accomplishments:

The Department of Government Efficiency continued its work despite the litigation and congressional friction noted in that earlier article, with claimed savings pushing toward the quarter-trillion-dollar mark and continued federal workforce attrition through hiring freezes, return-to-office mandates, and automation of processes like federal retirement filing. A rescissions package and impoundment actions targeted programs the administration deemed wasteful, while fraud investigations expanded into state-level abuse of federal benefit programs, including a high-profile Minnesota probe.

…HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA Commission moved from its September 2025 strategy document (120-plus initiatives) into implementation. The FDA continued working with industry toward eliminating petroleum-based synthetic dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5 from the food supply by the end of 2026 and is closing the “GRAS loophole” that let food companies self-certify novel additives as safe without FDA review. USDA and HHS released updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasizing whole foods, and the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program (created in the OBBBA) began funding rural hospitals and MAHA-aligned state policy, including support for regenerative agriculture practices.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Other accomplishments mentioned include gaining control of the southern border, appointing judges who believe in the U.S. Constitution, lowering crime in several major cities, and creating a manufacturing boom in America.

Policies Have Consequences

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On Monday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the opposing taxation trends between red states and blue states in America.

The article reports:

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the growing divide between blue and red states when it comes to income taxes. What it failed to mention is that this shows the genius of the nation’s founders.

“Republican-led states are racing each other to flatten, cut, and eliminate individual income taxes, with 23 states lowering their top income-tax rates since 2021,” Richard Rubin and  Jeanne Whalen write.

And, indeed, this year, nine states – all Republican – either cut their top marginal tax rate or lowered their flat tax rate. Ohio became the 14th state to adopt a flat tax.

“Democratic-controlled states are moving the opposite way,” notes the Journal, “pushing to increase taxes on top earners to combat inequality and plug budget holes expected from Republicans’ cuts to federal health and nutrition assistance programs.”

The article includes two graphs that illustrate the result of each of these policies:

The article notes:

The Journal notes that the number of states with top rates below 5% and above 10% have both been increasing.

“The middle ground is quickly disappearing.”

So how is this a good thing? After all, we’ve written many times in this space about the folly of playing the “tax the rich” game.

It’s good news because this is exactly how our system of government is supposed to work. States are free to experiment with their taxing, spending, and regulating policies – and suffer the consequences.

And that’s just what we’ve been seeing. Millions of middle-class Americans are voting with their feet – leaving high-tax “progressive” states for those that keep their government spending in check, regulations to a minimum, and their taxes low.

I guess my husband and I were not the only people to get out of Massachusetts as soon as we could!

More Good Economic News

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On Thursday, CNBC posted an article about the October trade deficit.

The article reports:

  • The U.S. trade deficit six months into President Donald Trump’s tariffs tumbled to its lowest level since mid-2009, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
  • The total was the lowest since the second quarter of 2009 as the U.S. was just coming out of the financial crisis and the Great Recession.

The U.S. trade deficit six months into President Donald Trump’s tariffs tumbled to its lowest level since mid-2009, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

With exports rising and imports falling, the trade shortfall was just $29.4 billion for October, down 39% from the prior month. Exports increased 2.6% while imports slipped 3.2%.

The total was the lowest since the second quarter of 2009 as the U.S. was just coming out of the financial crisis and the Great Recession.

The numbers reflect the trade activity since Trump levied his “liberation day” tariffs in April 2025. Economists and policymakers worried that the levies would work against the U.S. by inviting retaliation and slowing the movement of goods and services around the world. However, Trump has backed off many of the most severe tariff threats he made, and the data shows a strong market for U.S. products.

To be sure, the year-to-date deficit still was 7.7% higher than the same period in 2024.

The article concludes:

“The latest figures suggest firms are successfully doing more with less labor, giving more credence to a jobless expansion,” said Matthew Martin, senior economist at Oxford Economics. “Productivity will be key to determining the economy’s speed limit and inflationary dynamics. If productivity growth continues to accelerate due to tax cuts, deregulation, and technological advancements, including AI, economic growth can pick up without causing unwanted inflation.”

Though hiring has been weak, the Labor Department reported Thursday that layoffs are holding low.

Initial unemployment claims for the week ended Jan. 3 totaled 208,000, pushing the four-week moving average to its lowest since April 27, 2024.

President Trump is a businessman. When our Founding Fathers formed our government, they did not want career politicians. As we have seen, career politicians talk about problems and corruption, but they don’t seem to do anything about them.

The Impact of the National Debt

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

We, the American taxpayers, need to be aware of the soaring national debt; primarily because we will ultimately suffer the consequences of this out-of-control spending. Let’s take a look at the facts. I strongly suggest that you sit down as you read this.

Much of the following data was obtained from the website www.us.debtclock.org as of the end of August 2024. The total debt is currently 35.2 trillion dollars. This debt, by far the highest of any country in history, is increasing at the rate of 1 trillion dollars every three months. This amounts to $268,000 per taxpayer. The debt to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is 122% as compared to 35% in 1980. This is comparable to an individual having a debt that is 122% higher than their total assets and income. The interest alone on the national debt now amounts to 918 billion dollars per year, which is more than the entire military defense budget. This is clearly unsustainable.

