Ryan Budget: A Good Start, but will it Matter?
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | March 20th at 04:38 PM |
The much-anticipated Ryan budget for FY 2013, which also contains a blueprint for the next ten years, has been released. The headline figures of the proposal include the following factoids: it will spend $5.3 trillion less than Obama’s plan and cut $2 trillion more in taxes over the next ten years; it will spend $4.15 less than CBO baseline; spending will be reduced from 24% | Read More »
Calling All Tea Partiers in Rick Crawford’s Northeastern Arkansas District
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | March 14th at 11:06 PM |
As the 112th Congress begins to mature, it’s becoming painfully clear that not everyone in the “Tea Party freshmen class” is much of a tea partier. In fact, some of them would fit in more with the coffee party [go here if you've never heard of them]. In 2010, we were largely focused on turning over the House from Democrat to Republican. To the extent | Read More »
Senate Alert: Kill Energy Subsidies
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | March 8th at 12:00 PM |
Update: The Senate postponed the three energy subsidy amendments until next week. Instead, they voted on amendments to drill in the outer continental shelf, expedite the keystone pipeline, and eliminate duplicative programs. Needless to say, Democrats killed all three of those amendments. We’ll fight on next week. We’ve been gunning hard for the Pompeo/DeMint bill, which would end all subsidies and special tax preferences for | Read More »
Obama the Tax Cutter? Think Again
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 22nd at 03:00 PM |
After several years of offering oblique generalities about the need to lower the corporate tax, Obama is finally putting his money where his mouth is. Last week, Congressman Dave Camp called out Timothy Geithner for not offering a corporate tax cut in the President’s FY 2013 budget. So with much fanfare, Geithner has unveiled a proposal to cut the top corporate tax rate from 35% | Read More »
Do Republicans Care About the Deficit or Not?
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 16th at 04:00 PM |
Republicans who seek our support during an election cycle declare emphatically that they will deal with the deficit upon being elected. Once elected, however, they far too often evince nothing but apathy towards efforts to solve our budget crisis. Worse yet, they even work assiduously to create new deficits. Ever since Republicans won control of the House in 2010, instead of looking for spending cuts | Read More »
Good News on Highway Bill Front; More Issues Elsewhere
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 15th at 11:29 AM |
Our voices are finally being heard – sort of. When we started voicing opposition to the highway bill there were few conservatives speaking out against it, and even fewer members of the House who were willing to oppose it. Now, there is so much opposition to the bill that John Boehner was forced to delay the vote on the highway bill, which was previously scheduled | Read More »
Alert: Senate Republicans Vote to Raise Taxes With Highway Bill
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 8th at 12:52 PM |
We’ve directed a lot of attention to the deficiencies of the House version of the highway bill (here and here). We must also work to defeat the Senate version, which is even worse. The 2-year $109 billion Senate bill (S.1813) offers no reform to mass transit and continues to mandate that states use 10% of their funding for wasteful “enhancement projects.” As bad as the | Read More »
Governors Branstad and Brownback Spew Hot Air for Big Wind
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 3rd at 06:50 AM |
After billions in stimulus funding failed to transform impotent green energy sources into profitable endeavors, even Obama has taken a break from promoting Wind and Solar. He is even talking more about oil and gas exploration, although his sincerity is in serious doubt. Unfortunately, some Republicans have not relinquished their affinity for using public funds to prop up their local wind industry. Yesterday, Iowa Gov. | Read More »
The Government is Playing Hide and Seek With Airfare Taxes
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | February 1st at 02:59 PM |
When purchasing a product or service, we all like to see the itemized list of charges – one that separates the cost of the purchase from the share going to Uncle Sam through the form of taxes and fees. Needless to say, government bureaucrats don’t like that. They desire that we remain blissfully ignorant of government’s burden on our everyday lives. This is one reason | Read More »
CBO’s Budget Report: Perennial Debt for Generations
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | January 31st at 12:23 PM |
“The rosy predictions for revenues and reduced healthcare spending can come to fruition, but not with the current socialist policies as the baseline.” The budget season has officially commenced today with CBO’s release of its annual budget and economic outlook. Here are some of the major takeaways from the report: FY 2012 Budget The topline figure that the media will focus on is the projected | Read More »
Federal Workers Earning More Than Those Paying Their Salaries
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | January 31st at 06:47 AM |
Remember Obama’s two-year salary freeze he imposed on federal workers? Well, as part of his FY 2013 budget, Obama plans to end the pay freeze and offer salary increases to federal workers. It is in this context that CBO published a report showing that federal workers still earn more than their counterparts in the private sector. While it is clear that many federal workers (but not | Read More »
End Refundable Tax Credits for Illegals
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | January 30th at 12:26 PM |
Much ink has been poured over the fact that 51% of tax filers paid no federal income taxes in 2009. There is less attention directed towards the more outrageous statistic; 30% of tax filers had a negative tax liability that year. In other words, they made money off the tax system. Those who won the jackpot on tax day benefited primarily from refundable tax credits; | Read More »
Audacity of Hypocrisy: The Essence of Obama’s SOTU
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | January 24th at 10:30 PM |
One of the most salient messages from Obama’s State of the Union Address is that he is unwilling to take responsibility for any of his failures. Instead, he took credit for successful policies that he opposed, and ascribed blame on others for failed policies that he supported. Here is just a partial list of some of his most hypocritical moments: Iraq “For the first time | Read More »
What Does $40,000 Mean to You?
