Clipmarks | Tax issue Clips

Housing Crisis is Far From Over

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:10:59 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: It's not just a house, it's a home. Perhaps some are thinking it is just an investment into stone and concrete. Perhaps people got into thinking it was a " Piece of the Action ". And who exactly is the Middle Class? There are still people out there that are barely making
$ 20.000.00 for a family of four and they too consider themselves part of "The Middle Class". Deception and self-deception all the way. Consumer society gone hay wired.

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

The big secret in U.S. housing

Politicians don't want to face such an issue, as it strikes at the heart of federal support for a now-precarious home mortgage scheme that benefits mainly the middle class.

Warren Buffet says, "the game is over."

Taxpayers need answers if billions are to be required in a potential crisis or if Congress and Treasury plan to maintain Fannie and Freddie in their present form. Yet debate in the campaign is negligible.

Nor should a government-backed entity be allowed to use its profits to lobby lawmakers on behalf of shareholders or be able to pressure the housing industry into lobbing on its behalf.

Americans have been misled by decades of government help for mortgages to count on their homes as a piggy bank rather than simply as a house to live in. Now a historic decline in prices is a wake-up call for a debate on whether home ownership deserves to be a drain on tax dollars. Fannie and Freddie are ripe for such a debate.

still no california budget

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:54:10 GMT

clipped by: kroqben
clipper's remarks: i'm sure SOMEDAY there's going to be a consequence to this issue.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

California Budget Impasse Persists
As GOP Refuses Income-Tax Rise

California's months-long budget standoff hit a low when an emergency State Assembly meeting failed to produce a compromise between Democrats and Republicans over how to compensate for a shortfall exceeding $15 billion.

At issue is the Democrats' proposal to make up for the deficit largely by increasing taxes on California's wealthiest residents -- a plan that Republicans oppose. In a vote Sunday, not a single Assembly Republican voted for the plan to raise $6.7 billion in revenue largely through income-tax increases. Republicans account for 32 of the assembly's 80 seats, but California requires that two-thirds of the legislature approve the budget.

a good compromise leaves everyone mad

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:30:20 GMT

clipped by: kroqben

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Pelosi OKs drilling vote, but at a price

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will grant the Republicans' their big wish this campaign season — a vote on offshore oil and gas drilling — but only if the GOP accepts a few of her own demands.

Pelosi's decision to relent on the drilling issue, laid out with new clarity in Saturday’s Democratic radio address, illustrates the political pressure Democrats are feeling this campaign season. But the legislative menu Pelosi envisions includes a number of offerings that Republicans have considered unpalatable, a clear indication she will force the GOP to give up a lot in exchange for more domestic oil and gas exploration.

Her priorities include a repeal of royalty relief for offshore drillers and an end to other tax credits for the biggest oil companies, as well as so-called use it or lose it legislation forcing energy companies to relinquish un-used leases.

Labor backs off from reviving gay union law

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:08:16 GMT

clipped by: queah

Clip Source: www.canberratimes.com.au

The ACT Government has done a U-turn on the issue of same-sex unions and says it will not support a Greens push to reinstate its original legislation.

The original legislation would have allowed gay and lesbian couples to celebrate their unions with legal ceremonies. But pressure from the Rudd Government saw the proposal watered down earlier this year.

Instead, gay and lesbian couples can register their relationships as civil partnerships, giving them access to tax breaks and super benefits.

The Five GOP Senators Killing The Energy Issue For Americans

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:05:55 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The WSJ explains that by "riding voter discontent over high gas prices, the GOP has made antidrilling Democrats this summer's headlines." But, along comes the Gang of 10, complete with five GOP senators who are quite eager to stick it to conservatives and cave in to the Democrats.

The plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast -- putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska's oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.

Clip Source: www.gopusa.com

A report in Investor's Business Daily (IBD) sums up the situation perfectly: "If you thought Republicans were no longer 'The Stupid Party,' then you haven't met the senators who may have just destroyed the GOP's biggest hope this election year: the drilling issue."

Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Thune of South Dakota — remember their names if things go badly for the GOP this November.

The "compromise" they are promoting is actually a wholesale giveaway to Democrats. Touted as a drilling plan, it actually imposes about $84 billion in new taxes on oil companies and keeps the offshore and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling bans.