The impact of federal spending on inflation is equally alarming. Compared to the year 2000, the price of essentials is truly shocking. For example, the average price of a new home is now $406,000 as compared to $166,000 in the year 2000. New cars now average $49,000 as compared to $22,000; annual healthcare now averages $15,000 as compared to $5,000; college tuition now averages $27,000 per year compared $11,000. Contrast these dramatic increases to the increase in median annual income that is now $39,000 compared to $32,000 in the year 2000. Clearly, the standard of living of the average American, especially the young, has diminished significantly, especially when you add the $268,000 we all owe on the national debt!

As we face the upcoming election, we need to evaluate the impact the Democrat and Republican platforms will have on the national debt and inflation. The Democrat platform, as far as we can tell, includes price controls, $25,000 gifts to first time home buyers, increases in corporate tax rates, allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire, a tax on unrealized capital gains, transferring student loan debt to others, and a wealth tax. History shows that none of these proposals will reduce the national debt or inflation–they will only increase government spending and reduce the incentive of the average person or corporation to invest.  Couple this with the money being spent to support illegal aliens, and the problem only worsens. For example, price controls lead to shortages in supplies and result in price increases. The Republican platform includes efforts to reduce the cost of energy by eliminating costly green energy programs and expanding the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power, reducing excessive government regulations, incentives to increase investments, and returning manufacturing to this country. Decreasing the cost of energy is essential to reducing inflation. The national debt crisis can only be solved by reducing the size of the federal government (e.g. abolishing the federal Department of Education and cutting the budgets of all federal agencies) and growing the economy by encouraging investment.

We have a very clear choice in the upcoming election. The fate of the economic survival of this country is on the ballot. Time to face reality.

More Fact Checkers

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about President Biden’s recent speech on Bidenomics.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden promised a “fundamental break” with “trickle-down economics” in a speech on Wednesday in which he relied on a number of misleading claims to make his point.

Touting “Bidenomics,” the White House’s name for its economic agenda heading into the 2024 race, Biden floated a plan that would involve spending more taxpayer money and boosting union labor.

Here is the fact check on that speech:

“My predecessor enacted the latest iteration of the failed theory. Tax cuts for the wealthy. It wasn’t paid for, and the estimated cost of his tax cut was $2 trillion.”

Former President Donald Trump‘s tax cuts did not benefit only the wealthy, and they didn’t cost the government nearly as much as critics claimed.

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office actually said the government is expected to collect more revenue over the next decade than it had projected before the tax cuts were signed into law.

In fiscal 2018, the first year after Trump signed the tax cuts into law, the federal government actually collected slightly more revenue overall than it had the previous year.

We learned this during the Reagan administration–when you cut taxes, revenue goes up.

The article continues:

“Wind and solar are already significantly cheaper than coal and oil. You’re not going to see anybody building a new coal-fired plant in America — not just because I’d like to pass a law to say that; it’s too expensive.”

One key reason that renewable energy is now cheaper than traditional energy production is because the Biden administration has offered sweeping tax breaks and subsidies to green energy companies.

…“Today, inflation is less than half of what it was a year ago. And that inflation [was] caused by Russia and by the war in Ukraine and by what was going on.”

Inflation still remains significantly higher than before Biden took office, even if it has fallen from the heights of last year.

Before Biden took office, the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, rose 1.4% for 2020.

The CPI climbed 4.9% from April 2022 to April 2023, meaning prices this year are still rising far faster than before Biden’s inauguration.

While inflation was indeed worse last year, with prices jumping by 8.6% between May 2021 and May 2022, it remains a significant problem for many at nearly four times the level it was before Biden’s presidency.

…“When I took office, unemployment was over 6%. With the American Rescue Plan, we provided relief and support directly to working-class families. Our economy came roaring back. Unemployment dipped below 4% by the end of my first year in office.”

Like Biden’s claim about the number of jobs created, this statement is misleading because the unemployment rate was artificially high when he took office.

The unemployment rate had already begun to come down from its high of 14.8% in April 2020 by the time Biden took office.

Ending lockdowns and easing pandemic restrictions were the primary drivers of the unemployment rate’s fall, but Biden opposed both as a presidential candidate.

…“Just in my first two years in office, my team and I reduced the deficit by $1.7 trillion.” 

Biden has previously touted the deficit reduction that occurred on his watch, and it’s been misleading every time.

The national debt grew by $7.8 trillion during Trump’s four years in office.

But much of that occurred in 2020 as a result of emergency pandemic spending.

The deficit at the end of fiscal 2020 was more than triple what it was at the end of fiscal 2019, a result of the massive rescue packages Congress passed to blunt the effects of lockdowns.

