Tax

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Own Mother Moved Out Of New York Because The Taxes Were Too High

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to come up with new ways to bankrupt America, but meanwhile we have now learned that her mother actually moved out of New York because the taxes were too high.  When AOC’s father Sergio died, things got very tough financially for the family, and at one point Blanca Ocasio-Cortez was unable to pay the mortgage on the family home for an entire year.  But ultimately she was able to come to an agreement with the bank, and she ended up moving to Florida where taxes and the cost of living are much lower…

‘I was cleaning houses in the morning and working as a secretary at a hospital in the afternoon. I was working from 6am until 11pm. And I prayed and prayed, and things worked out. After the children graduated from college, I figured it was time for me to move to Florida.’

Blanca said it was a no-brainer, adding: ‘I was paying $10,000 a year in real estate taxes up north. I’m paying $600 a year in Florida. It’s stress-free down here.’

And of course it greatly helps that there is no state income tax in Florida, while New York has the highest tax burden in the entire country by a wide margin.

Things are particularly oppressive in New York City.  On top of federal taxes, state taxes, exceedingly high property taxes and a whole bunch of other taxes, the city itself also imposes an income tax on those residing there.

By the time it is all said and done, some New Yorkers end up handing over close to 50 percent of their incomes to various government entities once all forms of taxation are taken into consideration.

This is the socialist environment that has given us Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

And it isn’t as if the money is being used well.  In fact, it has just been revealed that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife was handed $900,000,000 for a mental health program, and nobody seems to know what happened to the money…

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, was given $900 million to start a mental health initiative focusing on helping the homeless in the city. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post.

The City Council discovered this shocking amount of potential waste during a meeting Wednesday. And while it sounds good to spend heavily on a mental health initiative, it appears that nobody has noticed any real benefits from that investment.

Perhaps NYC would have been better off spending that money bolstering their police.

So far in 2019, the murder rate in the city is up 37 percent compared to last year.

New York City is a total mess, and now AOC wants to make the entire nation just like it.

But AOC is far more ambitious than your typical tax and spend liberal.  She wants to take government spending to crazy new levels that nobody has ever seen before.

For example, one new study has determined that AOC’s “Green New Deal” would cost U.S. taxpayers approximately 93 trillion dollars.  The following comes from Fox News…

The sweeping “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., could cost as much as $93 trillion, or approximately $600,000 per household, according to a new study co-authored by the former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The sobering and staggering cost estimate came as Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris pointedly declined in an interview broadcast Sunday to put a price tag on the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all,” saying “it’s not about a cost,” but rather return on investment. The Green New Deal’s botched rollout included the release of an official document by Ocasio-Cortez’s office that promised economic security even for those “unwilling to work,” and called for the elimination of “farting cows” and air travel.

To put that number in perspective, U.S. GDP is about 19 trillion dollars a year, and the U.S. national debt is sitting at just over 22 trillion dollars right now.

It is easy to attack AOC, because she is the perfect member of Congress for the “idiocracy” that America has become.

She literally doesn’t know what she is talking about on just about any issue that you could possibly name, but the people of her district decided to send her to Washington anyway.  And the frightening thing is that there are quite a few other new members of Congress that are even worse than her.

But as bad as AOC is, I have to give her credit for one thing.

At least she is willing to stand up and fight for what she believes.

If you regularly follow my work, you already know that I can’t stand the “seat fillers” in Washington that are interested in little more than protecting their political careers at all costs.  They never make any waves, they never fight for anything important, and they spend most of their time raising money for the next campaign.

Because if you do stick your neck out in Washington, very powerful people will likely bring the hammer down on you, and that is something that AOC is finding out right now…

Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

The cash transfers from the PACs — overseen by Saikat Chakrabarti, the freshman socialist Democrat’s chief of staff — run counter to her pledges to increase transparency and reduce the influence of “dark money” in politics.

Chakrabarti’s companies appear to have been set up for the sole purpose of obscuring how the political donations were used.

Of course the truth is that just about every member of Congress is deeply corrupt and should be kicked out of office.

