George Rebane
Here are a couple of items that are guaranteed to call out the Collectivist Cricket Corps.
High tax states like California and New York are now suddenly devising legislative back flips trying to keep their rich from moving out. They have come up with a ruse to favor those daily vilified filthy rich (wink, wink) in the form of tax deductible charitable contributions. And who will be the charity on the receiving end? (Seat belts please) Why their states’ general fund, that’s who. It works like this. Suppose your state’s max marginal income tax rate is 13.3%; just a random number I picked out. And your income is such that you wind up paying $50K tax to the state. Before tax reform, you would deduct that from your gross adjusted income and pay the federal rate on the remaining. Since after tax reform you can no longer do that, the Democrat sleazebags in the state houses have a scheme by which you contribute that $50K to a newly cobbled state charity, then deduct it from your adjusted gross income as permitted by the new 2018 tax law, and wind up paying the federal tax on the remaining, just like before. The state wins, and you win.
All the while this is going on, the socialists, who claim that tax rates make no never mind on economic decisions, continue to convince their constituents that all is well, as they stuff cash back into the pockets of those dastardly rich who pay the lion’s share of their state’s taxes, thereby making possible all the vote-buying programs that keep them in office. Sweet, but I don’t think the courts are going to buy it since a fundamental tenet of charitable giving is that it’s not supposed to benefit the giver.
And speaking of tax reform, you know, the one that is supposed to take money from the poor, or at least not provide them any benefit while the rich are laughing all the way to their mattresses with all that extra cash to stash. Here’s just a short list of what’s really going down where real Americans live and work from Forbes, The Hill, Daily Signal, and Washington Examiner, but not from Nancy and Chuckie, that irresistible pair of Lying Lefties.
[update] Mr George Boardman wrote a thoughtful column in today’s 15jan18 Union (here) describing the (leftwing?) citizens’ initiative to double the recent temporary increase in Grass Valley’s sales tax and make it permanent. The money would be used for the usual litany of things, from fixing sidewalks to hiring more police and firefighters. What always remains unasked is why do we need ever higher taxes to do the same things that were accomplished in past years with existing taxes, especially since the community’s population has decreased. The answers, of course, are obvious and don’t fit the progressives’ narrative, so that discussion continues to be suppressed.
Also, I was again sad to see Mr Boardman’s politically correct use of the ‘transient’ appellation. Apparently, the population of such transients is not only growing, but their criminal consumption of city facilities and destruction of surrounding woodlands is now pretty much out of hand. Wasn’t it not that long ago that people who had no visible means of support, lived, trashed and slept in public areas, panhandled, and otherwise made citizens apprehensive and brought a lasting pall on a community, weren’t they called bums? With all of Nevada County’s welcoming and nurturing programs in place, why should anyone like that consider himself a transient? Transients are people who come, work, recreate, shop, and temporarily enjoy themselves here and then leave. Why continue to confuse the issue?
That California is particularly afflicted with such problems through its massive misspent and mismanaged welfare programs that are highlighted in Russ Steele’s 958am comment below. The Left’s solution to the problem has always been an unabashed practice of Einsteinian insanity. There is no evidence that this practice will abate.
[16jan18 update] Back in 2007 Mike McDaniel and I wrote an SESF report (link here)on the already disastrous state of unfunded liabilities in government workers’ pensions accrued to almost every jurisdiction in California, including Nevada County. We presented our results to our Supes, who sniffed that we didn’t really understand the sophisticated finances of pension funding and that there was nothing to worry about (more here). Now eleven years later, even progressives are beginning to realize that the horribly negotiated pension contracts for government employees will most likely be paid off in some fraction on the anticipated dollar. Today finally, the epiphanies are coming on daily. It’s hard to tell whether our own left-leaning graphical commentator Bob Crabb is evincing one of his own, or just reporting what is happening across the state in his cartoon filched from 16jan18 Union.
[18jan18 update] By now everyone should have heard about Apple ‘repatriating’ some of their off-shore billions thanks to President Trump. And what will they do with that money after they pay the 15% federal repatriation tax (about $38B), why they’ll increase executive salaries and bonuses, pay huge dividends to shareholders, and stuff the rest into mattresses – not. Actually, as a result they’ll contribute about $350B to the US economy through expansions of new facilities, development of new products, and creating over 20,000 new jobs. And guess in what state they will not expand their operations – c’mon folks, you can do it.
Meanwhile our leftwing politicians, lamestream media, and local lying liberals (here) continue practicing ‘truth decay’ (here) telling Americans that the new tax reform law (for which no Democrat voted) only benefits corporations, the rich, and raises taxes for the middle class and poor. (more here)
The bottom line of all this repatriation by corporations amounts to about $2.5T (yep, that’s trillion) into the US economy from which the feds will collect about $340B in taxes over the next ten years. And the impact of all this money into America’s pockets will cause the socialists to soil their shorts. A good interactive graphic explanation of all this is available to WSJ subscribers here; none of this will be covered by the lamestream as will be evident in these pages by the comments from our more blindered readers.
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