…In fact, Biden has pushed for record levels of spending, and he asked Congress for relief funds in 2021 well in excess of what was needed at the time.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

What’s In The Bill

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article listing ten of the pet projects included in the House Democrats’ proposed $3 trillion coronavirus bill. I am posting the list here, please follow the link to the article for details:

1. Repealing parts of the Trump tax cuts.

2. Releasing prisoners

3. Delaying a coronavirus public health corps

4. Tying Trump’s hands on inspectors general

5. Student loan forgiveness

6. “Environmental justice grants”

7. Voting by mail for the 2020 election

8. LGBT training

9. Hate crimes act

10. Perverse incentive unemployment checks

This bill is a nightmare for mainstream America. Repealing the limits on tax deductions for state and local taxes helps rich Democrats in New York, California, New Jersey and Connecticut. It brings back the practice of fiscally responsible states underwriting the spending of fiscally irresponsible states. Releasing prisoners also includes an end to cash bail. We see how well that has worked in New York–crime rates have skyrocketed. (see article here). Voting by mail would enable voter fraud at levels not previously seen.

This bill is being introduced for political purposes. The Democrats know that the Republicans cannot support it. In the 2020 election, the talking point will be that the Republicans blocked the Democrats’ efforts to help people deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus.

It’s a shame that the Democrats who control the House of Representatives couldn’t create a bill that would deal with the issues at hand in an apolitical manner. Unfortunately, that is not the way they do things.

 

 

What Happens If The Trump Tax Cuts Are Repealed?

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece with the following title, “Democrats want to repeal most important part of Trump’s tax cuts.”

I would like to note at this point that according to CNS News:

The federal government set records for both the amount of taxes it collected and the amount of money it spent in the first four months of fiscal 2020 (October through January), according to data released today in the Monthly Treasury Statement.

So revenue has increased under the tax cuts–not decreased.

The piece at The Washington Examiner continues:

Democrats are vowing to repeal the GOP’s 2017 tax reform bill, starting with raising the corporate income tax. The Democrat-controlled House Ways and Means Committee recently held a hearing laying the groundwork for this tax increase, falsely claiming that the corporate rate was lowered at the expense of middle-class families.

Reality belies this rhetoric. The corporate tax reduction from 35% to 21% has benefited families and workers alike by growing the economy, raising wages, and creating new jobs.

It’s no coincidence that, in the two years since the tax cut, unemployment has dropped to a 50-year low. It has hit all-time lows for key demographics including women, African Americans, and Hispanics. Thanks to these pro-growth policies, nearly seven million jobs have been created since Trump took office, and there are now fewer unemployed people than job openings.

Wages have also grown.

Annual hourly earnings have grown by 3% or more in the past 12 months. In fact, real median household income has increased by over $5,000 during Trump’s tenure, according to data released by Sentier Research. In addition to this wage growth, the tax cuts have allowed businesses to expand, hire new workers, and increase pay and benefits.

Savings are also on the rise.

When Trump was elected president, the Dow Jones sat at 18,332. It is now at roughly 29,000, an increase of about 60%. This stock market growth benefits the 100 million 401(k)s, the 46.4 million households that have an individual retirement account, and the nearly $4 trillion in public pension funds, half of which is invested in stocks.

And the Congressional Budget Office has revised revenue up by over $1.2 trillion, 80% of the cost of the tax cuts, due to improving economic conditions since the tax cuts were passed.

You have to wonder why the Democrats would want to undermine an economy that is obviously working for everyone. If federal revenue is at record levels, why would you change things?

The piece concludes:

Utility savings for households are another benefit of the corporate rate reduction. As a direct result of the corporate rate cut, utility companies in all 50 states reduced their prices. That means lower monthly electric, gas, and water bills for households and businesses. If Democrats raise the corporate rate, they will be saddling households with higher utility bills.

The Left won’t stop there, either.

Democrats have proposed trillion-dollar annual tax increases that include payroll tax increases, small-business tax increases, income tax increases, and even an increase in the “death tax.” The fact is, corporate tax cuts have grown the economy, lifted wages, and created more jobs. Democrats would undo these gains and harm middle-class families.

Are the Democrats economically ignorant, or do they simply not care about the impact of their policies on everyday Americans?

The Delusional Candidate

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Yesterday One America News posted an article detailing some recent statements by presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The article reports:

Joe Biden is campaigning to roll back President Trump’s tax cuts. The former vice president made his case Wednesday in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Biden touted his middle class background and announced his intent to hike the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. He claimed the repeal would help the middle class by hitting the wealthy and corporations.

“The wealthy didn’t need [tax cuts] in the first place,” said Biden. “Corporations have spent them on stock buybacks.”

Then Joe Biden claimed that former President Obama is responsible for the current economic success in America:

“Donald Trump inherited a strong economy from Barack and me,” stated the former vice president. “Things were beginning to really move — just like everything else he’s inherited, he’s in the midst of squandering it.”

The article then notes the actual economic facts:

Recent data from the Census Bureau revealed the middle class has experienced an economic boom since President Trump took office. The average family income rose over $5,000 since 2017. Under the Obama administration, household incomes only grew by about $1,000 by the end of eight years.