But until the American people wake up and decide to take their government back, this is what we are stuck with, and that is a very depressing reality.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Taxes, Taxes And More Taxes: The Radical Economic Agenda Of The Left Has A Surprising Level Of Public Support

The left wants to raise your taxes, and most Americans are okay with that.  I was shocked by the numbers that I am about to share with you, and I think that you will be shocked too.  Once upon a time, being labeled as a “tax and spend liberal” was one of the worst things that could happen to a politician.  During the presidential election of 1984, Walter Mondale was very honest about the fact that he wanted to raise taxes on the American people, and Ronald Reagan absolutely crushed him with that.  In the end, it was one of the greatest election night landslides in history.  But this time around we could potentially see the opposite.  If things go badly for Trump, we could actually see a “tax and spend liberal” turn the map mostly blue in 2020.  I know that sounds very, very strange, but the latest poll numbers show that the American people strongly support raising taxes on the wealthy.

For example, the most recent Politico poll found that 76 percent of registered voters believe that taxes should be raised on the richest Americans…

Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans.

Those numbers are absolutely overwhelming.

When even a Fox News survey shows that most Republicans want higher taxes, then you know that something has dramatically changed.

And this high level of support for tax increases persists even when voters are asked about specific proposals from Democrats on the far left.  If you can believe it, 59 percent of Americans are even in favor of AOC’s proposal to raise the highest marginal tax rate to 70 percent…

A plan from first-term Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to slap a 70 percent marginal rate on income earned over $10 million clocked in at 59 percent support in a recent Hill/HarrisX poll.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted Feb. 1-2, found that 61 percent favor a proposal like the “wealth tax” recently laid out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would levy a 2 percent tax on those with a net worth over $50 million and 3 percent on those worth over $1 billion. Just 20 percent opposed the idea. The poll surveyed 1,993 registered voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.

To me, voting for politicians that unashamedly want higher taxes is kind of like voting for more root canals or more telemarketing calls during dinner.

But right now the poll numbers clearly show that the left is winning the battle for hearts and minds, and that is a huge problem for the Republican Party.

Today, many Democrats work very hard to fight for their agenda in the court of popular opinion, but meanwhile most Republicans in Congress are simply “seat fillers” that make absolutely no effort to educate the public.  This is something that must change if Republicans hope to ever turn things around.

So why do Democrats want higher taxes?

Well, the primary reason they need higher taxes is to pay for multi-trillion dollar programs such as the “Green New Deal” and “Medicare For All”.

In particular, the “Green New Deal” would take an insane amount of money to implement.  Here is a summary of some of the craziest proposals in the “Green New Deal” that was put together by Michael Palicz…

  • Rebuild every single building in the U.S.

“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.”

  • Will end all traditional forms of energy in the next ten years.

The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

  • Plans to ban nuclear energy within 10 years if possible.

“It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”

  • Build trains across oceans and end all air travel!

“Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”.

  • Don’t invest in new technology of Carbon Capture and Storage, just plant trees instead!

“We believe the right way to capture carbon is to plant trees and restore our natural ecosystems. CCUS technology to date has not proven effective.”

  • Mandates all new jobs be unionized.

“Ensure that all GND jobs are union jobs that pay prevailing wages and hire local.”

Nobody knows for sure what all of that will cost, but needless to say the total would be in the trillions of dollars.

But most Americans are not in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy because they want to see such radical proposals come to fruition.

Rather, they like the idea of higher taxes because they think somehow they will get some goodies out of it.

In recent years, politicians on the far left have gotten a lot of mileage out of turning all of our basic needs into “rights”.  They have been boldly declaring that all Americans should have a “right” to housing, health care and a basic college education even if they don’t want to work for those things.

But if you are “entitled” to something, then that means that somebody else has to pay for it.

And most Americans are in favor of that concept until it becomes their turn to pay.

The Babylon Bee is a satire website, and their recent article about taxes was quite humorous…

Americans all over the country suggested they are OK with a majority of the people voting to take a minority of the people’s money, as long as they are not part of that minority.

“I am a very generous person, so I believe everyone else needs to pay their fair share,” said Lyle Hartright of Maine. “Everyone that isn’t me, I mean.”

“These are stunning results,” said one analyst. “We always believed that Americans were generous, but we never knew how generous. To offer to raise taxes to 70% or more on other people just goes to show how much compassion people have.”

America has already traveled quite far down the road toward socialism, and instead of reversing course, it looks like the American people want to pick up the pace.

