Arthur Laffer

The Bill Gates Income Tax | Arthur Laffer

Published by Papa Giorgio

THE BILL GATES INCOME TAX (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
If Washington’s most famous billionaires are really worried about their state’s finances, they’d write personal checks to the government and leave everyone else alone.

Bill Gates Sr. has personally contributed $500,000 to promote a statewide proposition on Washington’s November ballot that would impose a brand new 5 percent tax on individuals earning over $200,000 per year and couples earning over $400,000 per year.  An additional 4 percent surcharge would be levied on individuals and couples earning more than $500,000 and $1 million, respectively.

Doing so would put the state’s economy at risk, says Arthur Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates.

To imagine what such a large soak-the-rich income tax would do to Washington, we need only examine how states with the highest income-tax rates perform relative to their zero-income tax counterparts. Comparing the nine states with the highest tax rates on earned income to the nine states with no income tax shows how high tax rates weaken economic performance.

  • In the past decade, the nine states with the highest personal income tax rates have seen gross state product increase by 59.8 percent, personal income grow by 51 percent and population increase by 6.1 percent.
  • The nine states with no personal income tax have seen gross state product increase by 86.3 percent, personal income grow by 64.1 percent and population increase by 15.5 percent.

Over the past 50 years, 11 states have introduced state income taxes exactly as Washington is proposing — and the consequences have been devastating, says Laffer.

  • Each and every state that introduced an income tax saw its share of total U.S. output decline.
  • Some of the states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have become fiscal basket cases.
  • Even West Virginia, which was poor to begin with, got relatively poorer after adopting a state income tax.
  • Over the past decade, the nine states with the highest tax rates have experienced tax revenue growth of 74 percent — a full 22 percent less than the states with no income tax.

The Impact of the Next President ~ Deroy Murdock

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is a portion of Deroy’s article that he is talking about above with Dennis Prager:

A President Hillary Clinton would nominate hundreds of people to top positions that require Senate approval. She would hire hundreds of thousands of others and unleash them to perpetrate Hillaryism — a toxic blend of lies, elitist nannyism, secretive paranoia, and snarling contempt for the law. These people would enjoy police powers, fat salaries, mouth-watering benefits, and bullet-proof job security — at taxpayer expense.

If Hillary nominated only one liberal jurist to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, she could nudge the Court to the left for decades. Free speech, religious liberty, gun rights, separation of powers, free enterprise, federalism, and unborn Americans all would be in the cross hairs.

But her influence would go far, far beyond that.

Other Supreme Court vacancies could arise, of course.

Thirteen federal appeals-court seats are empty. So are 77 federal trial-court benches. Also, 14 other judges have announced their plans to retire between now and June 2017.

All told, by next Independence Day, Hillary could name 105 like-minded judges to these federal courts.

And that’s just the judicial branch.

Hillary would nominate 15 cabinet secretaries who share her collectivist vision. The secretaries of state, treasury, labor, transportation, and others, in turn, would be encircled by platoons of undersecretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and their secretaries.

The federal government includes “137 independent executive agencies with 268 components,” according to USA.gov. Hillary would employ the heads of these bodies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and many, many more. Beyond that, ad hoc boards, commissions, and blue-ribbon panels also would clamor for chiefs.

And then we have the Indians.

Obama employed at least 143,000 federal staffers during his first term, Investor’s Business Daily estimates. Hillary likely would hire as many federal workers in her image or merely leave thousands of Obamites in place and let them keep on keeping on. Neither prospect is appetizing.

[….]

A President Trump would nominate his own candidates for the Supreme Court and lower benches. The 20 well-respected jurists whom he identified as potential justices all would return the High Court to a more constitutionalist path. So would his circuit- and district-court nominees. As for his cabinet appointees and top aides, just imagine these patriots working to clean up after Obama and help Trump make America great again:

  • Secretary of State Newt Gingrich
  • Treasury Secretary Steve Forbes
  • Defense Secretary KT McFarland
  • Attorney General Rudolph W. Giuliani
  • Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Ben Carson
  • Office of Management and Budget Director Steve Moore
  • United Nations Ambassador Laura Ingraham
  • Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Arthur Laffer
  • CIA Director John Bolton
  • Federal Reserve Chairman Lawrence Kudlow

While this dream team is almost too good to be true, some of these experts and activists already advise Trump and would help him govern. If asked, many of them would serve our country in a Trump Administration.

(read more)

Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Laffer Curve Tells Us

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Video description) Should Taxes Be Higher? It’s the million dollar question! Up? Down? No change? Where in the world should taxes go? In election years, the question of tax rates fills the airwaves. In non-election years, the question of tax rates, again, fills the airwaves. So what’s the answer? UCLA Professor of Economics Tim Groseclose explains his research on the topic. Basically, there’s a certain point at which higher tax rates actually reduce the amount of revenue the government collects. What’s that point? When are tax rates too high? Learn a valuable lesson in economics, and public policy.

Video Description:

President Obama has declared that the standard by which all policies and policy outcomes are judged is fairness. This video explores what it means for our economic system and our economic results to be “fair.” Does it mean that everyone has a fair shot? Does it mean that everyone gets the same? Does it mean the government is supposed to play the role of Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor? The surprising answer: Nations with free market systems that allow ALL people to get ahead are the fairest of them all.

Learn more in Who’s the Fairest of Them All? The Truth about Taxes, Opportunity, and Wealth in America by Stephen Moore:

http://www.encounterbooks.com/books/whos-the-fairest-of-them-all/