THE TAX CODE, BY THE NUMBERS: “According to the Tax Foundation, the tax code now comprises 67,200 pages. It takes the average taxpayer 24 hours a year to do his or her taxes, and the average small business spends 52 man-hours a week on taxes. Many businesses now correctly complain that the cost of complying with the income tax is higher than the cost of actually paying their taxes — and that’s not counting the cost of a potential audit.” - Stephen Moore, Political Diary, 4/15/08
“An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation.”
- Columnist Thomas Sowell
ABOUT TIME
“After five years, Republican and Democrats seem to have found common ground on at least one aspect of the war. From the fiercest war foes to the most steadfast Bush supporters, they are looking at Iraq’s surging oil income and saying Baghdad should start picking up the tab, particularly for rebuilding hospitals, roads power lines and the rest of the shattered country. . . . (One) bill would restrict future reconstruction dollars to loans instead of grants. (It) also would require that Baghdad pay for the fuel used by American troops and take over U.S. payment to predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement.”
- Associated Press, 4/15/08
W WARMS UP TO GLOBAL WARMING
“Having betrayed Republicans on all other key issues from education to immigration, the announcement that George W. Bush intends to introduce global warming legislation should come as no surprise. The Washington Times on Monday reported that ‘President Bush is poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include.’ Republican members of Congress, briefed last week, told the administration that they thought the White House was making a mistake.”
- Columnist Alan Caruba
HOME PLAN LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED
“Unfortunately, (Sen. John) McCain’s HOME plan puts American taxpayers on the hook for new government-backed mortgages to homeowners who made poor decisions. Though McCain declared his aversion to government bailouts just a week ago, this new plan is exactly that. Furthermore, the HOME plan appears to give government the right to rewrite contractual agreements between lenders and borrowers, a measure that would surely undermine confidence in American contracts in general and result in further contraction in available credit.”
- Club for Growth President Pat Toomey
THE VOLUNTARY CLINTON SURTAX
“The Clintons can set an example by giving back to the community a little more of that $109 million they’ve collected. We could call this initiative the Voluntary Clinton Surtax (VCS). Who should pay this surtax? Ideally, everybody. But those who (a) opposed the Bush tax cuts; or (b) claim Americans are under-taxed; or (c) complain about ‘tax cuts for the rich’; or (d) pine for new spending programs; or (e) or say tax cuts are selfish should lead the way. In fact, a good rule of thumb would be: the more categories that apply to you, the higher your VCS. You’ve always wanted to put your money where your mouth is. Now you can!”
- Doug Bandow, Vice President of Policy at Citizen Outreach, American Spectator, 4/15/08
REPEAL THE 16TH
“The income tax does more than take too much of our money. It violates too much of our privacy and sacrifices too much of our freedom. . . . Simplification requires scrapping the income tax, allowing Congress to eliminate the IRS and all of its intrusive enforcement practices. One vehicle for doing so would be a plan similar to the so-called ‘Fair Tax,’ which would replace the income tax with a sales tax.
“But the exact details are less important than the principle: we must replace the personal income tax, which opens every Americans’ life to government scrutiny, with a consumption tax, which is much simpler to administer. At the same time we must repeal the 16th Amendment to ensure that no future Congress re-imposes a levy on Americans’ personal incomes while taxing their purchases.”
- Former Rep. Bob Barr
ENGLISH, SI!
“Georgia Rep. Paul Broun has introduced legislation (H.R. 5759) to make English the official language of the United States. As Broun notes in a “Dear Colleague’ letter, ‘America’s genius has always been assimilation, taking legal immigrants and turning them into American citizens. The key to assimilation, of course, is a shared language. Large-scale immigration without effective assimilation threatens social cohesion and Americas shared values.’ Broun is now working to get other congressmen to sign on as co-sponsors of his bill.”
- Bobby Eberle, The Loft, 4/15/08
THE OINK REPORT
Our good friends over at the Oink Report sometimes wonder if their day-in, day-out exposure of government corruption and waste doesn’t sometimes get a little depressing for our readers. Especially around tax time as we all contemplate what much of this waste and corruption is costing us. So it does give us pleasure this tax day to show you that there are actually some good guys in Government who are trying to make things better, even if at times it all feels a little futile. Read all about it HERE
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“I think it was my father (about 35 years ago) who told me that you cannot be both a professional and a union member. If nurses and school teachers insist on being unionized, they need to shut up about being ‘professionals’.”
- News & Views reader Ken Hoppe
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National
With mostly well-to-do people in Congress who hide their money through the rules on the 67,000+ pages, tell me, honestly, do you really believe they will ever give up their way to greater riches? Answer so.
Bush is going to support legislation to combat global warming? Such a law will be as effective as one to combat the Earth’s rotation.
What we need is a law that one of the products of combustion of a hydrocarbon will no longer be carbon dioxide. The only drawback that I see is that chemistry textboks will have to be changed. That is a small price to pay.