1.30.2007
1.11.2007
Brownback and Romney
I can't say I have fully examined Mitt Romney as a presidential prospect, but one disappointment I have is that he has not been consistently pro-life and used to be in favor of homosexual rights. He started off not too long ago (1994 I think?) ardently pro-choice and pro-homosexual rights lobby. That does not disqualify him in my eyes if he has strong convictions now, I just want to be sure he is not simply an opportunist.
He is charismatic, a successful businessman and can capitalize on his Massachusetts health care plan if it pans out.
I am more excited about Sam Brownback and would like to know more about him.
He is charismatic, a successful businessman and can capitalize on his Massachusetts health care plan if it pans out.
I am more excited about Sam Brownback and would like to know more about him.
Speaking UP for Speaking Out
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The U.S. Senate is about to vote on legislation aimed at curbing lobbying corruption. There is a section of the bill which unfairly targets grassroots lobbying organizations and would penalize them for alerting Americans about important issues and attempting to influence government policy.
If the bill passes, organizations like Focus on the Family Action, the American Family Association, FRC Action and American Values may be severely hampered from informing you in the future about significant legislation affecting the family. Representatives from each of these ministries join Dr. Dobson to tell you what you can do to prevent this ill-advised Senate measure from passing.
Click on the headline above to hear the broadcast.
The U.S. Senate is about to vote on legislation aimed at curbing lobbying corruption. There is a section of the bill which unfairly targets grassroots lobbying organizations and would penalize them for alerting Americans about important issues and attempting to influence government policy.
If the bill passes, organizations like Focus on the Family Action, the American Family Association, FRC Action and American Values may be severely hampered from informing you in the future about significant legislation affecting the family. Representatives from each of these ministries join Dr. Dobson to tell you what you can do to prevent this ill-advised Senate measure from passing.
Click on the headline above to hear the broadcast.
Reason number 237 I could never be a Democrat: embryonic stem cell research.
Reason number 237 I could never be a Democrat: embryonic stem cell research.
Despite the fact that adult stem cells and more recently in the news, amniotic stem cells, show much more promise without the controversy, Democrats are set this week to propose more funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush has vowed to veto any such legislation. Amen.
Despite the fact that adult stem cells and more recently in the news, amniotic stem cells, show much more promise without the controversy, Democrats are set this week to propose more funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush has vowed to veto any such legislation. Amen.
1.08.2007
Bush's Tax Legacy
This WSJ editorial is a great example for why conservative fiscal policies are good for the economy and hence good for the poor.
Bush's Tax Legacy
January 6, 2007; Page A6 WSJ
In his op-ed column on these pages this week, President Bush made some news by underscoring his opposition to raising taxes. We were certainly glad to hear it, and to publish it, because by our lights the tax cuts and economic growth that has followed are his most notable domestic achievements (give or take a Supreme Court Justice).
That growth was underscored again with yesterday's buoyant jobs and income report for December. Job growth exceeding expectations at 167,000 and the jobless rate held at a very low 4.5%, despite a slowdown in manufacturing and construction. Since the Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains passed in mid-2003, the economy has created 7.2 million new jobs according to the survey of business establishments, and an additional 1.2 million in the more variable household survey.
Can Bush's Tax Cuts Survive?1As for the inevitable political complaints that these new jobs are all lousy, average hourly non-supervisory wages have now climbed 4.2% over the past 12 months, or twice the official rate of inflation. With flat or falling energy prices, and a tight labor market, real wages are also starting to show impressive gains.
Meanwhile, tax revenues continue to roll into the Treasury and state coffers. Federal receipts rose by 14.6% in fiscal 2005, another 11.8% in 2006, and kept rising by 9% in this year's first two months despite slower GDP growth. The budget deficit, in turn, has fallen by $165 billion in two years, and including state surpluses is now down to about 1% of GDP, which as an economic matter is negligible. Tax revenues as a share of the economy are also back above 18.5%, which is their modern historical norm.
This record is so impressive that liberal critics have been forced to ignore it and focus on other alleged outrages, such as "inequality," or CEO pay, or some vague prediction of future doom. And, yes, the future is unpredictable. But in the field of economics there are few more definitive tests than the results from the tax cuts of 2003. Critics predicted disaster, supporters the opposite, and the supporters can point to more than three years of prosperity as vindication -- despite $70 oil and $3 gasoline, and lately despite the worst housing slowdown in 15 years.
However, those lower tax rates are set to expire at the end of 2010, and the Democrats who now control Congress want them repealed. The "pay-as-you-go" rules that the House just passed would make their extension all but impossible. What this means is that if Congress merely fails to act, the tax cuts expire and the economy will be hit with one of the largest tax increases in history in 2010.
The dividend rate would snap back to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains rate to 20% from 15%, and the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35%. Marginal and average tax rates for the middle class would also increase, returning to the Clinton-era levies that had driven taxes as a share of GDP to a postwar high of 20.9%.
Now in the minority on Capitol Hill, Republicans can't do much about this. But it certainly poses a dilemma for Democrats -- all the more so because they must also cope with the rising burden of the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT -- created by Democrats in 1969 to capture a few millionaires -- will engulf some 23 million taxpayers this year without a change in law.
