At which point we should be awarded Esquire Magazine’s Dubious Achievement Award. Step up to the podium and accept your Doobie statuette, America. Unless something changes between now and this same time next month, America will have the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world. It’s called the federal/state integrated tax rate and we’ll soon be the front runner. It’s an honor we could do without.This time next month, Japan will lower its corporate tax rate to 35% from its present level of 39.5%. We were already in the running for the top spot at 39.2%, but with Japan’s change we’ll have the award sewed up. At that point, our major trading partners will have the following rates in descending order: Japan at 35%, France at 34.4%, Germany at 30.2%, Mexico at 30%, and Canada at 27.6%. The overall rate among all the developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an amazing low of 25%.
The Great Economist Barack Obama has proposed to lower the corporate tax rate to 32%, which would put us between France and Germany. Standing alone, that would still be putting a bandaid on a cancerous growth. But it doesn’t stand alone. In exchange for a minor corporate tax rate decrease, Obama also proposed to raise the national debt, increase income and use taxes, borrow more money from China, and create regulating agencies to regulate the regulating agencies. And there’s that extra bonus of setting aside more bailout funds and the double-taxation on capital gains.
Meanwhile, Obama expects to fiercely defend his costly socialist Obamacare scheme which also forces corporations to pay way too much for way too few real benefits (on top of the burden on employees and the interference with religious freedom). At long last, Obama has recognized American exceptionalism. We are exceptionally stupid if we reelect this ivory tower socialist who thinks the Laffer Curve is a new routine over at the local Comedy Club.
Obama doesn't get it, or does he? Some have felt he knows exactly what he is doing . . . wrecking the economy so we lose our wealth. Then re-setting the rules to favor his folks
ReplyDeleteIt looks like they shut down the Bigs. I wonder if that is permanent or temporary?
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether 0bama gets it or not, but in reading LawHawk's article, what jumped out at me are the number of things that we take for granted being true that leftists just refuse to believe.
ReplyDeleteTake the Laffer Curve. I've encountered several libs who think that ol' Artie just made it up, you know, like economists do. Nevermind Art gives partial credit to Keynes for the concept.
Double-taxation is another supposed myth. Why, there's no such thing as too many taxes! /sarc Which kinda feeds into the theme of the article. Many times I have encountered a line of thinking that supposes that the US should pay the highest tax rate just because we are so prosperous. And we ought to be glad for the privilege!
Joel, They're making some sort of big change today and introducing a new site. That's all I know at the moment. It will be interesting to see what it turns into.
ReplyDeleteOn the taxes, I don't think anything he proposes can be taken seriously because it's all about elections at the moment. I'm frankly surprised he didn't propose both to cut it to 0% and to raise to 100% simultaneously so he could pander to everyone.
I just don't understand why having higher tax rates promotes job growth. I guess 0bama knows something I don't. Next he'll complain about how American business keep going overseas to produce their products and it's those Rich Republican businessmen trying to denounce the American way... or something like that.
ReplyDeleteI know in a late 2011 interview w/ Mark Levin, Breitbart said they were planning to unify the sites in 2012. While we're talking about him, in the same interview he also recalled how the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings are what first awoke him to media bias. #backfire
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteGood. I would hate that the left wins because of Breitbart's death.
Tennessee: I don't know if Obama and his social engineers are purposely planning things that way. But it's a strategy that has a lot of cache on the left.
ReplyDeleteJoel: I don't think his friends and loyal associates will let that happen. But a revamping may very well be in the works.
ReplyDeletetryanmax: The Laffer Curve is conveniently counter-intuitive, so it has been easy for the left to poke fun at it. But unlike the constant failures of socialist theory, the Laffer Curve is a successfully proven theory.
ReplyDeleteThe logic of taxing Americans more because we're more prosperous (or at least we were) is, unlike the Laffer Curve, a very simple and obvious theory which leftists can propagandize easily for the masses. It's dead-wrong, but so what?
Andrew: Thanks for the reassurance. I figured they would probably do some tweaking, but it's really comforting to know they haven't just decided to shut down.
ReplyDeleteJocelyn: Don't worry about it. Obama knows nothing about anything, and raising taxes absolutely does not help business, let alone during a serious recession. Obama knows only one thing--Obama is the greatest.