The main things that increased in the Obama economy were unemployment and the number of people on food stamps. Admittedly, President Obama became President at a difficult economic time, but his policies resulted in the slowest and leanest economic recovery in American history. President Trump’s economic policies have resulted in economic growth in all segments of the economy. The middle class and all minorities are enjoying higher wages and more jobs. A return to the economic policies of President Obama would be a step backward–not a step forward.

Good Economic News For Americans

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According to Investopedia:

A FICO score is a type of credit score created by the Fair Isaac Corporation. Lenders use borrowers’ FICO scores along with other details on borrowers’ credit reports to assess credit risk and determine whether to extend credit. FICO scores take into account various factors in five areas to determine creditworthiness: payment history, current level of indebtedness, types of credit used, length of credit history, and new credit accounts.

Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about how the Trump economic policies have impacted the FICO scores of Americans.

The article reports:

Americans’ average FICO score has hit an all-time high of 706 on the personal credit rating scale. Ethan Dornhelm, the vice president for scores and analytics at FICO, told CBS News that a score of more than 700 basically qualifies individuals for just about any credit at favorable terms.

FICO scores range from 300 to 850. A score above 700 is considered great, and a score above 760 is considered excellent. This high national credit score may be largely attributed to the strong economy, with its historically low unemployment rate, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“This record-long stretch of economic growth has helped minimize reliance on debt to pay the bills,” said Joel Griffith, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “Low interest rates help ensure a greater portion of loan payment goes to paying down principal rather than merely making interest payments.”

Creditworthiness is now increasing, which means Americans have the ability to rely on their paychecks, not just borrowing from their futures, to fulfill their financial obligations.

Americans’ average FICO score hit a low during the financial downturn of 2008, with a score of 686. After the recession passed, the nation’s average FICO score continuously grew.

Is giving Americans more access to larger lines of credit such a good thing? According to Griffith and Federal Reserve Bank data, U.S. household debt is also declining. Even now that Americans are able to take on more debt, they are not. They’re paying off their credit cards and increasingly lowering their other debt.

Unfortunately, this national accomplishment has not been a topic discussed among 2020 Democratic nominees. Why have the Democratic presidential candidates shied away from talking about the economy? Because, they call for an economy that “works for everyone,” when the current system is working for more people than ever before.

A Gallup poll shows that 88 percent of Americans believe the current U.S. economy is either “fair,” “good,” or “excellent.” That’s because this economy has provided 5.1 million new jobs and dropped the unemployment rate to 3.7 percent — the lowest rate in nearly half a century.

Leadership and economic policies make a difference to ALL Americans. The tax cuts and economic policies of President Trump have ‘worked for everyone.’ The government cannot create an economy the ‘works for everyone’ by taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who did not earn it. An economy  that ‘works for everyone’ is created when everyone has the opportunity to find a job or start a company and create their own success.

The Arrival Of Robin Hood

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Remember teaching your children that money doesn’t grow on trees and that they have to earn it? Evidently some of our members of Congress never learned that lesson.

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some recent statements made by Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Minnesota.

The article reports:

Far-left “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) spoke at the NAACP convention over the weekend and railed against the GOP tax cuts in a pitch for her anti-poverty BOOST Act, promising to take money from the rich and give it “back to the people that earned it.”

Tlaib introduced her anti-poverty legislation – the Building Our Opportunities to Survive and Thrive (BOOST) Act – last month and spoke about it at the NAACP convention over the weekend. The proposal offers a guaranteed income – up to $6,000 per year – to families and individuals under certain financial thresholds via a “refundable tax credit that can be paid monthly.”

The Michigan lawmaker’s BOOST Act serves as her response to what she calls the “GOP Tax Scam,” despite the fact that two-thirds of Americans will pay less in taxes in 2018, thanks to the tax cuts.

“Recently, I introduced the Boost Act. This legislation completely repeals the GOP Tax Scam that is only helping wealthy individuals – the rich, the corporations,” she told the crowd.

“And do you know what I did with that money? Do you know what I said? We’re going to go ahead and put it in the pockets of folks like everyday Americans,” she said, noting that families making less than $100,000 could get up to $6,000 per year.

Taking the moral route, Tlaib said it is important to give money back to the people who actually “earned” it, suggesting that wealthy individuals do not earn or deserve to keep the fruits of their labor.

 I guess the Democrats have decided that class warfare works better than racism. Their playbook is getting very old.

The article notes the impact of the GOP tax cuts:

The economy has seen a boost from the GOP tax cuts, with companies issuing employee bonuses and announcing plans to invest billions in the U.S., thereby providing thousands of new jobs.

Last year, Exxon Mobil announced that it would invest $50 billion in the U.S. economy, adding 12,000 new jobs, thanks to the GOP tax cuts.

Even Starbucks, a notoriously left-leaning company, used millions of its corporate tax cut to raise the wage for existing workers.

Under Tlaib’s economic plan, the people who would benefit are the people who are not working; and the people who would lose are the people who work for a living. How long would it be before those who are working to give those who don’t work a free ride would see the folly of their ways and quit producing? That’s where socialism always winds up.

