“Douglas Holtz-Eakin” on The Daily Caller

“The Power to tax involves the power to destroy.” — Chief Justice John Marshall (more)

The number of promises made by candidate Barack Obama and then broken by President Barack Obama is only surpassed by the promises made and broken by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats, so cataloging all of them would require a book, not a column. But cataloging them is important, so I’ll take a look at the ones that will most greatly impact our lives and wallets. Well, our money is long since gone, so our grandchildren’s wallets. (more)

President Obama today signed into law the Small Business Jobs Act, a moment that does not constitute either much action or any real hope for jobs.  Let’s review what’s on the table.  First, there is the “mini-TARP” — a $30 billion infusion to community banks — and expansions of the Small Business Administration lending programs.  There is no panacea for small business lending woes, so nothing the government does will matter much.  This includes a fund for lenders, who will likely be terrified to touch taxpayer money lest they fall into the Treasury regulatory maw, and anything that builds on the SBA’s checkered history. (more)

The economic news yesterday was dominated by two pieces of labor market data: new claims for unemployment insurance rose to 500,000 this week and small businesses accounted for 86 percent of job losses in the 4th quarter of 2009 (up from about 64 percent a year earlier).  Small business employment dynamics link these two facts.  But the White House has the diagnosis and policy wrong. (more)

We all know how Congress feels about the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 — most Republicans want to extend all of them, temporarily or permanently, and many Democrats want to end the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Without action, the cuts will expire for everyone in December, making this issue perhaps the next big fight on Capitol Hill. (more)

Secretary Geithner is evidently reflecting the left’s desire to wage class warfare at the expense of everyone’s well-being.  It is time for him to recognize that the U.S. has a growth problem.  The U.S. economy is growing, albeit slowly, not declining. GDP has been rising since the third quarter of 2009, and employment is up from its trough in December 2009, NFIB’s small business confidence index is up, consumer confidence is up, and the ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing indices are above 50, signaling growth. There is substantial and widespread evidence of an ongoing economic expansion.  It is time to put aside the mistake intellectual framework of Keynesian counter-cyclical fiscal fine-tuning known as “stimulus.” (more)

The Democratic co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission said Wednesday that the president’s health care bill will do very little to bring down costs, contradicting claims from the White House that their sweeping legislation will dramatically impact runaway entitlement spending. (more)

The Washington Post is reporting today that confidence in President Obama continues to dwindle.  The president’s spinmeisters continue to argue that it is, somehow, all George Bush’s fault.  More generally, the media seems baffled.  Even the inestimable Peggy Noonan wrote: (more)

There is no escaping the consequences of fiscal mismanagement.  That’s the lesson policymakers in Greece and the U.K. are teaching the world as their massive public sector debt and ongoing health and welfare spending commitments force harsh spending cuts and tax increases. But they could have avoided such slashing by reining in government spending before the financial crisis forced policymakers to play out a losing hand. (more)

In an effort to overcome deep opposition to his health care law, President Obama is vowing to personally showcase a series of “milestone moments” with events like the televised question and answer session with seniors he did Tuesday. (more)

The simultaneous, impending sunsets of the 2001, 2003, and “stimulus” tax provisions at the end of this year portend a prolonged tax policy debate. Sadly, we can learn a lot about the quality of that debate by looking at the rhetoric and reality surrounding the taxation of carried interest. (more)

One of Sweden’s most profitable exports in recent decades has been IKEA, the furniture and home goods retailer. IKEA stores have spread to 39 countries and customers will travel hours to reach the nearest store. Their stylish but inexpensive products have made IKEA one of the world’s most recognizable brands. (more)

Americans should look on the economic crisis unfolding in Greece and the European Union with horror. As Greece slips further into chaos as a result of its profligate spending, we need to confront the fact that we share some of that nation’s underlying problems. (more)

A brief window of sensible tax policy has opened for 2010, though if Congress doesn’t take action to permanently eliminate the Death Tax—now at zero percent—the rate will return to a whopping fifty-five percent next year. Any proposal by Republicans or Democrats other than a zero percent taxation is unacceptable. (more)

With news that financial reform legislation is headed for the Senate floor, it is time to officially scrap the administration’s proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee—the “bank tax.” Now, before the populists with pitchforks and torches start after me, let me emphasize that, sensibly, the TARP law says that the taxpayers must be given a path to recouping their losses. (more)

You might as well go ahead and click on this great song by The Tams, “I’ve Been Hurt” to listen to as background while you read the rest of this article, and especially shout out the words, ‘Baby you cheated, mistreated, you cheated, cheated on me. And you told me, you told me… You told me a whole lot of lies’…. (more)

With the announcement of six Republicans (Reps. Paul Ryan, Dave Camp, and Jeb Hensarling and Sens. Judd Gregg, Tom Coburn, and Mike Crapo), the lineup for President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is set. While the commission will more likely feature show over substance, it also might be an opportunity to move forward on much-needed tax reform. (more)

The United States is a center-right country. Under most circumstances, few would argue otherwise. If there was any time when this was in question, it was late 2008 when President Obama was elected and the left wing of the Democratic Party had the wind at their backs. The president himself seemed to believe the country had moved substantially to the left. And now his decision to bail out failed companies, try terrorists in civilian courts, and support a government takeover of health care is backfiring. This shouldn’t be a surprise. This is a center-right country. (more)

A new conservative political action group and think tank will launch next week with an event headlined by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell but also including Jared Bernstein, a top liberal economist within the Obama White House, as well as a representative from the AFL-CIO. (more)

It’s an established fact that Washington is divided on how to deal with America’s fiscal crisis. But on Tuesday, experts who were convened to discuss the problem invented a new way to squabble about the issue, disagreeing on whether the American people even know there is a serious problem in the first place. (more)