“You didn’t build that,” and “You didn’t get there on your own,” and “blessed” and “fortunate” have one thing in common. They deemphasize the idea that success is earned. This makes it easier for President Obama to justify taking more from those who have succeeded.
Lame Ducks & Fiscal Cliffs (part 2): Income tax rates
Yesterday’s introductory post to this series gave a broad overview of the fiscal policy debate, listing issues in play at the end of this year, deadlines and timeframes, and three partisan configurations that are worthy of analysis. Today we’ll begin to drill down into the income tax issues.
Lame Ducks and Fiscal Cliffs (part 1)
This is the first of a few posts on the policy decisions stacking up for the end of this year. I will simply list the moving parts, deadlines and timeframes, and which election scenarios are most important to analyze.
Senator Murray’s escape hatch
Senator Murray did not rule out supporting a one or two year extension of all income tax rates, including the top rates. She only ruled out “locking in a long-term deal this year.”
Senator Murray’s Tea Party tactic
Unless her demand to raise taxes is met, Senator Murray is threatening to cause a recession in the first half of 2013. Her threat should be treated the same as the parallel threat made by some Republicans last summer.
Why not expand Medicaid?
Let’s briefly review seven challenges to the case made by advocates for Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
Wall Street Journal op-ed
Here’s my op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal: A Strategy to Undo Obamacare.
Who will pay the ObamaCare uninsured tax?
These three million people are not rich, they will be uninsured, and they will be required to pay higher taxes. The tax increases on these people clearly violate the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250K.
How to avoid shafting future retirees & creating another bailout
The best way to stop taxpayer bailouts is not to block the bailout after the catastrophe has occurred, it’s to avoid creating the catastrophe in the first place.
It’s not just the economy, stupid
The U.S. economy may not be the only subject this fall, and if we drill down further we can find complexities beyond the simplistic political analysis of “Economy bad, incumbent loses.” President Obama’s economic campaign challenge is multidimensional.