But all we have to do to see where that road leads is to look at Venezuela.  Unfortunately, most Americans are not making that connection at this point.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News.  From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the nation.  If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so.  The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Elizabeth Warren’s Annual Wealth Confiscation Tax Would “Redistribute” 2.75 Trillion Dollars Over 10 Years

Elizabeth Warren is making it exceedingly clear that she is a socialist, and that is quite frightening considering the fact that she could potentially become our next president.  Unless some really big name unexpectedly enters the race, there is a decent chance that Elizabeth Warren could win the Democratic nomination in 2020.  And if she ultimately won the general election, the Democrats would likely have control of both the House and the Senate during her first two years in the White House as well.  So that means that the proposal that you are about to read about could actually become law in the not too distant future.

After AOC’s proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent received so much favorable attention, it was just a matter of time before Democratic presidential candidates started jumping on the “soak the rich” bandwagon, and the first one to strike was Elizabeth Warren.

When she announced her new proposal on Twitter, she dubbed it the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax”…

We need structural change. That’s why I’m proposing something brand new – an annual tax on the wealth of the richest Americans. I’m calling it the “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” & it applies to that tippy top 0.1% – those with a net worth of over $50M.

It would be bad enough if this was just a one-time tax on wealth.

But it isn’t.

Please note the use of the word “annual” in Warren’s tweet.  That means that the rich would keep getting hit with this tax year after year after year.

Those with more than 50 million dollars in assets would pay a 2 percent tax each year, and those with more than a billion dollars in assets would pay 3 percent each year…

The Post reported that Warren has been advised by Saez and Gabriel Zucman, left-leaning economists affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, on a deal that would levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with $50 million-plus in assets. For Americans with assets above $1 billion, that tax rate would increase to 3 percent.

The newspaper, citing a person familiar with the plan, reported that Warren’s plan would try to counter tax evasion by boosting funding for the IRS, and by levying a one-time tax penalty on people with more than $50 million who try to renounce their U.S. citizenship. It would also require that a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax be subject to annual audits, the Post reported.

3 percent may not sound like a lot to many of you.  But over the course of a couple of decades many families could have their fortunes almost completely wiped out by this wealth confiscation tax.

According to economist Emmanuel Saez, this new tax would be imposed upon approximately 75,000 families and would raise 2.75 trillion dollars over 10 years.

Clearly this is a move by Warren to appeal to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  I really like how Zero Hedge made this point…

Elizabeth Warren has never been a friend to the wealthy. But in the age of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, merely advocating for “holding the rich accountable” simply doesn’t penetrate like it did back in 2008. And that’s because, on the left flank of the Democratic Party, you’re not really a progressive unless you believe that the existence of billionaires is a policy error.

And surprisingly, there is actually a lot of public support for such a proposal.  In fact, a recent Fox News poll found that Americans overwhelmingly support soaking the rich…

Voters support tax increases on families making over $10 million annually by a 46-point margin (70 percent favor-24 percent oppose), and support a hike on those making over $1 million by 36 points (65-29 percent).

There is less support for a broader tax increase: 44 percent favor raising rates on those with income over $250,000, and a small minority, 13 percent, approves of an increase on all Americans.

Of course so much depends on how a survey is worded.  For example, I would be willing to bet that a survey would show that well over 50 percent of all Americans would back my proposal to abolish the income tax completely.

Over the coming months, Democratic presidential contenders are going to be continuously trying to one up each other with their promises to tax the rich and give out free stuff.  By the end, someone out there may even be promising to give free rides to the Moon to everyone.

But if Elizabeth Warren really wants to be considered a serious contender, she needs to eliminate the ridiculous gaffes that have plagued her in the past.  For instance, she recently claimed that we have “two co-equal branches of government”…

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., already has declared that the government has “three chambers of Congress,” the House, the Senate and the presidency.

Now, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has claimed on Twitter that the government has “two co-equal branches of government, the president of the United States and Congress.”

“The Notorious RBG (Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg) is gonna be ticked off that she’s been forgotten again,” said a post on the Twitter news-aggregating site Twitchy.

And there is certainly no excuse for such a gaffe, because she used to be a law professor.

In the end, it is difficult to understand why so many Americans seem to want to march down the road toward socialism.  Because as President Trump has noted, Venezuela has shown us where that road leads…

“We’re looking at Venezuela, it’s a very sad situation,” Trump told reporters. “That was the richest state in all of that area, that’s a big beautiful area, and by far the richest — and now it’s one of the poorest places in the world. That’s what socialism gets you, when they want to raise your taxes to 70 percent.”

