Tag Archives: Incentives

News

New York governor unveils one BILLION dollars of new taxes

5 Comments

Story from CBS News. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Governor David Paterson said Tuesday that the days of profligate spending in Albany are over and that starting immediately lawmakers must participate in an “age of accountability.”

That said, the governor’s new budget has $1 billion in new taxes and nearly $800 million in cuts for New York City.

[…]”Our revenues have crumbled and our budget has crashed and we can no longer afford this spending addiction that we have had for so long,” Paterson said.

[…]”The mistakes of the past have lead us to the breaking point,” Paterson said.

But in addition to the severe belt tightening, the governor said he would need to raise $1 billion in new taxes and fees — some politically controversial.

* A $1 increase in the cigarette tax, raising the state tax to $3.75.

* A new soda tax that will cost consumers 1-cent per ounce — a 16-ounce bottle will cost 16 cents more, a 64-ounce bottle 64 cents more.

* The governor also plans to legalize and sanction cage fighting.

* And allow wine to be sold in grocery stores.

* And introduce 50 speed cameras on highways to catch unsuspecting motorists with fines of up to $100.

How did this happen?

New York legislators voted to tax the wealthy.

Then the wealthy left New York for red states.

And now Albany has no revenues to pay for all of their government spending on social programs, such as paying delinquent teachers to do nothing all day because the teacher unions won’t allow teachers to be fired, no matter how badly they screw up.

Governor Patterson never wanted anything to do with earlier tax increases on the wealthy. At least these new tax increases are on consumption, not on income, and not on corporations. Consumption taxes cost the fewest jobs, in my opinion. Consumption taxes encourage saving, too.

Commentary

Are women underpaid for doing the same work as a man?

3 Comments

Here is a neat article from TotallyHer.com on this issue.

Excerpt:

Over the years there’s been much debate surrounding the concern for women receiving inequitable pay, relative to the same work men do. This continues to be an issue even in 2010! As a matter of fact, did you know that there’s an Equity Pay Day this year?

But it’s not just special interest groups who express the concern for women’s apparent lack of parity in their paychecks. President Obama signed legislation early in his presidency to ensure equal pay for women.

So is the President himself admitting that a woman can do the exact same work, for the exact same amount of time, with the exact same qualifications and experience as her male counterpart and get a smaller paycheck? Is that happening in the United States right now?

Click through to read the article and see what the research shows.

Thomas Sowell’s take on the pay gap

I actually have a book on my shelf by Thomas Sowell that tackles this very issue, among others, called “Economic Facts and Fallacies”. Here’s a short 3 minute video about the book.

There’s also a nice 4-clip discussion of the book between Dennis Prager and Thomas Sowell, (from Prager’s radio show). I’m listening to it now, and Sowell also preferred Fred Thompson in the 2008 Republican primary, just like me! This is a really, really good interview.

My thoughts

When I survey the best of my Christian male friends, we all agree that work really gets in the way of the things we would like to be doing. Some of us would like to be working more on our marriages and relationships, or playing with children, or writing, or teaching classes in the church, or organizing debate and lecture events, or lifting weights and playing sports… but one thing we agree on is that there is too much emphasis for men on the workplace as the theater of for our achievements. It’s just stupid.

I myself would love to work fewer hours if I could have more time for other things. Why work so hard just to pay more in taxes? I think men get trapped into marriage and children and then they are stuck working too hard to pay 40% in taxes for government bureacrats to marriage. High taxes are a real disincentive for men contemplating marriage. If women were smart, they would vote to shrink government, welfare and social programs. Then men would really be interested in marriage, because they could work less and still have time for other interesting things.

News

Obama’s deficit for the last two months exceeds Bush’s entire 2006 deficit

1 Comment

Story from Gateway Pundit. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The Obama Administration is already $292 billion in the red this year.
This is more than the national deficit for the entire year of 2006 ($248 billion).
Not good.

President George W. Bush never did this.

Obama tripled the national deficit his first year in office and he’s off to a record-setting start in fiscal year 2010.

During the Bush years, despite the 2000 Recession, the attacks on 9-11, the stock market scandals, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was able to reduce the budget deficit from 412 billion dollars in 2004 to 162 billion dollars in 2007, a sixty percent drop. In 2004 the federal budget deficit was 412 billion dollars. In 2005 it dropped to 318 billion dollars. In 2006 the deficit dipped to 248 billion dollars. And, in 2007 it fell below 200 billion to 162 billion dollars. During the Bush years the average unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, the economy saw the strongest productivity growth in four decades and there was robust GDP growth.

Please read my previous post that features two Harvard economics explaining why massive government spending drives unemployment up. You can’t fix an economy with spending. You fix it with tax cuts, especially for businesses who hire people. For example, we could cut the employer portion of payroll taxes completely. (That idea is from a different Harvard economist)

There are people I know who voted for Obama because McCain and Palin would spend more. I asked them to look at voting records and ratings from groups advocating fiscal conservatism, like Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union, and the Club For Growth. But they kept talking about Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, because that’s all they saw on MSNBC.