The Wall Street Journal described the issue in this way: "Politics has its puzzling moments. John McCain and most of the GOP experienced one late last week. That was when five of their own set about dismantling the best issue Republicans have in the upcoming election."

Tags: drilling issue, sens. chambliss, isakson, corker, graham, thune

Knights Of The Planet Gore

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 05:42:25 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis hammered Obama for his insistence on auto job-killing, mandated fuel-mileage standards (so-called CAFE laws). "That shows how out of touch he is with Michigan voters," thundered Anuzis. "He's pandering to San Francisco liberals and environmentalists who would just as soon we not have cars."

Yet, those words of support only highlight McCain’s similarities to Obama. On CAFE, for example, McCain himself has been no friend to the auto industry. In 2002, he co-sponsored a bill with John Kerry hiking mileage mandates by 30 percent — a proposal that ultimately became law last year over loud Big 3 protests. On drilling, McCain quickly steps on his message of “oil independence” by opposing drilling in ANWR — just as his opponent does.

As for nuclear power, McCain’s strategy has serious flaws — beginning with the fact that the candidate doesn’t seem to know the difference between electricity and motor fuel.

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

The Democratic nominee-in-waiting arrived for his speech outlining our post-oil, post-SUV future in three gigantic, gas-guzzling SUVs. Then — taking a cue from Al Gore — Obama mounted the stage to declare a ten-year goal of ending our “addiction to oil” . . . or at least the oil from “the entire Middle East and Venezuela”

He promised $4 billion in guaranteed loans for U.S. auto companies, which sounded impressive until CAR’s Cole reminded a Detroit News reporter that General Motors just lost $15 billion in the second quarter alone.

Perhaps most intriguing was Obama’s proposed wealth transfer from one fossil-fuel giant to another: Big Oil to Big Auto.

As punishment Obama proposes a windfall profit tax on Big Oil that will, in part, go to “helping the auto industry re-tool.”

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

Obama’s comprehensive energy prescription was in part a response to the beating he’s been taking from McCain on the issue, with the Arizona senator ridiculing his opponent for opposing offshore drilling

Tags: obama, mccain, energy policy, domestic drilling, "big oil", big auto"

Absinthe Goes From Banned Drug to Legal Liquor

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:33:33 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Breaux's research — finally published this spring in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (.pdf) — and that Wired story have helped change absinthe's image from drug to drink. The US has been slowly peeling away its ban, and in March, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved the sale of absinthes that were "thujone free" (containing less than 10 parts per million).

Clip Source: www.wired.com

The green fairy returns.
Photo: Dan Saelinger

Start

Previous: 15th Anniversary: Behind Wired's Story Behind the Microsoft Antitrust Case

Next: 15th Anniversary: Why J. J. Abrams and Joe Trippi Remain Wired Heroes *

15 Years of Wired: A Look Back

Wired Issue 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace

In the 20,000 years or so that humans have been getting piss-drunk, no spirit has earned a worse rap than absinthe.

Said to turn mild-mannered imbibers into raving maniacs, it was banned in the US and much of Europe in the early 1900s.

(Remember Van Gogh's ear incident? Some scholars blame the green fairy.)

The chemical culprit was thujone, a toxic compound found in the crushed flowers and leaves of absinthe's key ingredient, wormwood. Or so we thought.

a chemist and microbiologist who had reverse engineered the liquor's recipe and discovered that there was barely any thujone present (November 2005)

Tags: alcohol, absinth, wired magazine

Now They Say Global Warming is Racist

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:10:58 GMT

clipped by: pkronfield
clipper's remarks: Ever pandering for the black vote, the loony liberals are now saying the fictitious global warming affects blacks more than non-hispanic whites.

Never mind that negros are more adapted to hot climates than white.

This is just another blatant grab for black and hispanic votes by the goofy democrats

Clip Source: www.businessandmedia.org

Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue. It’s now an issue of race, according to global warming activists and policy makers.

“It is critical our community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said July 29.

Clyburn spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to help launch the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change, a project of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

The report suggested implementing a “fee, tax or allowance auction on polluters,” which was meant to “eliminate the financial burden on low-income and moderate-income households.” This would pay for efforts to reduce global warming.

the revenue from the “fee, tax, or allowance auction payment” would be redistributed to consumers

Tags: global warming, loony left

Wall Street Likes The Bailout Plus Drill, Drill, Drill

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:22:46 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: But my thought is that a Senate victory might just blow Pelosi out of the water and open the floodgates to Democratic defections in the House.

