“Political economy” on The Daily Caller

Last week’s budget deal soured many on the political process – that it takes pushing things to the brink to make progress. But such brinkmanship produces results. (more)

The other day, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a column in which he posed the question, “What if we’re not broke?” Dionne concluded that we’re not actually broke and that “a phony metaphor [the idea that we’re broke] is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.” (more)

Most people believe that if they don’t work for a corporation or own stock, corporate income taxes don’t affect them. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, corporations don’t really pay corporate income taxes; they just pass the tax burden onto consumers. They have to — if they didn’t, they’d go out of business. The upshot is that everyone pays corporate income taxes. (more)

OK, everyone — time to take a breath and consider a new idea. Well, not really a new idea. It is called the Fair Tax plan and was conceived in 1998 by a nonpartisan group out of Houston called Americans for Fair Taxation. (more)

Pres. Ronald Reagan’s birthday did not go unremarked upon by civility advocates* on the Left. (more)

During the past 20 years, nearly 110,000 Ocean State residents have exited the state, never looking back. They have taken their capital with them, costing Rhode Island’s economy roughly $1 billion. (more)

As if Illinois weren’t already steadily chasing businesses and citizens away with policies of economic destruction, Illinois lawmakers are poised to raise taxes by as much as 75%, effectively wiping out the benefits of Obama’s recent extension of the Bush tax cuts for citizens of his home state. What’s more, Chicago machine boss and Democrat House Speaker Michael Madigan is pushing a faux TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) to give his members and on-the-fence Republicans cover to pass this job-killing, prosperity-stifling plan. My colleague Kristina Rasmussen was lined up to testify against this bill at a hearing this past week but the only testimony allowed was by the Speaker himself. I suppose it was a hearing in a way — Illinois lawmakers heard marching orders from the powerful Speaker. (more)

In Monday’s New York Times, David Brooks criticizes the politics surrounding the ongoing debate about the size and focus of government. (more)

In August of this year, Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised Congress that “The National debt is the biggest threat to our national security.” In November, voter sentiment against the debt and deficit led to an historic rebuke of Congressional incumbents. In December, the president’s debt commission laid out in stark terms the imminent economic impact of continued deficit spending. Apparently rejecting these clarion calls, the president and Congress acted in the lame-duck session to cut not one dime of federal spending, while increasing the national debt by nearly $1 trillion. They are ignoring a glaring problem that, if not addressed soon, will cause a panoply of other problems. (more)

The lame-duck Congress has been marked by many competing issues, but none as prominent as whether to renew the 2001 and 2003 taxpayer relief laws. Lawmakers, wary of another difficult election two years from now, have wisely made the tax rate extension a top priority. Runaway deficit spending clearly galvanized voters and adding a tax hike on January 1st, with unemployment still at 10 percent, would send another wave of enmity toward Washington. (more)

For the first time, the president listened to the majority of the people and was willing to extend the existing tax rates for everyone. Many people do not like the backdoor welfare that he attached to the so-called deal that Congress is now considering, nor did we like extending unemployment benefits for another 13 months without identifying the off-sets in spending. (more)

For all the talk of the tax cut deal’s impact on the deficit, if Republicans can get spending cuts to pay for the $60 billion or so that it would cost to extend unemployment insurance for a year then the agreement will be acceptable to a majority of even the most conservative among them. (more)

Is cutting taxes immoral? Some people are arguing that extending tax cuts to the wealthy is just that. Was supporting Obamacare and taxpayer-funded abortion moral then? (more)

Finally, President Obama said something I can agree with: that Americans do have differences of opinion, that not everyone agrees with him and the Democrats, and that compromise is part of our political system. So in the interest of compromise and deficit reduction, I note that conservatives can certainly throw some new tax proposals on the table in order to throw some Americans under the bus who richly deserve it. Normally we cringe when the usual assortment of “progressive” senators bitch and moan about why the “rich” aren’t paying taxes at a higher marginal rate. We instead favor a flatter tax code and don’t wish to punish success. However, we are willing to make an exception. (more)

Please take a moment and let this sink in — it doesn’t matter whether or not Bush’s tax cuts expire. Either way, taxpayers will be on the hook for the trillions in obligations that Washington has incurred and continues to add to at an alarming and ever-accelerating rate. (more)

Final reports from government commissions are not generally known to be stirring or often acted upon. Most of the time, that’s OK. Commissions are usually government’s way of pretending to address a problem without really doing so. (more)

Legislators are battling over extending the Bush tax cuts. Should the “rich” get tax cuts? Congressional Republicans say yes and Democrats say no. (more)

Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts, especially locking in the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, will spark a stock market sell off starting December 15 as investors move to lock in gains at a lower rate than the 20 percent it would jump to next year, warn analysts. (more)

Summoning the most urgent and stern rhetoric possible, President Obama’s debt commission co-chairmen released their final report Wednesday morning upon a capital culture waiting eagerly to tear it to shreds. (more)

Here we go with the liberal rhetoric again. You’ve seen the Democrats whine that keeping the “Bush tax cuts” would stuff the pockets of the richest Americans, while doing nothing to help the middle class. But that simply isn’t the truth. (more)