CEO of the Tax Foundation Daniel Bunn urges lawmakers to reign in federal spending

 

June 14, 2023

From the latest Ripon Forum, CEO of the Tax Foundation Daniel Bunn urges lawmakers to reign in federal spending now to save our economy for the future:

Is the U.S. tax system rigged in favor of the rich? That’s the belief of many Americans today, but the data suggests otherwise. The U.S. tax and transfer system is highly progressive and redistributive. But if policymakers continue to double down on this progressivity while ignoring our nation’s debt, it could come at a cost to the American economy.

There are many ways to measure this, but the most thorough is the “effective fiscal incidence rate” — the amount of tax a person bears (directly and indirectly) relative to their comprehensive income (including government transfers). Government transfers — which include things like Social Security and Medicaid — make up 59 percent of the bottom quintile’s income; excluding transfers when looking at our tax code vastly understates the progressivity of our fiscal system.

But even before accounting for government transfers, the combined federal, state, and local tax system is progressive. In 2019, the top quintile of households paid 34.5 percent, while the middle and bottom quintiles paid 24.7 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively.

When transfers are included, the system becomes substantially more progressive: the top quintile’s rate jumps to 41.4 percent, while the middle and bottom quintiles drop to 22.4 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. All told, the transfer system redistributed $1.7 trillion from the top two quintiles to the bottom three in 2019. This is not a system that benefits the rich at the expense of the poor.

While this sounds “fair” on paper, keep in mind that progressivity comes at a cost. Research finds a negative relationship between taxes and growth, with a more pronounced effect for progressive taxes.

Why? Because people respond to incentives. On the margin, higher taxes on corporations and shareholders reduce the incentives to invest, which means fewer workers, lower wages, and less innovation. And progressive taxes lower the returns to education, investment, entrepreneurialism, and risk-taking. Lower levels of these activities harm not just individuals, but the broader economy.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t tempered proposals to make the U.S. tax system even more progressive. At the state level, seven states have introduced legislation to enact wealth taxes targeting net worth, capital gains, and estates. These, as Tax Foundation’s Jared Walczak puts it, “are economically destructive, their base is almost impossible to measure accurately, and they create perverse incentives and promote costly avoidance strategies. Very few taxpayers would remit wealth taxes — but many more would pay the price.”

And at the federal level, President Biden’s recently released budget would add almost $4.8 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, targeted at high-income individuals and businesses. Though these policies are aimed at the rich, they’ll impact everybody. These changes would reduce long-run GDP, shrink wages, and eliminate 335,000 jobs, according to Tax Foundation research.

To read more, please click https://riponsociety.org/.../is-the-u-s-tax-system.../

Resist the social credit system – While you still can

 

June 12, 2023

Freedom is an endangered species, thanks to the Chinese Communist Party’s so-called “social credit system.” It utilizes a comprehensive array of advanced surveillance, computing and artificial intelligence technologies to monitor and control its own population. 

Worse yet, the Chinese Communists and their globalist allies at the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, Big Pharma and, of course, the Biden administration – seek to impose this “Digital Gulag,” here and throughout the world.

The building-blocks of that liberty-crushing project include: Team Biden’s bid to institutionalize the “China Model” of pandemic lockdowns, emergency orders and mandates; American businesses conforming to “environment, social and governance” scoring; and the proliferation of global and national health IDs. 

The time to resist is now, while we still can. 

This is Frank Gaffney. 

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At a time when most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, the ‘quiet luxury’ trend takes over

 

June 12, 2023

• The “quiet luxury” trend has quickly caught on, even though, these days, most Americans are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck.
• Marked by expensive materials in muted tones, quiet luxury is also known as stealth wealth.
• As Americans’ economic circumstances get increasingly divided, consumers could benefit from the shift to low-key basics over loud logos, one financial expert says.
• Full Article

Vessel buildup grows at West Coast ports as maritime supply chain begins to break, echoing Covid chaos

 