If a drilling bill ever passes Congress, oil prices will keep on plunging — perhaps all the way to $75 a barrel, which is the profitable break-even point for lifting the extra barrel of oil. That would drive the Dow to somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000, and it would have a huge tax-cut effect on the economy. And, of course, it could completely change the November election outlook in a highly favorable way for the GOP.

The conventional wisdom says Republicans are gonna get clobbered again this fall. But drill, drill, drill would overturn that wisdom. More drilling today would have the potency of the Reagan tax cuts 28 years ago in the 1980 landslide race. But the GOP has got to make the case. And deregulating oil, which is great policy, would offset much of the bad policy pain coming out of the Fannie-Freddie housing bailout.

Clip Source: corner.nationalreview.com

The drilling issue in Congress is a huge election-year debate. It could well be the Republican’s last hope for November. The Democrats don’t want to drill, even while the public does. This could be a Democratic waterloo and could actually help elect Republicans, narrowing anticipated GOP losses in the election. But the Republicans have to launch an all-out fight nationalizing this issue, taking it to the public with a large media ad-buy, lots of speeches, and daily presser sound bites from Washington. Mitch McConnell is the right leader in the Senate — he’s one of the best tacticians ever. The votes are there for a drill, drill, drill compromise, with probably a dozen Democrats coming along.

As Michael Franc writes today on NRO, the House version of drill, drill, drill is a tougher uphill climb against Nancy Pelosi, who may be putting her speakership on the line against the drillers. Using a discharge petition is a tough road to hoe, though not impossible.

Tags: pelosi, deregulating oil, senate victory

NASA: 70% of climate change due to Pacific oscillations, not CO2

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:47:55 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks:

What this means is no matter how much you change your CO2 footprint, how much you try to be CO2 green, no matter how much liberal governments tax you - you cannot save the planet from its natural cycles.

Say they reduced the CO2 25%. Say the CO2 is the driver for the remaining 30% of Global Warming (which it cannot be, but let’s just be only half as ridiculous as the IPCC), then all that effort would only impact 7.5% of the forces driving the global climate. The other 92.5% would roll on, impervious to the effort. And since CO2 is not 100% of the remaining 30% of the equation (more like 10%), a more realistic expectation is that all the suffering that would go into dropping CO2 levels by 25% would result in a less than 1% change in the forces driving our climate.

Clip Source: strata-sphere.com

It has been scientifically demonstrated that 70% of the Global Warming in the last century (and cooling in the last decade) is due to the Pacific Ocean Oscillations, not CO2:

One necessary result of low climate sensitivity is that the radiative forcing from greenhouse gas emissions in the last century is not nearly enough to explain the upward trend of 0.7 deg. C in the last 100 years.

On this issue, it can be shown with a simple climate model that small cloud fluctuations assumed to occur with two modes of natural climate variability — the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon (Southern Oscillation), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation — can explain 70% of the warming trend since 1900, as well as the nature of that trend: warming until the 1940s, no warming until the 1970s, and resumed warming since then.

The gentlemen making this claim is the lead investigator one of NASA’s flagship Earth Observing Observatories

Tags: climate change, global warming, science, religion, politics

Are Facts Obsolete? Thomas Sowell

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:14:03 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: now that he has gotten their votes in the Democratic primaries and needs the votes of others in the coming general election.

The question of how to raise more revenue may be the economic issue but the political issue is whether socking it to “the rich” in the name of “fairness” gains more votes.

What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of “the people” against “the privileged.”

When ABC's Charles Gibson reminded him of the well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

Raising taxes, increasing government spending, and demonizing business? That is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.

The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over, unemployment hit 25 percent.

Politicians’ top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get elected and then reelected. Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.

Some of his more trusting followers are belatedly discovering that, as he “refines” his position on various issues,

Tags: obama, taxes, government spending, demonizing business, "new deal" policies, great depression, restrictions on trade,

Taxes re: election 6

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 04:21:51 GMT

clipped by: puffboater

Clip Source: www.marketwatch.com

I would vote for McCain over Obama on the estate tax issue alone. To me, it is an abomination that the government feels like it has a right to that much of a family’s wealth, especially since income, savings, and capital gains have already been taxed. Have you considered the implications for your own family? I have, and I certainly don’t want the government to tax mine like that.

