Ron Paul’s Economic Plan: Cut 5 Cabinet Agencies, Cut Taxes, Cut President’s Pay - Washington Wire - WSJ

Mr. Paul’s “Restore America” plan calls for a drastically reduced federal government to help spur American business — a familiar theme for the Texas Republican and many of the GOP White House hopefuls. But unlike some of his Republican rivals who have released economic plans, the libertarian congressman mostly avoids the weeds of tax and trade policy, according to excerpts.

But Mr. Paul does get specific when he calls for a 10% reduction in the federal work force, while pledging to limit his presidential salary to $39,336, which his campaign says is “approximately equal to the median personal income of the American worker.” The current pay rate for commander in chief is $400,000 a year.

The Paul plan would also lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, though it is silent on personal income tax rates, which Mr. Paul would like to abolish. The congressman would end taxes on personal savings and extend “all Bush tax cuts.”

He would also allow U.S. firms to repatriate capital without additional taxes. Some lawmakers have recently proposed such legislation as a way to spur job growth. Its critics argue that a tax holiday for companies with money abroad has not historically led to domestic investment.

But the plan, at its heart, is libertarian. While promising to cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year, Mr. Paul would eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, Interior and Housing and Urban Development. When former Massachusetts Gov. MItt Romney unveiled his economic plan last month, he said he would submit legislation to reduce nonsecurity, discretionary spending by $20 billion.

Ron Paul’s Economic Plan: Cut 5 Cabinet Agencies, Cut Taxes, Cut President’s Pay - Washington Wire - WSJ

BET's Robert Johnson To Obama: Stop Attacking The Wealthy | RealClearPolitics

BET founder Robert Johnson on the "FOX News Sunday" program: "Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don't get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I've earned my success. I've earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

"And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old -- I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I've tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn't mean that I am a bad guy.

"I didn't go in to business to create a public policy success for either party, Republican or Democrat. I went in business to create jobs and opportunity, create opportunity, create value for myself and my investors. And that's what the president should be praising, not demagoguing us simply because Warren Buffet says he pays more than his secretary. He should pay the secretary more and she will pay more."

BET's Robert Johnson To Obama: Stop Attacking The Wealthy | RealClearPolitics

Capitalism Magazine - Hard to Take a Bone from a Dog

Capitalism Magazine - Hard to Take a Bone from a Dog:

"Because the U.S. dollar is the international reserve currency, the Fed has been able to camouflage its debasement for decades. Given that many nations are obliged to buy dollars to manage their currency valuations, excess liquidity in the U.S. flows quickly offshore where it's pernicious effects fall on other nations. Recent news from China, where the government is struggling to contain inflation while civil unrest flares, confirms this hypothesis. Too much more of this and the dollar's reserve status will be placed in greater jeopardy.

Clearly something has to be done to cut government spending or America's debt crisis will result in a sudden collapse of the once mighty U.S. dollar. The key question, though, is how to persuade politicians to take the necessary actions when doing so could spell electoral defeat?"

GOP eyes tax breaks, loopholes - Richard E. Cohen - POLITICO.com

Last week’s resounding votes on ethanol subsidies were just the start. Republicans are now starting to eye all sorts of tax breaks and special-interest loopholes once considered sacred cows as they seek ways to increase government revenue without actually raising tax rates.

The targeting of long-protected tax breaks — for ethanol, research and development, manufacturing and foreign company income — is a sign that key House Republicans are ready to break with the orthodoxy of past tax debates while ditching special interests that have long held sway in tax reform discussions.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57382.html#ixzz1Pw7MGSiW

GOP eyes tax breaks, loopholes - Richard E. Cohen - POLITICO.com

Obama Puts Taxes on Table - WSJ.com

What he shows no awareness of is that it is people who have wealth who are the ones who invest it in business and thus create the jobs he says he wants.  By raising taxes on "the wealthy"--in fact the upper middle class--Obama's policies are anti-growth, anti-wealth, and hurt everyone, especially those at the bottom of the wage scale.  We need those investment dollars.  We need to know that we don't have a government that hates success, hates wealth, and is perfectly willing to sacrifice those who earn a lot for the benefit who live off the rest of us.

