RELATED: The Heritage Foundation has more details on the spending catastrophes of the first 100 days. And he hasn’t even gotten started on card check, health care and cap and trade, yet!
7) In the best example yet of Obama’s over-reliance on a teleprompter and the mainstream media’s fervent devotion to him, during an appearance with the Irish prime minister, there was a mix-up — and “President Obama thanked President Obama for inviting everyone over.” The same mainstream media which relentlessly mocked George Bush for his slip-ups wouldn’t even release the footage.
Read the whole thing! Early humor before this week’s Friday funny.
I discovered this story at the Tax Foundation blog.
Excerpt:
Missouri lawmakers are considering a drastic change to their tax system. A bill recently passed by the state’s House of Representatives would allow residents to vote on a Constitutional amendment that would eliminate corporate and individual income taxes in the state and replace them with a broad based sales tax. The plan is essentially a state version of the national FairTax proposal popular with some grassroots groups that would replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax. If the Senate passes the bill Missouri residents would be voting on the amendment in November of 2010.
Missouri currently has a sales tax, a corporate income tax, and a personal income tax. The sales tax rate is 4.225%, and the top corporate and personal tax rates are 6.25% and 6%, respectively. The plan put forth would replace all those taxes with a single sales tax levied at a rate of 5.11%. Accompanying the sales tax rate hike would be a substantially broadened sales tax base that would include all purchases. Currently most services are tax exempt and certain goods, most notably groceries, are taxed at a reduced rate of 1.225%. These exemptions would not exist under the new tax structure.
The overhaul of the tax system is meant to be revenue neutral. In other words, the revenue from the sales tax increase and broadening of the tax base is meant to exactly offset the elimination of income taxes. In 2008 Missouri’s sales tax brought in $3.2 billion while the state’s corporate and individual income taxes brought in $5.5 billion. In order to achieve revenue neutrality, at a rate of 5.11% the base would have to increase by 124%, or a little more than double. This may sound like a huge increase, but it is very possible.
This would be a useful test case to see if a national fair tax is feasible. I am all for consumption taxes. Leave a comment if you prefer the fair tax to the flat tax. I’m leaning towards the flat tax, and I love the way that it’s been implemented in those Baltic states, like Estonia. Estonia is such a courageous country!
Great news! Senator Jim Demint tried to pass a bill guaranteeing more liberty in health care, and he succeeded. The Heritage Foundation‘s blog The Foundry has the story.
His bill read, in part:
The Senator from South Carolina, Mr. DeMint, moves that the managers on the part of the Senate … be instructed to insist that the conference report on the concurrent resolution … shall not decrease the number of Americans enrolled in private health insurance, while increasing the number of Americans enrolled in government-managed, rationed health care.
Remember, Obama’s goal is to control our lives, by controlling the free market:
I also spotted this story over at the Pacific Research Institute. This should be a wake up call to all those who believe that nationalizing health care would give them more freedom.
Excerpt:
In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada found that elements of the province of Quebec’s monopoly over health care violated citizens’ human rights, because of the government’s failure to deliver care. Since then, other Canadians have launched similar lawsuits in other provinces.
In British Columbia, the monopolistic provincial health plan is suing Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, for allegedly receiving direct payment from patients for performing surgeries in his clinic. Mindful of the 2005 Supreme Court decision, the province has adopted a novel legal tactic: claiming that health care is not a right! If that is the case, then the government’s monopoly obviously cannot violate citizens’ rights!
We need to learn from countries like Canada, who have already tried socialized medicine. Or we could look at Sweden. Either way, we shouldn’t be adopting failed health delivery systems.
WINTERY KNIGHT 