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TAX POLITIX

The Politics of Taxes

Disappointed With Dimon

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I was disgusted to read Jamie Dimon’s new initiative, the “New York Jobs CEO Council,” not because I oppose gainful employment for New Yorkers, but because Dimon completely gives a free pass to the New York education system with this program. He misses an opportunity - and ignores his responsibility - to help improve a clearly broken system. Dimon spends most of his op-ed talking about “skills-based hiring and matching,” but completely ignores the elephant in the room: New York’s education...

Quickly Noted: Untangling the Media Myths of COVID-19

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This article from the WSJ is a must-read reflecting how the media reported on the pandemic: "Has there been in recent history a more tendentious, hysterical, data-denying and frankly disreputable exercise in misdirection than the way in which much of America’s media has covered the Covid-19 epidemic? Perhaps we can forgive them the endless repetition of pandemic porn; the selectively culled stories of tragedy about otherwise completely healthy young people succumbing to the virus. While we...

Another Problem With Public Pensions

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There’s another issue with regard to the crushing liabilities of public sector pensions. Several states, such as California and New York, have a constitutional amendment that grants pension entitlement to public sector workers. In other words, once a person is working for the government and they have a defined benefit plan, they are entitled to keep it and transfer it, even if the contract runs out.  This kind of constitutional amendment says it's a constitutional requirement to pay...

What’s Really Going On With Pension Reform

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Over the years, I have written numerous articles on the looming problem of funding public pensions. Many states are facing severe shortfalls and it isn’t due to the economy or the recent recession or the pandemic. The main problem is accounting gimmicks that cities and states regularly do which results in underreporting their pensions. In the private sector, if someone were to underreport a pension, they go to jail for it, but the public sector gets away with it, and the taxpayer is left...

“Notes on the News” Ineptitude

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The Wall Street Journal has a feature called “Notes on the News” which is supposed to “walk you through the biggest news stories of the week.”  Unfortunately, their writer, Tyler Blint-Welsh is so inept and full of bias that he misses key points in his summaries to the detriment of WSJ readers.  For instance, on July 26, while writing about federal agents being sent to US cities, he describes how federal officers have been patrolling Portland, Oregon since July 2, but utterly leaves...

New York “Donor State” Sham

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New York Governor Cuomo continues his crusade for a state bailout by claiming that New York is a “donor state” and therefore entitled to more federal funds. By this, he means that New York gives more in tax revenue to Washington than it gets back. However, the “donor state” mantra and his calculations making that claim are incorrect.  A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “New York is No ‘Donor’ State,” did a thorough breakdown on how to calculate and account for federal funds in order...

Romney and Roger Stone: Ridiculous

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It’s really sad that Mitt Romney went off the deep end with regard to the commuting of Roger Stone’s sentence. Trump’s timing was definitely politically stupid and over the top. However, presidential pardons and commutations are often self-serving and inexplicable. Although Roger Stone was convicted of a relatively minor infraction of lying about something that was not of major significance, even that conviction was suspect because of clearly stated bias of the lead juror that should have led...

Support Black Lives Matter, But Not BLM

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The concept of black lives matter is a reasonable expression of sentiment for people who are trying to ensure equality and equity. The problem is that the concept, “black lives matter” shares the same name as the legal entity “Black Lives Matter.” But Black Lives Matter is an anti-capitalist, anti-semitic organization whose policies are anything but helpful to black people as a whole. Indeed, they call themselves a “member based abolitionist organization,” focusing on abolishing “capitalism”,...

Separation of Church and State

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There is nothing in our Constitution about the “separation of church and state.” This phrase is often wrongly used as shorthand for the Establishment clause found in the first amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” What that plainly states is that the government will not prefer or establish one religion over another or restrict the practice of religion. Many people who use the phrase “separation...

The Economic Tipping Point

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Are we past the tipping point for economic reform? I would argue that Obama’s budgets and spending accelerated the deficits beyond repair. Some people will go back to Reagan and say that the deficit and the debt ballooned during the Reagan Administration and they will blame it on his tax cuts. But what is actually true is that the tax cuts generated a large increase in revenue, and the only reason why he had deficits was that the Democrat-led Congress increased spending even over the increased...

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