The Economy Is Humming Along

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CNBC is reporting today that the economic news for April is very good.

The article reports:

The U.S. jobs machine kept humming along in April, adding a robust 263,000 new hires while the unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, the lowest in a generation, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payroll growth easily beat Wall Street expectations of 190,000 and a 3.8% jobless rate.

Average hourly earnings growth held at 3.2% over the past year, a notch below Dow Jones estimates of 3.3%. The monthly gain was 0.2%, below the expected 0.3% increase, bringing the average to $27.77. The average work week also dropped 0.1 hours to 34.4 hours.

Unemployment was last this low in December 1969 when it hit 3.5%. At a time when many economists see a tight labor market, big job growth continues as the economic expansion is just a few months away from being the longest in history.

The growth in the economy is the result of economic policies put in place by President Trump–tax cuts, revised trade deals, cuts to regulations, and generally making the economy more welcoming to companies who want to do business in America.

The article concludes:

GDP increased 3.2% during the first quarter, far exceeding expectations, while productivity during the quarter jumped 3.6% for its best gain in five years. Pending home sales rose 3.8% in March, providing some hope in the real estate market so long as rates are held in check.

Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve held the line on its benchmark interest rate, characterizing economic growth as solid even as inflation remains tame. The central bank watches metrics like the nonfarm payrolls report closely for clues both on job creation and wage pressures.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said current indications point to a prolonged period of holding pat on increases or decreases in rates. President Donald Trump has said he wants the Fed to cut rates by a full percentage point.

The economy plays a big role in deciding elections. None of the policies espoused by the current group of Democrat Presidential candidates for 2020 will continue this economic growth.

The Trump Tax Cuts

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The following is a graph from a New York Times article of April 14th:

The article notes:

To a large degree, the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.

That effort began in the fall of 2017, when Republicans prepared to introduce legislation that models by the independent Tax Policy Center predicted could raise taxes on nearly a third of middle-class taxpayers. It continued through Mr. Trump’s signing of the law, even though the group’s models showed that the revised bill would raise taxes on relatively few in the middle class in the 2018 tax year.

The only thing missing from the article is The New York Times taking some responsibility for what is illustrated by the chart.

It gets even more interesting. The article also includes this chart:

This might be a reflection of the news sources the Democrats choose versus the news sources the Republicans choose. It illustrates the fact that much of what is being reported in major news sources is simply not true. Much of the mainstream media is doing a disservice to the people who choose to watch it.

Comparing Apples To Apples

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Most of us understand that the media is biased and slants its articles accordingly. The challenge for voters is to look past the obvious to make sure what they are reading is actually true. One recent example of misrepresenting a basic fact is the way the Trump tax cuts are being reported.

On February 13th The Daily Signal posted an article illustrating the fake news regarding the tax cuts.

The article includes the following tweet:

The article explains the problem with her statement:

This is simply the latest episode in a long-running campaign to demagogue tax cuts that let the vast majority of Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.

Some of the biggest cuts are actually being enjoyed by the lowest-income Americans. A typical family of four got a $2,917 tax cut this year.

…So what’s the complaint about?

In an early sample of tax returns, the IRS has reported that average refunds are down $170 from last year and that they hadn’t changed much from 2017, the year before.

But this is not relevant, for two reasons.

First, the sample of tax returns cited by the IRS is very small, and some analysts expect refunds will actually go up this year.

But second, and more importantly, tax refunds have nothing to do with the size of anyone’s tax cut. A refund is what you get back if you’ve paid too much in taxes throughout the year. Your tax cut is the drop in total taxes you owed to Uncle Sam last year. The two are not connected.

Employers across the country already gave us our tax cuts by withholding less money from our paychecks every pay period. Americans saw a bump to their paychecks in February 2018.

Of course, withholding is never perfectly accurate, so your refund or tax payment at the end of the year is simply a last-minute adjustment. But that refund does not cancel out the overall bump in take-home pay due to the tax cut.

Do you remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the tax cuts “monumental, brazen theft,” or when former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the tax cuts would kill 10,000 people every year? This most recent round of hysteria is just more of the same.

Be prepared for more false stories as the 2020 election grows closer.

This Is How You Actually Help Middle-Class Families

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On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial with the title, “Trump Delivers For Workers … After Years Of Empty Obama Promises.” The editorial cites the latest jobs report and explains how that excellent report is the result of President Trump’s economic policies. The first thing to remember here is that President Trump is a businessman–not a politician (although he has a very fast learning curve). His approach to government seems to be very similar to that of a businessman–what is the most efficient way to solve a problem? There are those in Washington who do not welcome this approach.

The editorial reminds us:

The 304,000 gain in jobs reported by the Labor Department was nearly twice the consensus estimate. And it comes after December’s expectation-busting gains.

There’s more. The jobs picture is so strong right now that it’s pulling people in who’ve been sitting on the sidelines.

