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I've recommended this newsletter quite a few times in the past year or so. It's published by my good friend Steve Moore's Committee to Unleash Prosperity, and subscribers number over 200,000. Today's edition was issue #503, and it's published every weekday. It's a must-read for me and every member of my extended family and friends, and it deserves to be read by a much wider audience.
I don't recommend it, however, for anyone who doesn't like reading about the wrong-headed thinking of our politicians and bureaucrats.
For example, today's edition explains why it's NOT true that secretaries pay higher tax rates than billionaires with capital gains income. It also explains why the economy suffers from a capital gains tax that is not indexed for inflation. What is true is that successful businesses are the lifeblood of the economy and the source of our prosperity; taxing them at all is foolish.
It's short, easy to read, and packed with useful facts and statistics such as this:
It's short, easy to read, and packed with useful facts and statistics such as this:
Links have been fixed.
7 comments:
Hi Scott:
Thanks for the posts you put out. I enjoy them.
Wanted to let you know the link was bad to Steve Moore's blog post. Not sure which one you referred to, but here is the link to the blog itself: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/blog/
Kurt Brouwer
Just fixed the links, sorry about that!
In general, I agree with the pro-business crowd, and taxing capital less.
I just wish there was equal commentary on taxing wages less too.
Indeed, why do we tax productive behavior at all? Some guy gets off his couch and takes a job (even in my family, that happens) and we ply taxes on him.
I would prefer higher taxes on imports, property and fuels, and a national sales tax, and an elimination of any tax on people working or investing.
Benjamin - for a national sales tax see https://www.fairtax.org.
It is quite appealing, if anything, for the sheer simplicity. I was in an unrelated meeting with one of the founders probably 30 years ago when he talked about the initiative with excitement. Never got as much traction as it should because of all the vested interests in the current code. Been a long time since I looked at it - but one criticism I'd like to update myself on is that - clearly - at some point the wealthy earnings far exceed what their sales tax base would be.
Randy--
Property taxes are also a very interesting option---and there is no dodging property taxes (barring rank corruption).
Income taxes have become a domestic and global shell game.
An elimination of personal and corporate income taxes as impractical, and sub in of property taxes makes a lot of sense.
Of course, trimming the federal outlays down to 15% from 20+% of GDP would be great also....
Regarding spending - as usual Kimberly Strassel does an excellent job of helping see through the fog:
“Dear Madame Speaker,” begins the March 15 letter, devoted to the topic of Covid poverty. “We are notifying you of the following actions necessitated by the lack of critical funding.” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and White House Covid coordinator Jeffrey Zients explain that unless Congress supplies tens of billions more in taxpayer dollars, the federal government will no longer be able to “secure sufficient booster doses,” will end “the purchase of monoclonal antibody treatments,” will halt “critical testing,” and will scale back “preventive treatments for the immunocompromised.”
We are, somehow, Covid broke. How? Didn’t Washington, under the cry of “emergency,” spend $6.6 trillion in fiscal 2020 and $6.8 trillion more in 2021? Both years equaled at least 50% more in spending than in 2019—and all for “Covid.” Only a year ago, Democrats waved through a sixth Covid relief bill, President Biden’s massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan—enough money to buy every Covid vaccine, ventilator, and hospital chain on the planet.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/kimberley-strassel-covid-broke-emergency-spending-pandemic-relief-american-rescue-plan-washington-budget-negotiations-boosters-testing-waste-fraud-11648735209?st=eckoub2d08hin2l&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Thanks for the tip! I read through it and agree with it, but it's a little too much red meat for me. I feel like the tidbits of new data are too few and the conclusions they suggest aren't any different from what I thought before. The last thing I need is someone telling me I'm always right.
:-)
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