He added: “You know, it’s interesting, I’ve been watching our opponents — our future opponents talk about 70 percent. No. 1, they can’t do it for 70 percent, it’s got to be probably twice that number. But, maybe more importantly what happens is you really have to study what’s happened to Venezuela. It’s a very, very sad situation.”

Unfortunately, political proposals don’t have to actually make sense, and right now Elizabeth Warren is doing all that she can to win the progressive vote.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News.  From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the nation.  If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so.  The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Shock Survey: 59 Percent Of Americans Support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Proposal To Raise The Top Tax Rate To 70%

Although she has only been in Congress for less than a month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is getting more attention than any other member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  She has been setting social media ablaze with her posts about the inner workings of Congress, the mainstream media is constantly gushing about her, and now she has been tapped to teach her fellow Democrats “how to be good at Twitter”.  She is getting rave reviews for taking on the corrupt establishment in both political parties, but the bad news is that she literally doesn’t know what she is talking about on virtually every single important issue.  She is like a five-year-old kid that has been set free to run wild in a toy store, and her misdirected enthusiasm is bound to get her into all sorts of trouble.

It is a good thing to be idealistic, as long as you have the right ideals.

Unfortunately for Ocasio-Cortez, her head has been filled with all sorts of socialist nonsense.  During a recent interview with 60 Minutes, she proposed raising the top income tax rate to “as high as 60 or 70 percent”…

“You look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system, your tax rate, let’s say from zero to $75,000, may be 10 percent or 15 percent, etc. But once you get to the tippy-tops —  on your 10 millionth dollar — sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.”

Do you think that anyone is going to want to work hard to earn an extra dollar once their income reaches a level where each extra dollar is being taxed at 70 percent?

The truth is that socialism kills the incentive to work hard, and it is hard work that fuels economic growth.

If somebody works really hard to earn a dollar, it is immoral for somebody else to come in and grab 70 percent of that dollar just because they can.  But an increasing percentage of Americans are fully embracing the idea of “radical wealth redistribution”, and a shocking new poll contains some numbers that are almost too crazy to believe.

According to this new survey, 59 percent of all Americans support raising the highest tax rate to 70 percent…

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her Republican critics have both called her proposal to dramatically increase America’s highest tax rate “radical” but a new poll released Tuesday indicates that a majority of Americans agrees with the idea.

In the latest The Hill-HarrisX survey — conducted Jan. 12 and 13 after the newly elected congresswoman called for the U.S. to raise its highest tax rate to 70 percent — a sizable majority of registered voters, 59 percent, supports the concept.

Even as I write this article, I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that most Americans want tax rates to be that high.

But this is the reality of the “Robin Hood mentality” that is sweeping the nation.  Most people seem to think that we should “take from the rich” and “give to the poor”, and that even includes a lot of so-called “conservatives”.

In fact, that same survey found that 45 percent of Republicans actually support what Ocasio-Cortez is proposing…

Increasing the highest tax bracket to 70 percent garners a surprising amount of support among Republican voters. In the Hill-HarrisX poll, 45 percent of GOP voters say they favor it while 55 percent are opposed to it.

Independent voters who were contacted backed the tax idea by a 60 to 40 percent margin while Democratic ones favored it, 71 percent to 29 percent.

What in the world has happened to us?

We have already traveled very far down the road toward socialism, and now key leaders on the left such as Ocasio-Cortez want to take us the rest of the way.

This is why we need a new generation of leaders in America that are willing to do more than just get elected to office.  We need educators that are willing to work hard to win the battle for hearts and minds.  We need men and women of character that will be able to communicate why the values that America was founded upon are so great and why we need to return to them.  And we need fighters that have the courage to intellectually contend for the future of our nation while there is still time to do so.

Even though virtually everything that she believes is wrong, at least Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has enough passion to stand up for what she believes.  That is more than can be said for the soy latte drinking wimps on the right that never want to offend anyone so that they can extend their political careers for as long as possible.

At this point the left is rapidly taking control of the national conversation, and Rasmussen just released a national survey that shows that if Ocasio-Cortez ran for president in 2020 she would almost have as much support as Trump…

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if the 2020 presidential race was between Trump and Ocasio-Cortez, 43% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for Trump, while 40% would vote for Ocasio-Cortez. A sizable 17% are undecided.

Fortunately, Ocasio-Cortez is not old enough to run for president yet.

But someday she will be.