June 8, 2023

• There have been delays in processing vessels at terminals within the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
• One shipping expert told CNBC that current vessel wait times are breaking ‘normal’ and a ‘stressed’ maritime supply chain not seen since the Covid peak is back.
• Gene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said on Thursday morning in a CNBC interview that the situation had improved on Thursday, though cargo is not moving normally.
• The Department of Transportation and Biden Administration are said to be closely watching the developments at the West Coast ports as trade groups from retail to manufacturing warn of economic damage and urge the Biden administration to step in.
• Full Article

Euro zone enters recession after Germany, Ireland growth revision

 

June 8, 2023

• Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece are among the euro economies that reported an economic quarter-on-quarter contraction in the first quarter.
• The lackluster economic environment also poses a challenge to the European Central Bank, which has been on a hawkish path for the last 12 months.
• Full Article

White House rolls out ‘Invest in America’ website to highlight Biden’s domestic projects

 June 7, 2023

The White House launched a new website Tuesday for Americans to track all federal projects funded by the Biden administration. The website, Invest.gov, maps out tens of thousands of infrastructure projects across the country, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan.

Article

Are congressional Republicans about to greenlight a CBDC?

 

June 7, 2023

If Republicans want to prevent the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that would allow government to track and control your purchases, they’d better scrutinize the two anti-CBDC bills before Congress. There’s a huge difference between them. 

One would prevent a CBDC surveillance token from replacing the American dollar. The other would actually greenlight a CBDC by government-chosen contractor.  

It would be tragic if a China-style CBDC is forced on the American people by Republicans who, at best, didn’t understand what they voted for. 

Full Article

Central Bank Digital Currency Concern

 

June 7, 2023

According to a column written by the guest, “You won’t be able to buy anything without permission from the government.  Every dollar you earn, spend, or save will be monitored by autocrats, who, with the click of a button, can turn off your earning, spending, or saving potential at any time.  You’ll be forced to buy food, clothing, shelter–and everything else you need or want–according to tyrannical dictate.  Or you will be prevented from purchasing by the same oligarchs, who control not only what you buy, but when and from whom you but it.” 

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Rep. Nancy Mace on debt ceiling bill: ‘The American people were spoon-fed a bed of lies’

 

June 1, 2023

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace joined Steve Bannon on War Room to express dismay over the latest debt deal facing a vote in Congress. Mace told Bannon ‘The American people were spoon-fed a bed of lies’. The legislation heads to the house floor today for debate and a final passage vote. If it passes, the bill moves to the Senate.

Video

Anatomy of Inflation: Federal Reserve Ignores Root Causes

 

May 25, 2023

Abbott and Costello. Laurel and Hardy. Jerome Powell and Ben Bernanke. Two Federal Reserve Chairs walk into a Perspectives on Monetary Policy panel discussion at the Thomas Laubach Research Conference, and one of them says, “Boy, the food here is too expensive.” And the other one says, “I know, and such small portions for more dollars.” Bernanke and Powell participated in a good old-fashioned and cozy tête-à-tête to discuss current events, mainly inflation and the banking turmoil. But while the two monetary policy legends blamed external factors for all the damage since the COVID-19 public health crisis, neither man looked into the soul of the Eccles Building to ascribe a modicum of blame.

There were two main headlines emanating from the May 19 Powell-Bernanke event. The first was that the current Fed chair does not believe interest rates may need to rise further as the credit crunch from the banking crisis might be enough to maintain inflation’s downward trajectory and achieve the institution’s 2% target rate. The second was that Bernanke seemed far more confident speaking to the audience than his colleague on stage, as Powell read primarily from several pieces of paper.

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GOP senator vows to delay debt ceiling deal lacking ‘substantial reform’

 

May 25, 2023

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the chairman of the conservative Senate Republican Steering Committee, is threatening to use “every procedural tool” at his disposal to slow down Senate passage of a bill to raise the debt ceiling if it doesn’t include “substantial” reforms.

Lee could drag out the floor proceedings on a bill for days, something that negotiators could now have to factor into their timeline as they scramble to reach a deal before the nation defaults.

“I will use every procedural tool at my disposal to impede a debt-ceiling deal that doesn’t contain substantial spending and budgetary reforms. I fear things are moving in that direction. If they do, that proposal will not face smooth sailing in the Senate,” Lee tweeted Thursday morning in response to media reports that White House negotiators and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are getting closer to an agreement on spending levels.

