Tech at Night: American wireless is the best in the world. Rand Paul is getting busy.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 4th at 03:30 AM  | 

Markets work, folks. Americans have way more invested in our wireless than the rest of the world.. As a result, our wireless is the best in the world. This is why the broadband story is never completely told by the pro-regulatory faction: they need to “hide the decline” of socialized wireless.

Also, it’s beginning to look like Rand Paul is running for President (shocker, I know). Despite prominent wealthy California Democrats are, you now, Democrats, the Senator is trying to get support there. I suppose he’s trying to replace his father’s fringe base with left-libertarians. So he even talked to Wired and is cozying up to Silicon Valley industry. Will it translate to votes? Certainly not in the primary and I’m skeptical in the general. But if it works for him, it could be big.

Read More »

Art Halvorson for Congress in Pennsylvania’s Ninth District

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  June 3rd at 05:35 PM  | 

Earlier this year, I made a promise to the Red State community to leave no stone unturned in pursuit of committed conservative alternatives to the statists that saturate the ranks of the Republican Party.  Well, through the Madison Project PAC, and on behalf of former Congressman Jim Ryun, I’m ready to announce the first endorsement of the cycle.  We’re committed to replacing Bill Shuster with | Read More »

The Hidden Tax of the Regulatory State

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  May 30th at 09:40 AM  | 

Many of us in the Tea Party have focused intensely on the cost of big government to the federal budget.  Undoubtedly, this cost will be born directly by future taxpayers in the form of more taxes, higher interest payments on debt, and less economic growth.  While we must continue hammering home this point, we must also understand that many Americans still fail to connect the | Read More »

The tax reform moment

By: John Hayward  |  May 18th at 04:37 PM  | 

Rupert Murdoch took some heat for observing on Twitter, “Growing IRS scandal makes perfect case for flat tax and abolition all deductions.  Nothing could be fairer and abuse free.” Several responses took Murdoch to task because the abusive treatment of certain groups applying for tax-exempt status, based on their politics, doesn’t have any direct relationship with the progressive income tax system, or plans to replace it. | Read More »

This is a Scandal We Must Not Let Slide

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  May 12th at 11:48 AM  | 

Welcome to 1984.  The government that is supposed to govern by the consent of the people is now attacking those who seek to preserve the Constitution.  Even as a number of non-profit organizations that aid and abet illegal aliens or Islamic terrorists are able to operate without any fear of investigation, we now know that tea party patriot organizations have been singled out for audits | Read More »

Taxes, Guns, and Chuck Schumer as GOP Leader

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  April 10th at 01:59 PM  | 

Until recently, taxes and guns were the two issues that served as the glue to bind together Republicans of all stripes.  They were the two issues that even feckless elected-Republicans could be counted on to hold the line and stand with conservatives.  But over the past few years, Obama and the Democrats have gotten Republicans to break their impervious opposition to tax increases by supporting | Read More »

Austerity Cuts vs. Real Entitlement Reform

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  April 9th at 07:04 PM  | 

In his latest attempt to cajole Republicans into raising taxes, Obama has called for a budget plan that makes some cuts to Medicare providers and subjects Social Security payments to the chained CPI.  John Boehner was correct to reject this ploy of holding entitlement savings hostage for tax increases.  However, he has come close to negotiating such a deal in the past, and there are | Read More »

Beware the gun tax

By: John Hayward  |  April 2nd at 11:08 AM  | 

David Addington at the Heritage Foundation reports on a little something-something slipped into the rough beast of gun control laws slouching toward the Senate to be born, courtesy of majority leader Harry Reid: Title I of the Reid gun control bill purports to “fix gun checks.” The proposed “fix” in section 122 of S. 649 is to take away an individual’s right to sell or | Read More »

Return-free filing and interest-free politics

By: John Hayward  |  March 26th at 01:01 PM  | 

An interesting story at ProPublica, prepared with assistance from NPR, chronicles efforts to bring “return-free tax filing” to the United States.  It’s a system already used in a few other countries, and more-or-less duplicated by a few business partnerships in the U.S., but it’s something the Internal Revenue Service could implement nationwide. Basically, the idea is to have the IRS prepare the equivalent of a 1040EZ or | Read More »

26 Republicans Vote for Internet Sales Tax

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 24th at 10:29 AM  | 

Early Saturday morning, the Senate adopted its first concurrent budget resolution in four years.  Democrats cleverly made sure to hand out enough hall passes to vulnerable red state senators so they could vote against the $1 trillion tax increase, while ensuring that it ultimately passed 50-49.  Senators Baucus, Begich, Hagan, and Pryor were given the green light to vote no.  After a 13-hour “votarama” on | Read More »

Democrats Get Free Pass on Medical Device Tax

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 22nd at 03:12 PM  | 

It would be nice if members of Congress were willing to stand by the legislation they helped pass.  Unfortunately, when it comes to Obamacare, there are 33 cowardly Democrats who are scared to vouch for their support of the medical device tax, even though every Democrat voted for it in 2010 (and none of the new Democrat senators have disavowed Obamacare). Among the 18 new | Read More »

The Marketplace Fairness Act is More Unfair Than Status Quo

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 18th at 02:33 PM  | 

The advent of the internet has simplified life for millions of consumers in this country.  But for state governments, many of which are hungry for more tax revenue to purvey their rapacious welfare states, e-commerce has complicated their ability to collect all sales taxes owed to the state – at least without directly taxing the consumer, something the statists are too scared to do. Most | Read More »

Trimming Deficits – The Democrat Way

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 13th at 05:47 PM  | 

No wonder Democrats were recalcitrant to propose a budget over the past four years.  I’d be embarrassed too. This week Washington Senator Patty Murray, as Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, introduced her budget blueprint for the next 10 years.  The headline of her budget is that it achieves $1.85 trillion in deficit reduction, presumably, off the $47.2 trillion CBO baseline.  Murray claims that the | Read More »

Ryan Budget: Balancing with More Taxes

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 12th at 10:18 AM  | 

Paul Ryan released his budget proposal for FY 2014 today, and as expected, it will balance within 10 years.  Let me first say that this budget would be superior to the status quo a million times over.  Medicaid and Food Stamps would be block granted to the states and Medicare would be subject to at least some free market reforms.  Most importantly, it defunds the | Read More »

Reps. Salmon and Schweikert Call for Members to Vote Down Bad Rules

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  March 11th at 03:38 PM  | 

Earlier today, Congressman Matt Salmon wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times echoing Erick’s call for conservatives to vote against the rule on bad legislation brought to the floor by leadership.  The underlying rationale is as follows: if leadership is bent on bringing legislation to the floor that needs Democrat votes to pass, the only way to fight back is by voting against the rule | Read More »