IRS Audit Article

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:37:11 GMT

clipped by: ldaziens

Clip Source: www.marketwatch.com

IRS Takes Heat For Mishandling Its Mail Audits

Finding an IRS audit notice in your mailbox is stressful enough. But a senior IRS official says many taxpayers facing questions from the agency in recent months have suffered needless aggravation because IRS workers frequently fail to follow procedure.

Ms. Olson said the issue "calls into question" the effectiveness of the IRS's so-called correspondence audits, which are conducted by mail. That is a major issue since more than three-quarters of the IRS's nearly 1.4 million individual income-tax audits for fiscal 2007 were correspondence audits. In a typical mail audit, taxpayers are told to send documentation for items claimed on their returns, such as deductions for charitable donations.

What the next president should say

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:14:25 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: Of course that would take someone possessing a spine.

Clip Source: gristmill.grist.org

What the next president should say

The era of cheap energy is over. We will never again see cheap gas, and we can expect the price of electricity to rise inexorably.

In order for the United States to survive, we need to rebuild our energy infrastructure.

To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we need to implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. This is a national security issue.

In order for the United States to survive, we need to rebuild our energy infrastructure.

To reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, we need to implement a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system. This is a national security issue.

We need a Manhattan-style government-funded project to develop new forms of renewable energy. We should be spending several tens of billions of dollars every year on this research.

Increased drilling or unconventional sources of fuel, like oil shale or tar sands, will provide so little fuel that they are simply not worth doing.

The Global Warming Bubble

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:21:51 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Finally, there's the global-cooling spell. The world hasn't been warming since 1998, and an article in the journal Nature says warming won't pick up again until 2015. Since global warming is a long-term trend, a decade-long or more stall in temperatures doesn't mean much -- except that environmentalists have banked so much politically on whipping up hysteria based on imminent catastrophe. The stall in temperatures shows how little we know about global warming.

No matter what the price of gas is, the most sensible policy in the U.S. is to avoid costly schemes to fight global warming. If our economy keeps growing, we will be better positioned -- richer, and more technologically proficient -- to help others mitigate its effects decades from now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid huffs that global warming is "the most critical issue of our time." Really? More critical than energy prices? Than health care? Than wages? Than terrorism? Than nuclear proliferation?

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

As an indirect tax on carbon, cap-and-trade would increase energy prices when people are already straining under $4-a-gallon gas. Even a political naif -- which McConnell assuredly is not -- would realize the benefit of hanging the proposal around its supporters' necks. Lately, we've seen the tech and housing bubbles burst, and now -- at least as an urgent political issue -- the global-warming bubble is getting pricked.

The cost-benefit analysis of battling global warming is never going to make sense for Americans.

Second, there's China. It has passed the U.S. as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, and it accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the world's emissions in 2007. Global action against global warming makes little sense without China taking part, and it won't. If we can't get China to quit jailing dissidents and arming a genocidal Sudan, what hope is there of getting it to stop something -- rapid economic development -- that's otherwise unobjectionable?

Tags: cap-and-trade, energy prices, health care, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, global-warming bubble, china

Clipmarks | Tax issue Clips

Housing Crisis is Far From Over

The big secret in U.S. housing

still no california budget

California Budget Impasse Persists As GOP Refuses Income-Tax Rise

a good compromise leaves everyone mad

Pelosi OKs drilling vote, but at a price

Labor backs off from reviving gay union law

The Five GOP Senators Killing The Energy Issue For Americans

Knights Of The Planet Gore

Absinthe Goes From Banned Drug to Legal Liquor

Now They Say Global Warming is Racist

Wall Street Likes The Bailout Plus Drill, Drill, Drill

NASA: 70% of climate change due to Pacific oscillations, not CO2

Are Facts Obsolete? Thomas Sowell

Taxes re: election 6

IRS Audit Article

IRS Takes Heat For Mishandling Its Mail Audits

What the next president should say

The Global Warming Bubble

California Budget Impasse Persists
As GOP Refuses Income-Tax Rise