Listening to the self-righteous protestations of the class warriors, one would come away with the impression that the rich don’t pay any taxes. In fact, the top 1% of tax filers paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes in 2010; the top 2% paid almost 50%. Unfortunately, when it comes to real handouts for the rich, liberals are silent. In their dyslexic worldview, a tax | Read More »
Obama claims that his tax plan would only increase the tax burden on those earning more than $200,000. What the Democrats, the media, and even Republicans fail to mention is that there is another aspect of the fiscal cliff that will hit everyone. A number of Obamacare’s tax increases are scheduled to take effect in January. These tax increases will be severely regressive to those | Read More »
Over several months now, I have been devoting attention to the question of how conservatives can win both policy debates and elections, not by appropriating policies that Democrats advocate and putting a Republican stamp on them, but rather by educating Americans and converting those who don’t already share our perspective to it. My basic thesis is that we win by getting more people to agree | Read More »
The purge of conservatives from key committees last week was not a natural disaster. It was perpetrated by leadership with the help of the rest of the 31 members on the Steering Committee. They all need to hear from us. Let’s take a step back and analyze what occurred last week. It is not a normal occurrence for incumbent members in good standing to be | Read More »
How did I ever miss this? From the National Journal: After weeks in which control of the New York state Senate was uncertain, the group of breakaway Democratic senators has struck a deal with Republicans to share control, the groups announced Tuesday. The agreement means that the Independent Democratic Caucus will have formal recognition as a permanent third conference in the state Senate. Dean Skelos, | Read More »
One of the first things anyone learns in sales is that the customer is interested in benefits, not features. Politics are no different. While a majority of Americans are sympathetic to conservative positions, our failure to articulate what those positions mean in terms of benefits to the voter have led to us losing battles we should be winning.
Read More »Amid the Fiscal Cliff foolishness, a carbon tax may offer conservatives a chance to “green their brand” while giving statists a tool to hobble the economy.
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Often things get lost in the daily grind of politics. The fact that the GOP is willing to raise taxes gets lost by the media because the media wants the GOP to raise rates. This Politico story makes very clear John Boehner must not raise rates. Better to go off the cliff than raise rates. In a meeting with leadership staff, [Rob] Nabors reiterated the | Read More »
I got the call before the news went out. Jim DeMint, the standard bearer of the conservative movement in America and conservative king maker, is leaving the United States Senate. He will succeed Ed Feulner as President of the Heritage Foundation. While my initial reaction was one of sadness that we are losing the clearest voice in the Senate for conservatives, the upside on Jim | Read More »
The unreasonable Republicans in the House of Representatives are willing to raise taxes by $800 billion. Anti-tax Republicans will raise taxes. I’m not happy about it, but that is what John Boehner and Mitch McConnell seem to be offering. They want to raise that money by limiting deductions instead of raising rates. They do not want to raise rates because that will impact many small | Read More »
Let me sum up this New Geography article (via Instapundit): Top states with most $250K households: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington DC. Top metro areas with most $250K households: Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, San Jose, Washington DC. States with highest average housing values / mortgages: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Washington DC. Metro areas with | Read More »
Several weeks ago, Congressman Steve Scalise (LA) was elected chairman of the Republican Study Committee. Many of us felt a deep-rooted disquiet that Scalise would be too closely aligned with leadership. We feared he wouldn’t properly defend conservatives and their policies. Well, his response to the recent leadership purge of conservatives from congressional committees has validated our fears. The fact that he was at the | Read More »
John Boehner can do whatever the heck he wants to. The GOP could be making the argument that the White House has offered nothing on spending and the American people want spending cuts as much as they are okay with tax increases, but instead John Boehner will publicly negotiate with himself. And he can. He can throw conservatives off fiscal committees without consequence. Conservatives can | Read More »
Not quite two weeks removed from Thanksgiving, it is worth giving thanks to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy. I really am thankful for them. Yesterday the three of them purged fiscal conservatives from committees as punishment for being authentically fiscal conservatives. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina was put on the Financial Services Committee to show fiscal conservatism had nothing to do with removing | Read More »
Here are two things to keep in mind with regards to Boehner’s budget offer. First, when you begin negotiations agreeing to 60% of the demands of the other side and fail to offer a bold contrast on the other 40%, you are headed for an outcome that is 80-90% favorable to your opponent. Second, when you need to outsource your budget plan and entire view | Read More »
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