Lee has an array of tools at his disposal to bog down any debt limit deal.

Full Article

Marketing 101

 

May 25, 2023

Sebastian Gorka

Must be so hard to do “Marketing.”

I mean you’d have to know not to tell BudLight that a transvestite isn’t manly.

Tell the Los Angeles Dodgers anti-Catholic blasphemers shouldn’t be celebrated at the ball game.

And that Target shouldn’t sell transgender swimsuits designed by Satanists.

Here's why the US doesn't have to pay off its $31 trillion mountain of debt, according to Paul Krugman

May 25, 2023

Caveat: Economist Paul Krugman is wrong 99.99% of the time.

• The US government doesn't have to pay off its $31 trillion debt, Paul Krugman said.

• The government debt can't be compared to something like a household's finances, Krugman said.

• "When governments for one reason or another run up large debts, it is, as far as I can tell, unusual to pay those debts off."

The US doesn't actually have to pay off its $31 trillion mountain of debt, according to top economist Paul Krugman, hitting back at the idea that government finances can be compared to household balance sheets in an op-ed weeks before the US possibly defaults on some obligations.

Though individual borrowers are expected to pay off debts, the same isn't true for governments, Krugman argued in a column for the New York Times on Friday. That's because unlike people, governments don't die, and they gain more revenue with each passing generation.

"Governments, then, must service their debts – pay interest and repay principal when bonds come due – but they don't necessarily have to pay them off; they can issue new bonds to pay principal on old bonds and even borrow to pay interest as long as overall debt doesn't rise too much faster than revenue," he added.

Though the debt-to-GDP ratio hovered around 97% last year, interest payments on that debt is only around $395 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget, or around 1% of last year's GDP.

Historically, it's also unusual for governments to pay off large debts, Krugman said. Such was the case for Great Britain, which has largely held onto the debt it incurred as far back as the Napoleonic wars.

Full Article

In the Red Our glidepath to Insolvency.

 

May 25, 2023

When Ross Perot won an impressive 19% of the popular vote as an independent candidate for president in 1992, his main issue was the national debt. In one of his unusual, half-hour-long campaign ads, Perot declared, “Just this year, we ran up $341 billion in new debt…. That’s our legislators and our president trying to buy our vote, this year, with what used to be our money.”

Three decades later, our national debt—which reached $4 trillion the year that Perot ran—has hit $30 trillion. If our debt were to keep rising at that rate over the next 60 years, it would increase more than 50-fold and surpass $1.5 quadrillion (a quadrillion, which sounds like a made-up number, is a thousand trillions).

The portion of the national debt that really matters is the almost 80% that’s held by entities—whether foreign or stateside—other than the federal government. Such “debt held by the public,” which is fueled by deficit spending, has to be paid back to outside entities, whereas debt not held by the public merely involves intragovernmental transfers. Foreign holdings compose about a third of all debt held by the public. Japan and China hold by far the most (over $1 trillion each), some of which belongs to private investors and some to government entities. Put another way, China—an increasingly hostile world superpower—has more than $1 trillion of leverage over us.

It’s getting worse, fast. Our recent deficit spending has been truly historic. In 2020, based on official federal tallies (the basis for all figures in this essay), the federal government brought in $3.4 trillion in tax revenues and dished out $6.6 trillion in spending—so, for every $10 that came in, $19 went out. This lavish expenditure smashed the deficit record like New York’s Bob Beamon smashed the long-jump record in the 1968 Olympics. Beamon soared past the previous record—27 feet, 4-3/4 inches—to make an astounding 29-foot, 2-1/2 inch-jump. In similar fashion, with the deficit record sitting at $1.4 trillion, the federal government in 2020 spent a spectacular $3.1 trillion that it didn’t have. In 2020 alone, the government racked up more deficit spending than it had during the first 36 fiscal years of the postwar era (1947 through 1982), and that’s after adjusting for inflation.

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What Republicans want in exchange for raising the debt limit

 

May 25, 2023

 Debt ceiling negotiations between the White House and congressional Republicans took on a new, harder tone this week after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled that he was not willing to compromise with Democrats over a list of GOP demands.

