taxes
Federal taxation for dummies
“Federal deficits were caused by Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.” That was a typical response I got from a previous post, “Federal Spending for Dummies.” It struck me as a legitimate reaction. After all, President Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress cut income tax rates for all workers in 2001. Specifically, they reduced the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. Additional tax-reduction legislation was passed in the ensuing years which lowered various tax rates for America’s most productive workers. The suggestion was that government revenues shrunk because of these tax cuts, depriving the treasury of funds and driving up the deficit to unprecedented levels. And yet an analysis of the data reveals liberal critics have it wrong …
Read MoreIs Peyton Manning worth $96 million?
Is Peyton Manning worth $96 million. A very good liberal friend of mine adamantly states that no one is worth that much money? Says who, I ask? The Denver Broncos suggest that Mr. Manning is very much worth the money, or else they wouldn’t have signed a contract for that amount. Mr. Manning is certainly reviled as part of the “one percent” by members of the Left who are motivated by greed and envy. And yet Mr. Manning did so much good for Indianapolis, the city, in terms of his charitable giving and the job creation he engineered by turning them into a rabid football town …
Read MoreThe State of Small Business
By Tom Quiner [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En1z2FbxoXc&feature=player_embedded] Small business is the backbone of our economy. Ninety-nine percent of all employer firms have fewer than five-hundred employees. They employe more than half of all private sector employees and pay 44% of all private payroll. They have generated 64% of all net new jobs over the past fifteen years. In…
Read MoreIn defense of Mitt Romney’s tax returns
By Tom Quiner Quiner’s Diner has invested thousand of words beating up on Mitt Romney. Next to Ron Paul, he is the easiest Republican candidate for Barack Obama to beat in our view. He’s taking heat for dragging his feet on releasing his income tax records. Why? Because it will reveal that most of his income…
Read MoreGingrich offers a dynamic pro-growth economic plan
By Tom Quiner There is only one way Republicans can beat President Obama next year. They must run a pro-growth campaign. Ronald Reagan did it so beautifully. He appealed to the proven track record of American free markets, limited government and taxation, and the glory of entrepreneurship, which is essentially the exact opposite of the…
Read MoreThe payroll tax cut is a double loser
By Tom Quiner Liberal instincts seem to be consistently wrong when it comes to creating jobs. Republicans have an uncanny ability to be suckered into supporting ill-conceived “job-creating” legislation. The payroll tax cut extension is a tour de force of bad economic policy. The premise of the president and his party is that “putting money…
Read MoreWhy does the president want to raise taxes?
By Tom Quiner [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIqyCpCPrvU&feature=player_embedded] It’s a fair question, don’t you think? The president and his party want to raise income taxes on America’s most productive workers. In other words, he wishes to create a deterrent for more productivity out of them by letting them keep less of the fruits of their labor. It’s a terrible…
Read MoreWhy soaking the rich won’t work
By Tom Quiner [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi-D24oCa10] The debate never ends: the rich are rich on the backs of the rest of us so they need to be soaked through higher taxes and their wealth redistributed to those who didn’t earn it. The late great Milton Friedman addresses this issue head on in the video clip above. He…
Read MoreWhat politicians could learn from Steve Jobs
By Tom Quiner [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUxBJ7n0T8U&feature=player_embedded] Steve Jobs was a genius because he developed products that not only did cool things, they were easy to use. “Elegant” is the word consistently used to describe the MacIntosh computer, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Do you remember the first iPod? It had one button. One button! It seemed like it would…
Read MoreThe skewed view from the Left
By Tom Quiner This morning’s Des Moines Register’s letters to the editors showcased the skewed vision of America from those on the Left of the political spectrum. One writer called Herman Cain “un-American.” “Herman Cain said recently that the protesters from the 99 percent movement outside Wall Street and now outside the capital in Iowa’…
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