In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Obama will propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704366104576255282893680792.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Caterpillar's Alarm Bell For Illinois - Investors.com

But even the local UAW boss was appalled at Quinn's nonchalance and told an NBC affiliate in East Peoria that Caterpillar does not bluff. "When they are talking to you, you better listen. Because if you don't listen, bad things can happen," said Local 974 President Dave Chapman, in authentic union vernacular.

The cold hard fact about Illinois is that Quinn's tax hike makes Illinois not only a high-tax state, but an absolute tax-eater.

According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation: "The corporate income tax will rise from 7.3% to 10.9%, a 49% increase and (making Illinois') the highest state corporate income tax in the United States and the highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the industrialized world."

In other words, anyplace Caterpillar moves — and that means anywhere — the tax situation will be an improvement on what it faces in Illinois.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/567530/201103291852/Caterpillars-Alarm-Bell-For-Illinois.htm

American Thinker: Progressive Fallacy Number 667: Wealth Redistribution Creates Societal 'Harmony'

Progressive preachers probably identify with Chinese President Hu Jintao's intention to reduce his citizenry's income gap in order to create a "harmonious society."  The Communist's sentiment saturates the politics of the Democratic Party.

Not to be outdone by Hu, British Prime Minister David Cameron recently complained that unequal societies rank low as measured by "almost every quality-of-life indicator."  Cameron didn't mention that the most unequal societies are the ones uglified by the most tyrannical elitists.  The tyranny, not the inequality, degrades quality of life.  In a society of laws, such as the United States, even the poor live more comfortably than almost everyone in oppressed societies.  The truth is that in prosperous cultures, when income gaps increase, high earners' wealth pours into technological innovations, which raise quality of life for all people.

But truth means little to redistributionists.  Class warfare gospel dominates most "when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer" arguments.  Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett prescribes confiscatory inheritance taxes designed to humble the superwealthy.  French socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn wants "a new global growth model" because "gaping income gaps threaten social and economic stability."  Barack Obama demonized high earners and faulted America for having "the greatest income inequality since any time since the gilded age."  Progressives in general envision economic justice -- indeed, social justice -- through forced "fairness" lenses.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/progressive_fallacy_number_667.html

Capitalism Magazine - Ideas Have Consequences

Americans have come to realize that it is wrong---morally wrong---for the government to forcibly take the earnings from those who produce values (products and services) and give that money to those who have produced nothing, or are financially irresponsible.


Capitalism Magazine - Ideas Have Consequences

Thoughtless Taxation | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Many Democrats, including many lame ducks, are still demanding that tax rates for entrepreneurs be increased under the absurd claim that not to do so will "cost" the government "almost $2 trillion over the 2011-20 period" in lost tax revenues.

To believe these bogus numbers that the Joint Tax Committee staff and the administration put out about the revenue loss, one needs to believe that upper-income people will not alter their behavior when faced with higher tax rates, that high marginal tax rates on capital (the seed corn of the economy) and double taxation of it do not damage economic growth and job creation, and that the government is smaller than its optimum size to maximize the general welfare.

The empirical evidence as well as good economic theory demonstrate that none of the above is true — but to those politicians, mainstream media sorts and left-wing economists who cannot understand the difference between variables and constants, facts don't matter.

Thoughtless Taxation | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

The American Spectator : Stop the Obama Tax Hikes

Of course, this Fed reflation is not going to work either, because as Milton Friedman explained long ago, easy money from the Fed does not change the real economy. It is just going to bring back the 1970s with a vengeance, combining long-term stagnation with inflation. This is the result of President Obama's stubborn, Rip Van Winkle return to the Keynesian economics of the 1970s, play acting like nothing has happened since 1980 to prove how braindead those economic policies are.
The American Spectator : Stop the Obama Tax Hikes