This week, the new Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana's Max Baucus, called the AMT a "monster in the tax code" and introduced a bill to repeal it. The only catch: Under Congress's wacky "static revenue" analysis of calculating the impact of tax cuts, AMT repeal would "cost" the Treasury as much as $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Maybe they can find that much in Congressman William Jefferson's freezer.
Our guess is that Democrats will try to finesse all this in the near term. With President Bush now saying he'll oppose a tax increase, they'll be wary of voting for one that would be vetoed and provide Republicans with an issue in 2008. So perhaps they'll try a one- or two-year AMT fix to get them past 2008, while waiting for their Presidential nominee to advance a more detailed tax proposal. Most likely, that would involve a pledge to keep the lower Bush rates for the "middle class," while raising rates on "the rich."
Bill Clinton played that tune all the way to the Oval Office, only to raise taxes on everybody once he got there. It'll be fascinating to see if voters give his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the same leave if she's the Democratic nominee. In any event, what we seem headed for is a two-year national donnybrook over taxes and income that will be decided by the voters in November 2008
Bush's Tax Legacy
January 6, 2007; Page A6 WSJ
In his op-ed column on these pages this week, President Bush made some news by underscoring his opposition to raising taxes. We were certainly glad to hear it, and to publish it, because by our lights the tax cuts and economic growth that has followed are his most notable domestic achievements (give or take a Supreme Court Justice).
That growth was underscored again with yesterday's buoyant jobs and income report for December. Job growth exceeding expectations at 167,000 and the jobless rate held at a very low 4.5%, despite a slowdown in manufacturing and construction. Since the Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains passed in mid-2003, the economy has created 7.2 million new jobs according to the survey of business establishments, and an additional 1.2 million in the more variable household survey.
Can Bush's Tax Cuts Survive?1As for the inevitable political complaints that these new jobs are all lousy, average hourly non-supervisory wages have now climbed 4.2% over the past 12 months, or twice the official rate of inflation. With flat or falling energy prices, and a tight labor market, real wages are also starting to show impressive gains.
Meanwhile, tax revenues continue to roll into the Treasury and state coffers. Federal receipts rose by 14.6% in fiscal 2005, another 11.8% in 2006, and kept rising by 9% in this year's first two months despite slower GDP growth. The budget deficit, in turn, has fallen by $165 billion in two years, and including state surpluses is now down to about 1% of GDP, which as an economic matter is negligible. Tax revenues as a share of the economy are also back above 18.5%, which is their modern historical norm.
This record is so impressive that liberal critics have been forced to ignore it and focus on other alleged outrages, such as "inequality," or CEO pay, or some vague prediction of future doom. And, yes, the future is unpredictable. But in the field of economics there are few more definitive tests than the results from the tax cuts of 2003. Critics predicted disaster, supporters the opposite, and the supporters can point to more than three years of prosperity as vindication -- despite $70 oil and $3 gasoline, and lately despite the worst housing slowdown in 15 years.
However, those lower tax rates are set to expire at the end of 2010, and the Democrats who now control Congress want them repealed. The "pay-as-you-go" rules that the House just passed would make their extension all but impossible. What this means is that if Congress merely fails to act, the tax cuts expire and the economy will be hit with one of the largest tax increases in history in 2010.
The dividend rate would snap back to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains rate to 20% from 15%, and the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from 35%. Marginal and average tax rates for the middle class would also increase, returning to the Clinton-era levies that had driven taxes as a share of GDP to a postwar high of 20.9%.
Now in the minority on Capitol Hill, Republicans can't do much about this. But it certainly poses a dilemma for Democrats -- all the more so because they must also cope with the rising burden of the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT -- created by Democrats in 1969 to capture a few millionaires -- will engulf some 23 million taxpayers this year without a change in law.
This week, the new Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana's Max Baucus, called the AMT a "monster in the tax code" and introduced a bill to repeal it. The only catch: Under Congress's wacky "static revenue" analysis of calculating the impact of tax cuts, AMT repeal would "cost" the Treasury as much as $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Maybe they can find that much in Congressman William Jefferson's freezer.
Our guess is that Democrats will try to finesse all this in the near term. With President Bush now saying he'll oppose a tax increase, they'll be wary of voting for one that would be vetoed and provide Republicans with an issue in 2008. So perhaps they'll try a one- or two-year AMT fix to get them past 2008, while waiting for their Presidential nominee to advance a more detailed tax proposal. Most likely, that would involve a pledge to keep the lower Bush rates for the "middle class," while raising rates on "the rich."
Bill Clinton played that tune all the way to the Oval Office, only to raise taxes on everybody once he got there. It'll be fascinating to see if voters give his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the same leave if she's the Democratic nominee. In any event, what we seem headed for is a two-year national donnybrook over taxes and income that will be decided by the voters in November 2008
1.04.2007
Well, we had a great time in Williamsburg over New Year's weekend. It wasn't too far away and was a nice change of pace for us to get away and have a great time as a family. Here are some pictures:
Noah in a HUGE magnolia tree:
Discovering the panorama feature on my phone:
Clowning around:
Jamestown:
Downtown Williamsburg:
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