In fact, for the first time in more than 20 years, the number of people who are out of the labor force — those without jobs and not looking — shrank by 647,000 over the past 12 months. So many people are returning to the labor force that the official unemployment rate is going up, even as the job market booms.

This comes, mind you, at a time when baby boomers are retiring en masse. Under Obama, in contrast, the number of labor force dropouts exploded by 14.4 million.

The latest numbers also underscore a point we’ve been making in this space for months — that all the talk of a tight labor market overlooked the vast pool of idle workers during the Obama years.

The editorial concludes:

Other evidence of this turnaround came earlier in the week, when the Labor Dept reported that private sector wages and salaries climbed 3% last year — the biggest annual increase in a decade. Under Obama, private sector wage gains averaged just 2%.

Why Now?

So why now, this late in the game?

The answer is simple. At least to those not blinded by partisanship or economic ideology.

For eight years, Obama kept promising “bottom-up growth,” while telling the country that tax cuts and deregulation would only benefit the rich. But his policies — Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, higher taxes, a regulatory tsunami — produced economic stagnation. As it always does, that stagnation hurt the working class most.

Trump went in the opposite direction. His pro-growth tax cuts, deregulatory campaign and pro-energy policies fueled huge increases in economic optimism and turbocharged the economy. And now we’re seeing real job growth and strong wage gains for the first time in more than a decade.

You tell us which approach is proving more worker friendly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Republicans and Democrats could work together to insure the continuation of this economic growth?

It Really Is The Spending

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The following graph was posted at The Washington Examiner yesterday:

The article notes:

As shown in the chart below, in the 50 years prior to the effective date of the Trump tax cuts (1968-2017), tax revenue averaged 17.4 percent of gross domestic product, while spending averaged 20.3 percent. With the Trump tax cuts in place, revenue is below the historical average for the next few years, but by the middle of the decade, it returns to that average and then surpasses it as some provisions of the tax cut begin to expire. By 2029, the end of the CBO projection period, revenue reaches 18.3 percent — or nearly one point of GDP above its historical average.

We need some serious budget-cutting in Washington. It is time for baseline budgeting to stop. Department budgets need to start from scratch and justify every penny.

Killing A Growing Economy One Law At A Time

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On January 4th, Investor’s Business Daily reported:

Since President Donald Trump took office nearly two years ago, some 4.8 million new payroll jobs have been created. That’s more than four times as many as created during President Obama’s first four years.

Hold on, you say, didn’t the unemployment rate jump from 3.7% to 3.9%? It did. Yes, but not because more people were unemployed, but because more people entered the labor force, seeking opportunities that didn’t exist before.

It’s actually a bullish sign. Some 419,000 people entered the workforce during the month, driving the labor force participation rate to 63.1%, up from 62.7% a year ago. That bellwether employment figure declined pretty consistently during the job-poor Obama years, from 65.7% when Obama entered office to 62.9% when he left. It stabilized under Trump. Last month’s 63.1% tied for the highest point since September 2013.

This rapidly improving economy is the result of President Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts. Cutting the corporate taxes and regulations resulted in manufacturing jobs returning to America (after President Obama told us they were never coming back). So why is the Democrat House of Representatives trying to undo this progress?

The Hill reported yesterday:

Rep. John Yarmuth, the new House Budget chairman, said his chamber’s budget blueprint will aim to claw back lost revenue by boosting the corporate tax rate from its current 21 percent to as high as 28 percent, with rate increases also possible for high-earning individuals.

The Kentucky Democrat said Friday he wants to mark up a fiscal 2020 budget resolution, which will outline his party’s vision for taxes and spending over the next decade, in time to reach the House floor in early April. Yarmuth said Democratic leaders have told him they want to be ready so they can set the procedural stage for passage of all 12 appropriations bills before the August recess.

Are they simply economically badly informed or is there another motive? Well first I would like to mention my favorite Milton Friedman quote, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” I think there are two forces at work here–first of all the Democrats love taxes. They believe that the more of everyone else’s money they have to spend, the more powerful they are. Second of all, Democrats with brains realize that increasing taxes will slow economic growth. Slowing the Trump economy is the only chance the Democrats have of taking the presidency in 2020. That is the plan. Hopefully the Senate will not pass the House of Representative’s budget plans. They will be harmful to average Americans. President Trump has helped average Americans economically. President Obama helped Wall Street but ignored Main Street. The House Democrats seem determined to go back to that model which ignored average Americans.

The Real Numbers

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the federal deficit and federal revenues. The numbers tell a very different story than the one the media would have you believe.

The editorial reports:

The latest monthly budget report from the Congressional Budget Office shows the deficit jumping $102 billion in just the first two months of the new fiscal year.

…A true apples-to-apples comparison, the CBO says, shows that the deficit climbed by just $13 billion.

So, no, the deficit is not soaring.

The editorial explains:

In fact, the CBO report shows that overall tax revenues climbed by $14 billion in the first two months of the year, compared with the same months last year. Which means they continue to hit new highs.