Instead, McCarthy’s deputies say they view a vote to raise the debt ceiling — and to avoid a potentially catastrophic U.S. debt default — as a concession to Democrats, and potentially the only one they plan to make. Given the havoc a default could wreak on the global economy, increasing the borrowing limit is typically a formality, often structured as a companion bill that gets tacked on to unrelated legislation.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, of North Carolina, a chief GOP negotiator, was asked Tuesday night what concessions Democrats were getting as part of a potential compromise with the White House to win both Republican and Democratic votes.

“The debt ceiling,” he replied.

“That’s what they’re getting,” added Rep. Garret Graves, of Louisiana, another GOP negotiator.

Full Article

Fed Governor Waller casts doubt on need to conduct climate change tests for banks

 

May 12, 2023

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Thursday cast doubt on the need for special focus on how banks are preparing for climate change risks.

While acknowledging the risks that climate change poses, he said catastrophic events like hurricanes and floods don’t generally reverberate across the U.S. economy. Thus, he said that conducting special tests for how banks are preparing for such events probably shouldn’t fall under the Fed’s purview.

“I don’t see a need for special treatment for climate-related risks in our financial stability monitoring and policies,” Waller said in the prepared remarks for a speech in Madrid. “Based on what I’ve seen so far, I believe that placing an outsized focus on climate-related risks is not needed, and the Federal Reserve should focus on more near-term and material risks in keeping with our mandate.”

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King dollar will continue to reign supreme for 3 key reasons despite rising talk of de-dollarization

 

May 12, 2023

• The US dollar is king and its reign won't end any time soon, according to LPL's chief global strategist Quincy Krosby.
• Recent currency moves by China and Russia have led to increased reports of a "de-dollarization" movement.
• But there are 3 key reasons why the US dollar won't be dethroned, according to Krosby.

• Efforts by China to turn its yuan into a top global reserve currency have sparked fears about the potential downfall of the US dollar, but that's not happening any time soon according to one Wall Street strategist.

  As the world's second largest economy, China has been working towards better incorporating its yuan currency into various facets of global trade for years.

• Full Article

How Will BRICS Currency Affect the US Dollar?

 

May 12, 2023

Ther are many sections to this article.  Please read them all to fully understand the attack on the U.S. Currency.

The BRICS Alliance has had serious talks over a new currency, which can be dangerous for the future of the USD. One of BRICS’ goals with a new currency is the de-dollarization of the greenback bill, and successfully implementing the BRICS currency can start a domino effect of the US dollar slipping.

The upcoming BRICS summit in August will have plenty of debates and conversations, specifically about this new currency and new nations joining the alliance. It’s clear that BRICS Currency would have an effect on the USD, but exactly how much of an effect can it have?

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A Banking Crisis Shouldn’t Be the Taxpayer’s Problem.

 

May 12, 2023

Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon wrote shareholders about banking turmoil, “As I write this letter, the current crisis is not yet over, and even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come.”

IGI Global defines a banking crisis:

1. Banking crisis reflects the crisis of liquidity and insolvency of one or more banks in the financial system. Due to bank’s sizable losses, bank encounters critical liquidity shortage…disrupting its ability in repaying the debt contracts and the withdrawals demanded by depositors.

2. A subset of financial crises that are felt acutely within the banking sector…having national and international implications wherein either the given capital of the banking system is practically exhausted,…or where the cost of resolving the problems of a financial system amounts to at least 3-5% of the national Gross Domestic Product.

Banks lose billions on high-risk investments, creating a tsunami of economic problems. Private businesses fail all the time. Why is the banking system treated differently?

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Illegal Immigration Destroys Sovereignty

 

May 10, 2023

Our ruling classes reject our right to govern ourselves.

Controversy about immigration in America is as old as the nation itself. The Declaration of Independence presents as one of the “Facts…submitted to a candid world” that “the present King of Great Britain” intends to establish “an absolute Tyranny over these States” because he has obstructed “Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither.”

The Declaration had proclaimed that “the Laws of nature and of Nature’s God” entitled the American people to assume, “among the Powers of the earth,” a “separate and equal” sovereign nation. This nation would be based on the “consent of the governed” and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.” The clear message conveyed by the Declaration was that a sovereign nation-state has plenary power over matters of citizenship and immigration.

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