We are in a tremendous amount of trouble as a nation, and we are rapidly running out of time to do anything about it.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.  His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News.  From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites.  If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so.  The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Do You Know What Is In The Tax Bill That Congress Is About To Pass?

A conference committee has been merging the tax bills that were passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and even though we could still see some minor changes, it looks like the major parameters of the final bill have now been agreed upon.  The final bill will be known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and we are being told that it will be one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history.  Unfortunately, the impact on our tax bills will be relatively minor, but at least it is a step in the right direction.  The following summary of the major provisions in the final bill comes from AOL…

  • A less generous corporate rate cut: Republicans may cut the corporate rate to 21% from the current federal rate of 35%, instead of the 20% proposed in both the house and Senate bills. The new rate would start in 2018.
  • A lower top individual tax rate: The top individual bracket would drop to 37% instead of the 38.5% proposed in the Senate bill. It would still be down from the current 39.6%.
  • Keep the estate tax, but raise the threshold to qualify: Instead of phasing out the estate tax over time, like the House bill, the compromise bill would instead simply increase the threshold for an estate to qualify — from $5.6 million to around $11 million. That aligns with the Senate bill.
  • Repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT): The corporate AMT in the Senate bill was a sore spot for many companies because it would have negated the effects of many popular deductions and credits, like the research and development credit.

The reduction in the corporate tax rate is probably the most important provision in this tax overhaul package.  For decades, the United States has had a much higher corporate tax rate than much of the rest of the world, and this has given large corporations an incentive to locate operations elsewhere.  By making the corporate tax rate more competitive with everyone else around the globe, it is hoped that this will mean more good jobs for American workers.

This bill also reduces individual tax rates, but not by that much.  So you will notice a reduction in your tax bill, but don’t expect anything “game changing” in nature.

In addition, this bill will eliminate the Obamacare individual mandate.  This is something that should have been done back in January, and I am very happy that Congress is finally getting it done.

It is anticipated that both the House and the Senate will vote on the final version of this tax bill next week.

Sadly, it is not a slam dunk that this bill will actually get through the Senate.

Senator Bob Corker voted against the original Senate bill, and he may vote against this version too.

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Susan Collins of Maine have also expressed reservations about this bill, and it is unclear how they will vote at this point.

And let us not forget that Senator John McCain’s health is rapidly failing.  Hopefully he would be present for any vote, but there is no guarantee that will happen.

In the end, Republicans can only lose two votes in the Senate, and so this is going to come down to the wire.

But President Trump is quite optimistic that this bill will succeed, and he says that it will “breathe new life into the American economy”…

“Our tax cuts will break down — and they’ll break it down fast — all forms of government and all forms of government barriers and breathe new life into the American economy,” Trump said.

“They will unleash the American people, they will tear down the constraints on discovery, innovation and creation, and they will restore the hopes and dreams of the American family. Millions of middle class families will win under our plan.”

Of course even if this bill passes, our tax code will still be a complete and utter nightmare.

The tax code will still be over two million words, and the regulations will still be more than seven million words.  Our system will still greatly favor those that can hire accountants and tax attorneys to find every conceivable loophole possible, and it will still be a tremendous burden on the middle class.

If I am elected to Congress, I am going to fight to completely abolish the IRS and the income tax.  As I travel around Idaho and speak to groups, many are extremely receptive to these proposals, but they wonder how we would fund the government without an income tax.

Well, the truth is that the individual income tax only accounts for about 46 percent of all federal revenue, so we could definitely eliminate the individual income tax but we would also have to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government at the same time.

And we have a historical precedent for what this would look like.

Between 1872 and 1913 there was no federal income tax, and it was the best period of economic growth in U.S. history.

Of course the Democrats are not just going to roll over and allow us to cut the size of the federal government in half, so in the short-term we can focus on some other solutions.  A flat tax or a fair tax would both be far superior to the system that we have today, and there are some very good proposals already out there that just need to be implemented.

I once spent an entire year studying our tax code, and I still shudder when I think about those 12 months.  Our tax code is a complete and utter abomination, and while I applaud Congress for trying to “simplify” it, the truth is that this bill that is about to be passed won’t make that much of a difference.

