Liberty Maven

Quote of the Day: “”Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised, and whatever else they can get away with.” – Milton Friedman

Unless Congress acts, on January 1, 2011, your taxes will go up.

New Year’s Day is when the 2001 Bush tax rates expire.

The White House and Congress are negotiating a “compromise” that may involve . . .

* A temporary extension of those rates, and/or
* A tax hike on the “wealthy”

As our sample letter below shows, if no agreement is reached, and the tax cuts expire . . .

* You’ll have less money to pay your bills
* Marginal companies will be driven under by the higher taxes, increasing unemployment
* Many new ventures will NOT be attempted because of the higher tax costs
* And worst of all, your children will be worse off because the federal deficit will actually increase

Here’s the crucial thing to understand . . .

* Tax increases don’t reliably raise actual tax revenues
* Tax revenues always run about 19% of GDP, no matter what the tax rate is
* Congress always spends as much as it can get through taxes, AND as much as it can get from borrowing
* So raising taxes WON’T decrease spending or reduce the deficit

It’s a fact . . .

Congress has a spending surplus, not a tax deficit.

Please tell Congress to permanently extend the Bush tax rates and get spending under control.

You may borrow from or copy this sample letter . . . Read More »

With all of the “sky is falling” melodrama over Wikileaks all over the media, I find Robert Gates refreshingly honest in this answer to Michael Yon. Yon asked Gates an intriguing question regarding Wikileaks and the potential damage it may do to sharing information between intelligence agencies. Among other things, Gates said the following:

Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on.  I think — I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.  Many governments — some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us.  We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.

So other nations will continue to deal with us.  They will continue to work with us.  We will continue to share sensitive information with one another.

Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for U.S. foreign policy?  I think fairly modest.

Of course, now some people are making the claim that the information leaked may end up benefiting the Obama administration and the source of the leak may be the administration itself. Is this some kind of weird reverse trutherism? I doubt this claim is true, but it’s an interesting thought when coupled with Gates response above. Read more about this claim at reason.com.