A fresh Op-Ed this morning by IRS head Steven Miller reveals the lengths to which the IRS and the White House are going to spin the on-going scandal. “The agency was simply trying to manage the explosive growth in applications for 501(c)(4) status that started pouring in to the IRS in 2010. The Internal Revenue Service recognizes that we should have done a better job of handling | Read More »
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at a gathering of higher-income earners. The bulk of the discussion was a comparison of what this bracket of folks just paid in 2012 vs what they will pay in higher taxes in 2013. Some of those taxes had to do with the implementation of Obamacare and the new taxes associated with it. However, many do not realize | Read More »
April 29, 2013 marks four years without a true operating budget for our country. 1461 days and running. In the realm of budget history, April 29 is an historic day. First, an interesting juxtaposition exists between April 29, 1909 and April 29, 2009. On April 29, 1909, the world’s biggest Superpower — Great Britain — introduced the “People’s Budget”, which is famously noted for being | Read More »
Peter Ferrara pens a fantastic Op-Ed in Forbes this morning. He documents the myriad inaccuracies claimed by the Obama Administration regarding his new budget, the staggering amount of spending contained therein, and the additional taxes to be levied. He also does some cost comparison to Ryan’s budget and dispels the myth of the tax cut vs tax credit, (a point I have made many, many times as | Read More »
Obama asked for a gun vote during his State of the Union Address. He got it. Not much more to say about that. The “Manchin-Toomey” amendment failed in the Senate today on a 54-46 vote. It aimed expand background checks gun shows and to Internet sales. Republicans who voted “yes” (alphabetically): Maine Sen. Susan Collins Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk Arizona Sen. John McCain Pennsylvania Sen. | Read More »
In preparation for a talk to a group of financial people, I had to put together some numbers regarding President Obama’s “little bit more” that he has asked “the wealthiest among us” to pay. So I calculated the additional federal income taxes a high earner will pay in 2013 vs what one would have paid on the same income for 2012, The increases are caused | Read More »
There was a lot of discussion this past weekend on the Sunday talk show circuit regarding the March Jobs Report released last Friday. Only 88,000 jobs were added in March. Compared to February, which added 268,000 jobs, this is a 180,000 drop. Actually, more like a plummet: economists had figured more than twice that number would be added. However, this number was the lowest jobs | Read More »
In another class-warfare move, The Hill reports on the latest Obama gimmick: his yet-to-be-released budget will include a cap on IRAs and other retirement accounts. Currently, there are no limitations on how much money can be in an IRA. The White House has a problem with that. The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, | Read More »
This is out-and-out manipulation of public opinion and playing on the emotions of Americans for political gain. The Washington Times reported that the White House announced in an email, “ Due to staffing reductions resulting from sequestration, we regret to inform you that White House Tours will be canceled effective Saturday, March 9, 2013 until further notice. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule | Read More »
This entire week has seen a whole gambit of sequestration blame and doomsday scenarios (no more bacon!) from the White House administration. However, over the last few days, we’ve also seen the White House changing its tune on sequestration. As they struggle to rearrange the narrative, it got me to thinking about rearranging the letters in the word “Sequestration”. First, here are some of my | Read More »
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