We need to fundamentally change the way that we fund government in this nation, and that is why I want to completely abolish the income tax.  The system that we have right now is simply not fixable, and we should not pretend that any “tax reform bill” is going to solve our problems.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

The Dow Falls By Triple Digits As Anxiety Over The Senate Tax Plan Grows

It is becoming quite clear that even if Congress passes a tax reform bill in 2017 that it won’t actually be that significant.  On Thursday, anxiety about the Senate’s version of the bill pushed the Dow down more than a hundred points, and that was the biggest decline that we have seen in two months.  Could it be possible that the massive stock market bubble that we are currently witnessing is about to burst?  Anticipation of what this tax bill would mean for U.S. companies has been the foundation for so much of the euphoria that was have seen on Wall Street this year, and now reality is starting to set in…

The Dow suffered its biggest drop since early September as investors reacted to reports that the Senate’s tax proposal would delay tax cuts for corporations for year, a development that pushes back a key part of the plan Wall Street was betting on to provide a boost to corporate profitability.

Reducing our corporate tax rate is very important, because right now we are not competitive with the rest of the western world.  Almost every other major industrialized nation has a much lower corporate tax rate than us, and that encourages major corporations to locate operations elsewhere.

So if we are able to reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, that is likely going to mean good things for the U.S. economy and more jobs for U.S. workers, but unfortunately the Senate version of the bill would delay that tax cut until 2019…

The top corporate rate would drop from 35% to 20% in 2019, a year later than it would in a revised bill approved Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee. That change, which reduces the overall cost of the tax cut package, delays one of President Trump’s main priorities for overhauling the tax code, but administration officials did not seem concerned during a brief appearance with Hatch on Thursday afternoon.

And then if the Democrats take back control of the White House in 2020, they would probably jack corporate tax rates back up to where they were before, and so in the end the change would not make much of an impact at all.

Other than reducing the corporate tax rate, the Senate version of the “tax reform bill” does not actually accomplish that much.  The following comes from Zero Hege, and it is a good summary of what is contained in the bill…

  • 20% permanent corporate tax cut delayed by 1 year
  • Complies with the $1.5 trillion cost (will cost $1.44 trillion)
  • Preserves 7 tax brackets: top tax bracket is 38.5%, down from 39.6%
  • Doubles standard deduction from $12,700 to $24,000 (married couples)
  • Ends state and local tax (SALT) deduction; keeps business deduction
  • Keeps the mortgage Interest deduction cap at $1 million
  • Preserve the estate tax, doubling the current $5.49 million exemption for individuals
  • Raises the child tax credit to $1,650 from $1,000
  • Sets 10% tax rate for US companies with IP in foreign low-tax jurisdictions
  • Full expensing of capital investments for five years
  • Preserves 401(k)s IRAs,
  • Sets repatriation rate at 12% for liquid assets, 5% for illiquid assets
  • Carried interest loophole unchanged
  • Electric Vehicle tax credit is spared (good news for Elon Musk)

This bill also repeals the alternative minimum tax, and that is a change that has been needed for ages.

But overall, our members of Congress are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We have the most abominable system of taxation on the entire planet.  I once spent an entire year studying our tax code, and at the end of that year I came to the conclusion that the best thing that we could do would be to throw the entire thing in a shredder and start over.

Today, the tax code is more than two million words long, and the regulations are more than seven million words long.  I used to have to lug these books to class with me, and that was not pleasant.  Our system greatly favors the wealthy, because they can hire lobbyists to influence members of Congress, and they can pay accountants and tax attorneys to find every single loophole possible.  Meanwhile, ordinary people like you and me always end up with the short end of the stick.

The next time you are talking to a politician, ask them to defend our current system of taxation.  None of them will be able to, because it is an abomination.

Ultimately, I would like to abolish the IRS and the income tax completely.  We did not have an income tax between 1872 and 1913, and it was the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history.

Of course we would need to greatly reduce the size of the federal government in order to do that, and that might take a while.  So in the short-term we could go to a flat tax or a fair tax, both of which would be greatly superior systems to what we have right now.