The CBO report shows that combined income and payroll taxes were the same in the first two months of the new fiscal year as they were last year. That’s even though far less money was withheld from paychecks thanks to the Trump tax cuts.

It also found that corporate income taxes went up by $5 billion. That’s despite the “massive corporate tax giveaway” that Democrats want to repeal.

Why are these revenues flat or up? Simple: The tax cuts help spur accelerated economic growth, which create jobs and spark income gains. More workers and higher wages mean more tax revenues. On the corporate side, a bigger economy means more profits, which even when taxed at lower rates can produce more revenue. This is exactly what advocates of Trump’s pro-growth tax cuts said would happen.

Meanwhile, revenue from “other sources” climbed by $8 billion. (To be clear, at least some of that $8 billion came from the re-imposition of ObamaCare’s nefarious tax on insurance premiums, which Congress had suspended the year before.)

But while revenues climbed by $14 billion, spending in the first two months of the new fiscal year climbed by $27 billion.

The obvious solution to the deficit problem is to limit spending. If we can’t agree on that, we could lower taxes again to increase revenue further, but I suspect that would really cause some Congressional heads to explode.

The Economy Under President Trump

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I am not an economist, but I have learned over the years to listen to the people with the best track records on analysis. One of those people is Stephen Moore, who posted an article at The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

The article reports:

Liberals are tripping over themselves to explain why the economy has performed so much better under Donald Trump than it did under Barack Obama. The economy has grown by nearly 4% over the past six months, and the final number for 2018 is expected to come in at between 3% and 3.5%. The U.S. growth rate has doubled since Mr. Obama’s last year in office.

When Mr. Trump was elected, many Democratic pundits predicted an economic and stock-market meltdown. Then the economy started surging and they abruptly changed their tune, arguing that Mr. Trump was simply riding a global growth wave. That narrative was shattered when U.S. growth kept steaming ahead even as global growth—especially in China and Germany—stalled.

The people who predicted an economic crash if President Trump was elected are now saying that the tax cuts have given us a ‘sugar high’, and the market will crash when the sugar wears off. That makes about as much sense as President Obama taking credit for the move toward American energy independence.

The article continues:

The real contradiction in the “sugar high” argument is that it ignores the slow growth of the Obama years, which featured an avalanche of debt spending. Deficits as a share of GDP were 9.8% in 2009, 8.6% in 2010, 8.3% in 2011 and 6.7% in 2012. Where was the sugar high then? Instead of the expected burst in output coming out of the 2008-09 recession, borrowing more than $1 trillion a year for four years yielded the worst recovery since the Great Depression. Even excluding 2009, Mr. Obama’s deficits averaged more than 5% of GDP throughout the rest of his presidency but produced less growth than Mr. Trump has with lower deficits.

This wasn’t what Keynesians expected. Mr. Obama’s economic team predicted 4% growth every year coming out of the recession. Instead the “sugar high” from record peacetime deficits produced measly 2% growth. By 2016 GDP was running about $2 trillion below the trend line of a normal recovery.

The fastest growth rate over the past three decades was recorded in Bill Clinton’s second term, when federal government spending fell from 21.5% to 18% of GDP and deficits disappeared into surpluses. So much for the idea that deficit spending is a stimulant.

Mr. Trump’s fiscal policies have produced more growth than Mr. Obama’s because they were designed to incentivize businesses to invest, hire and produce more here at home. The Obama “stimulus,” by contrast, went for food stamps, unemployment benefits, ObamaCare subsidies, “cash for clunkers” and failed green energy handouts.

The article concludes:

Those pushing the “sugar high” fallacy also don’t realize that the Trump tax cuts aren’t going away soon. The 2017 business tax cuts can’t cause a recession in 2019 or 2020 because they don’t expire until 2025. They aren’t sugar pills.

The biggest threats to the economic boom and financial markets today are a deflationary Federal Reserve and the specter of a global trade war. Solve those problems and the American economy can keep flying high on its own power. And Mr. Trump’s critics will be proved wrong again.

When you decrease taxes and regulations on businesses, we all gain. That combination, if allowed to continue, will bring us continued economic growth.

How Cutting Taxes Creates Revenue

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On November 16th, Hot Air posted an article about the impact of the Trump tax cuts on government revenue. As I am sure you remember, the Democrats called the tax cuts on individuals ‘crumbs’ and swore that the tax cuts would bankrupt the country. Well, that’s not exactly what happened.

The article reports:

Unemployment is at an historic low. Employment is at an all-time high. Wagers are growing after years of stagnation.

And now from all that increased economic activity, the federal government has just reported historic record tax revenues in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, of $252,692,000,000.

That’s more than $11.4 billion above revenue for October of last year, which was the previous record tax revenue for an October.

And it did this by collecting more than $3 billion less in personal income taxes, thanks to the tax cuts.

The new revenues were the result of increased business taxes because of increased business. Here’s how much different it was:

Corporation income tax receipts to the U.S. Treasury this year in October were a whopping $8,000,000,000. This compares to the previous October’s $3.8 billion.