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 22nd at 03:55 PM |
Obama has been running around all day making a fool of himself as he promotes his $40 Social Security tax cut. Yes, the tax plan that will create a new class warfare Social Security Taxable Wage limit in order to accommodate his totally unworkable two-month extension. Obama has even set up a new web page asking people “what $40 per paycheck would mean to you.” | Read More »
More Problems With Senate Extenders Package
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 19th at 03:28 PM |
The Senate-passed payroll tax cut extenders package was already on the ropes with House Republicans over the weekend. The bill (HR 3630) offers a pathetic two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. In addition, it extends long-term unemployment benefits for the ninth time, along with the annual Medicare doc fix. The bill gutted all House-passed reforms to medicare and unemployment insurance, while offsetting the cost | Read More »
House Must Decouple Payroll Tax Cut From Broader ‘Extenders’ Package
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 18th at 12:05 PM |
“The Senate action was akin to grounding into a triple play for Team GOP, yet the underlying bill passed with unanimous consent.” Over the weekend, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans obviated the superior leverage of House Republicans by passing a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, along with a clean extension (no reforms and offsets) of doc fix and unemployment benefits. In a premature | Read More »
Mitt Romney: Leader of the Pale Pastel Wing of Party
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 12th at 10:30 AM |
During Saturday night’s GOP debate, Mitt Romney demonstrated once again why he is failing to gain traction with the conservative base. He continues to muddle the distinction between Obama’s policies and true free-market doctrine. Romney consistently invokes progressive policy doctrines, while tempering them with banal flavors of conservatism. We must remember that every time a candidate failed to draw a sharp intellectual distinction between himself | Read More »
The GOP Payroll Tax Cut/UI Extension Proposal
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 9th at 12:04 PM |
“will they finally hold the line on their own promises this time, or will they pass all the extensions without the reforms, riders, and spending offsets? This package must be the final offer.” Earlier today, House Republican leaders unveiled their package deal to extend the payroll tax and unemployment benefits for another year and to continue Medicare ‘doc fix’ for another two years. While bipartisan | Read More »
Don’t Conflate Super-Long Unemployment Extension With Payroll Tax Cut
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | December 7th at 02:54 PM |
The outcome of the impending payroll tax imbroglio seems to be clear. With Republicans offering spending offsets and Democrats demanding tax increases, my safe premonition is that, for better or worse, the simple tax cut extension will pass, albeit without either “offset” plan. Due to some divisions among conservatives, such an outcome seems to be intractable at this point. At this point, we must focus | Read More »
Don’t Fall Into Democrats’ Payroll Tax Trap
By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | November 30th at 06:52 AM |
As the original 2% payroll tax cut for employees is set to expire next month, Democrats are proposing an even bigger cut. Earlier this week, they introduced legislation (S.1917) to cut the payroll tax to 3.1 percent for employees, and for employers on the first $5 million of their payroll. The bill would also eliminate the payroll tax paid by employers for the last quarter | Read More »
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