Simply reducing rates a little bit and tinkering with the regulations is not going to fundamentally change anything.  Real tax reform means getting rid of our current abominable system entirely, and if I am elected to Congress that is precisely what I am going to fight for.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Welcome To The Hunger Games: Trump’s Tax Plan Is Going To Mean A Battle Royal Among D.C. Lobbyists

Are you ready for mass chaos in Washington?  There are lobbyists for just about every cause that you can possibly imagine, and they are always working hard to influence members of Congress on their particular issues.  But when you are talking about a major tax reform bill, that is something that virtually every single lobbyist in the entire city will want to be involved in.  Our tax code is over two million words long, and the regulations are over seven million words long, and any changes to our immensely complex system could have absolutely enormous implications.  There will be winners and there will be losers with any piece of legislation, and lobbyists will zealously fight to defend the turf belonging to their particular clients.  Often lobbyists from different sides will literally be pitted directly against one another, and it won’t be pretty.  In fact, one analyst that works for Cowen Washington Research Group says that we could soon be watching “the corporate hunger games”…

Almost every industry, special interest, and consumer group has an interest in the tax code, especially if the package ends up being as ambitious as Trump and Republican leaders want it to be. Chris Krueger, an analyst at Cowen Washington Research Group, told Business Insider that the battle over which loopholes to keep and which to throw out could get nasty.

“Welcome tribunes to the corporate hunger games!” Kruger said in an email. “Only one-sixth of lobbyists were involved with health care (give or take — assuming it is one-sixth of economy). Six-sixths of lobbyists are involved in taxes.”

There is so much at stake, and if the Republicans are able to get something passed it probably won’t look much like the plan that Trump originally proposed.  But it is so important to do something, because today Americans spend more on taxes than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.  That is morally wrong, and we desperately need tax relief.

Trump’s tax plan would nearly double the standard deduction, and that would be a wonderful thing.  It would provide instant tax relief to working class Americans, and that is something that I would greatly applaud.

Trump’s tax plan would also great reduce the tax rate for corporations.  Our big corporations certainly don’t need the help, but we do want to get our rate more in line with the rest of the planet.  Because our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, it actually encourages companies to set up shop some place else.  Being more competitive with the rest of the world would likely mean more jobs for the American people.

Trump’s tax plan would also reduce the number of tax brackets for individuals.  Instead of seven, now there would just be three tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent.  To me, those rates are way too high, but of course I would like to eliminate the individual income tax entirely.

Many are criticizing Trump’s plan for proposing to raise at least a trillion dollars over the next decade by getting rid of the deduction for state and local income taxes.  For those that live in very high tax states such as California, that deduction is a really big deal…

High-income Californians, for instance, pay as much as 13.3 per cent of their income to the state in addition to their federal taxes. New Yorkers can pay up to 8.82 per cent.

Just seven U.S. states have no personal income taxes, including Texas, Florida and Nevada.

Hopefully the Republicans can pass some sort of tax reform in the short-term, because the status quo is definitely not acceptable.

When the income tax was first introduced in 1913, the vast majority of taxpayers were being taxed at a rate of just one percent.  The following comes from Politifact…

The 1913 law imposed a tax of 1 percent on income up to $20,000, for both individual and joint filers. However, exemptions from the tax — the first $3,000 of income for individuals and the first $4,000 for joint filers — meant “virtually all middle-class Americans” were excused from paying, according to W. Elliot Brownlee’s book, Federal Taxation in America. The law also put in place a graduated surtax on incomes above $20,000; the highest rate paid, 7 percent, applied to Americans making more than $500,000 (about $11.4 million in 2011 dollars).

Today, Americans are being taxed into oblivion.  It has been reported that we spend more than 6 billion hours a year on our taxes, and I once wrote an article detailing 97 different ways that various levels of government extract revenue from all of us.

Every year government just gets bigger and bigger on the federal, state and local levels.  And the bigger government gets, the more oppressive it tends to become.

Personally, I would love to start starving the beast that the left has created, and a great way to do that would be to completely eliminate the federal income tax.

A lot of people could not even imagine a world without a federal income tax.  But the truth is that our country once thrived under such a system.  In fact, the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was between 1872 and 1913 when there was no income tax at all.

And we could do it again.  Today, the individual income tax only accounts for about 46 percent of all federal revenue, and if we reduced the federal government to a size that our founders would have wanted, we would be more than okay.

But even if we can’t greatly reduce the size of the federal government in the short-term, we can at least go to a very basic flat tax or a fair tax, and both of those systems would be far superior to what we have today.

If we can’t get a flat tax or a fair tax right now, we should at least try to dramatically reduce tax rates and simplify the tax code as much as humanly possible.