Despite the record tax revenues in October, the federal government ran a deficit of $100.5 billion that month because, spending. That’s a problem that newly-elected members of Congress such as Indiana’s senator-elect Mike Braun, a businessman, said would be a major target in 2019.

The thing to remember here is that as unemployment decreases, government spending should also decrease. Unfortunately Congress did not get the message. Our problem is not the revenue–the problem is the spending. If either party were serious about curbing government spending, it would have been done by now. Obviously they are not. There are a few members of the Republican party who have been trying to put the brakes on runaway spending for years, but they are either not trying very hard or they are ineffective. At any rate, we need to elect Congressmen (regardless of party) who will pledge to bring the spending under control. It does no good to increase the revenue if the spending increases right along with it.

Putting Politics Before The Welfare Of Americans

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the coming Congressional session. The title of the editorial is, “Market Turmoil Shows Why Trump’s Pro-Growth Policies Must Continue.”

The editorial explains:

Kudlow (President Trump’s top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow) tried to calm the waters. “Corrections come and go,” he told reporters at the White House. “I’m reading some of the weirdest stuff how a recession is in the future. Nonsense. Recession is so far in the distance I can’t see it. Keep the faith. It’s a very strong economy.”

Let’s be clear. Economic forecasts have been overly pessimistic for most of the Trump administration, with actual results consistently coming in “unexpectedly” higher than forecast. And Kudlow is right. There’s no sign of a recession on the horizon.

The editorial points out the indications of a strong economy and the steps needed to keep it strong:

Unemployment is at 50-year lows. Wages are growing at the fastest rate since the financial crisis. There are a million more job listings than officially unemployed people. Productivity grew 2.2% in the third quarter, after jumping 3% in the second quarter — the fastest growth rate in four years. Small business optimism and the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index remains at record highs.

After eight long years of sluggish growth under President Obama, the economy has been booming.

Still, the Fed has been raising interest rates, and as we’ve pointed out repeatedly in this space, the risk is always that they will go too far, too fast, and crash the economy. The trade war with China is taking its toll. And the economic expansion is old. The last recession ended 113 months ago, making this the second longest in the post-World War II era.

Which is all the more reason for the federal government to continue wringing every bit of growth-inhibiting policies out of the system. For his part, Trump needs to get a trade deal in place with China when he meets with President Xi Jinping at a G-20 summit later this month. And he needs to continue to deregulate where he can.

Unfortunately the Democrats in Congress have little interest in continuing the policies that have resulted in the current economic growth. They will make every effort to roll back the tax cuts and increase the size and spending of the federal government. Hopefully their efforts will not be successful.

The Problem With Taxes In America

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Walter Williams, a professor of economics at George Mason University, posted an article at The Daily Wire today about taxes.

Professor Williams noted a few things about taxes in America:

The argument that tax cuts reduce federal revenues can be disposed of quite easily. According to the Congressional Budget Office, revenues from federal income taxes were $76 billion higher in the first half of this year than they were in the first half of 2017. The Treasury Department says it expects that federal revenues will continue to exceed last year’s for the rest of 2018. Despite record federal revenues, 2018 will see a massive deficit, perhaps topping $1 trillion. Our massive deficit is a result not of tax cuts but of profligate congressional spending that outruns rising tax revenues. Grossly false statements about tax cuts’ reducing revenue should be put to rest in the wake of federal revenue increases seen with tax cuts during the Kennedy, Reagan and Trump administrations.

A very disturbing and mostly ignored issue is how absence of skin in the game negatively impacts the political arena. It turns out that 45 percent of American households, nearly 78 million individuals, have no federal income tax obligation. That poses a serious political problem. Americans with no federal income tax obligation become natural constituencies for big-spending politicians. After all, if one doesn’t pay federal income taxes, what does he care about big spending? Also, if one doesn’t pay federal taxes, why should he be happy about a tax cut? What’s in it for him? In fact, those with no skin in the game might see tax cuts as a threat to their handout programs.  (The underline is mine.)

The above information might explain why Democrats keep getting elected despite their overtaxation and reckless spending (yes, I know the Republicans also overspend).

The article concludes:

Another part of the Trump tax cuts was with corporate income — lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. That, too, has been condemned by the left as a tax cut for the rich. But corporations do not pay taxes. Why? Corporations are legal fictions. Only people pay taxes. If a tax is levied on a corporation, it will have one or more of the following responses in order to remain in business. It will raise the price of its product, lower its dividends to shareholders and/or lay off workers. Thus, only flesh-and-blood people pay taxes. We can think of corporations as tax collectors. Politicians love our ignorance about this. They suggest that corporations, not people, will be taxed. Here’s how to see through this charade: Suppose a politician told you, as a homeowner, “I’m not going to tax you. I’m going to tax your land.” I hope you wouldn’t fall for that jive. Land doesn’t pay taxes.

Getting back to skin in the game, sometimes I wonder whether one should be allowed in the game if he doesn’t have any skin in it.

It’s time to insure that everyone has some tax burden so that they will consider that burden when they vote.