ReplyDeletetryanmax: Unfortunately, those same hearings also inspired the simpering David Brock of Media Matters.
ReplyDeleteJoel: Ditto.
ReplyDeleteI just checked out the site, and it doesn't look any different to me than before. The Bigs might have been permanently rolled into Breitbart.com, but then I was just going there already.
ReplyDeleteT-Rav: It looks the same to me too. Who knows?
ReplyDeleteOkay, now the new version of the site is up. At first glance, I like it; it's a lot like The Blaze in format. Each of the Big sites has its own tab at the top.
ReplyDeleteA couple of criticisms off the bat: One, there seem to be some initial problems with connections, so you get an error signal sometimes in navigating the site. If you mess around with it a bit, though, you get to where you want to be. Two, the change appears to have scrapped IntenseDebate or whatever account system the sites were using, so it looks like you have to put up an account all over again. I could be mistaken.
T-Rav: I'm sure we'll all be looking at it. I have had considerable trouble posting a simple comment on BH. I keep getting a message that "my time has expired to comment." But I just wrote it. So I sign in, and sign out and do it all over, and it sometimes takes three or four tries, and sometimes I just give up. I think the problem was at Intense Debate, so if they've dropped it or fixed it, I'll go back to commenting regularly on the site.
ReplyDeleteT-Rav: The total change at the Bigs was a bit of a shock, but once we're used to it, I think we'll like it. They obviously did eliminate Intense Debate, and I had to give them the new info. I posted with no problem (as a test on one of the older articles), and it worked easily, including accepting my avatar. So I guess I'll spend more time on their sites than I have recently, as if I have all that spare time on my hands. LOL
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that when you post, there's that message that the moderators have to look at the comment and it will publish later. I've never liked that feature. It tends to kill spontaneity.
Let me tell you how it will be
ReplyDeleteThere's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me.
Tax man, Mr. Wilson, Tax man, Mr. Heath. Thanks, Indi, now I'll be humming that for the rest of the evening.
ReplyDeleteT-Rav: I've done a couple of comments, and I can see that they're going to have to do some tweaking. Disqus is clumsy, and I made several attempts to enter a profile, only to have it tell me I already had an account (which I had just created), but there's no way to get rid of that message. Pulling out completely and re-trying with clicking "I already have an account" doesn't work any better. You enter your ID and password, and the same message comes up, blocking the profile screen with the additional message "never mind, I want to create a different account." I've gotten stuck in that circular firing squad in the past on other sites, so I just gave up.
ReplyDeleteIt takes forever for a comment to finally appear after moderation. As I mentioned, it kills spontaneity, and defeats the purpose of the "reply" button. But I'm sure they'll work out those bugs.
We could have gone straight to the explanation where they discussed the new format: The Big Change.
In any event, it's better than the new crappy format Blogger stuck us with. LOL
I went back to the site, and even though it had let me post two comments and add my avatar, they never appeared. So I kept fooling with Disqus and found out that if I used my other personal e-mail address, it let me complete the profile, add the avatar and be ready for commenting. Once you've gone through the registration and profile routine, it allows you to comment without waiting for moderation. It looks great, but it needs work to make it more user-friendly.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't the commenting I am looking forward to. It is the squeals of indignation from the Whitehouse on down to the local paper. It seems that Breitbart is right, our enemy isn't BO, nor any one in power. It is the media itself.
ReplyDeletethe rate is insane. is it a wonder we are stymied economically? just another reason i need to punch things.
ReplyDeleteJoel: It's really hard to separate the liberal Democrats from their surrogates in the MSM. It's like separating conjoined twins. It can be done, but with great difficulty, and often one cannot survive without the other.
ReplyDeletePatti: Punch away, I've run out of unpunched walls at my place. I've seen proposals (complete proposals) that would put the corporate tax rate at somewhere between 15% and 20%. By eliminating over-regulation and getting rid of some of the more ridiculous income tax deductions, that sounds about right.
ReplyDeleteLawHawk,
ReplyDeleteYou make that sound like it is a bad thing! Seperating MSM and Democrats is a fun thing!