But if we do get a short-term victory, the battle is definitely not over.  In the long-term, we need to be very clear that our goal should be to abolish the income tax, the IRS and the Federal Reserve entirely.  Anything short of that is not good enough.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Washington D.C. Is Essentially Just A Gigantic Money Machine

If you have ever wondered why our leaders in Washington D.C. seem to act so strangely, the truth is that it almost always comes down to just one thing.  It has been said that “money makes the world go round”, and that is definitely true in Washington.  This year the federal government will spend more than 4 trillion dollars, and that represents well over one-fifth of our national GDP.  With so much money coming in and so much money going out, the stakes are incredibly high, and that is why so much money is poured into political campaigns on the national level.

And it shouldn’t surprise anyone that those that live the closest to this gigantic money machine have benefited greatly.  Forbes just released their brand new rankings for 2017, and they found that five out of the top 10 wealthiest counties in the entire country are suburbs of Washington D.C.…

Virginia’s Loudoun County holds the title of the nation’s richest county with a median household income of $125,900. While nearly 10,000 residents commute to the District, according to Forbes, about 11,700 businesses employ 161,000 county residents, with Dulles International Airport, Loudoun County Public Schools and the Department of Homeland Security leading that charge.

The nearby city of Falls Church, Fairfax and Arlington counties in Virginia and Howard County in Maryland also lead the nation based on wealth.

In general, salaries for federal workers are significantly higher than in the private sector, and benefit packages are usually much better.

But in addition to having a very high concentration of federal workers, the D.C. area is also home to hordes of lawyers, lobbyists, defense contractors and other government vendors.  Big government means big business for those guys, and business has been very good in recent years…

The federal government has a lot to do with this: The Capitol and the economy orbiting around it (including lawyers, defense contractors, computer engineers along the Dulles Corridor, and doctors near NIH) attract college graduates who reliably contribute to six-figure households. Crucially, there was a $1.7 billion increase in lobbying between 1998 and 2010, as Dylan Matthews explained. With each $1 million of lobbying “associated with a $3.70 increase in the D.C. wage premium,” the money pouring into Washington wound up in the pockets of its residents.

This certainly isn’t the limited government that our founders intended.

So where did we go wrong?

One of the big turning points came in 1913.  That is the year when the Federal Reserve and the modern version of the income tax were established.  The Federal Reserve was designed by the elite to get the federal government very deeply into debt, and an income tax was needed to help service that debt and to help pay for the much larger government that the progressives were wanting.

Back then, D.C. was nothing like it is today.  In fact, even in the 1970s there were still large farms inside the Beltway.  But the federal government just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and now it is a four trillion dollar monstrosity.

What I believe we should do is to dismantle as much of that monstrosity as we possibly can.  Instead of asking which government agencies we should close, I believe that we should be asking which government agencies we really need to leave open.

A great place to start would be by abolishing the Federal Reserve, the IRS and the income tax.  Those institutions are at the very core of the Washington money machine, and so it would essentially be like tearing the heart out of big government.

And don’t worry, the federal government would still have plenty of money coming in.  The individual income tax only accounts for about 46 percent of all federal revenue, and theoretically we could still have an absolutely enormous federal government without an income tax.  I once wrote an article that listed 97 different ways that various levels of government get money out of us each year, and so getting rid of the federal income tax would still leave 96 ways for the politicians to extract money from us.

As I remind my readers so frequently, the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was when there was no income tax and no central bank.  But I know that a lot of people out there love the 1.33 percent average yearly GDP growth rate that we have been experiencing over the past decade and would have a really hard time giving that up.

Unfortunately, it would actually be a very tough transition to a much more limited federal government because so much of our society is geared around the enormous money machine in Washington.  In 2018, more than a billion dollars will be spent on the mid-term elections, and most of that money will be going to incumbents that are committed to maintaining the status quo.

If we ever want things to really start changing in Washington, we have got to start sending people there that haven’t been bought off by the big money interests.

In my congressional district there is no incumbent running in 2018, and nobody else in the race is nearly as conservative as I am.  But since I can’t be bought by the special interests, I am going to have to rely on grassroots support.

Donald Trump showed us that anything is possible in American politics.  When Jeb Bush decided to run for president, he had an extremely long list of endorsements and a hundred million dollars behind him, and he still got trounced by Trump because Trump had a much stronger message.

If we stand united, we can take our government back and there won’t be anything that the establishment will be able to do about it.

But if we sit back and do nothing, the cesspool of corruption in Washington D.C. will just continue to get deeper and deeper.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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