Higher Taxes = Less Work. Duh.

New York Times economist (!) Gregory Mankiw has an excellent article outlining what should be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of economics (which is perhaps why so many on the Left don’t understand it): that if you tax something, you get less of it. So if you tax wealth, you end up with less of it. And if you tax rich people, if hurts everyone.

Tax Facts from Reason

Reason TV presents a few tax facts that should make you angry.

Is it patriotic to pay taxes? And if so, who are the most patriotest Americans? Who are the least? How many words are in the tax code? How much do patriotic Americans pay to prepare their taxes? How long do you have to work in a year to earn enough to pay your taxes?

The answers to these and other questions add up to one big W-2 WTF.

The Last Nickel

Some lulz from PoliGrrl:

A young father walks into a restaurant with his five year old son.. He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied. Suddenly, the boy starts choking, immediately going blue in the face. The father immediately realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back..

Small Businesses face 25% Tax Hikes

IUSB Vision highlights this New York Post article on how small businesses across the US are being slowly killed by massively increasing tax burdens:

A record 25 percent increase in the taxes against US small businesses — from costs associated with new health care law, to an increased Medicare tax, increased capital gains taxes and higher state and city taxes — is repealing any ability of these entrepreneurs to add jobs to their payroll.

The Obamacare Abomination: Pricetag

So, having seen some conservative reactions to Obamacare, and looked at some possible recourse to it, why not look at what’s at stake? What will this really cost us, and how has that been misrepresented?

I’ve already talked about the problems with the CBO report that the Democrats relied upon to get Obamacare passed. There’s enough there to warrant me repeating some of it:

The Doom of Democrats

Dick Morris wrote a wonderful op-ed at Real Clear Politics outlining why passing Obamacare would spell doom for the Democrats. As they have, in fact, passed this monstrosity, I thought his article doubly significant:

The news media headlines would blare that Congress just voted to add tens or hundreds of billions to the deficit, and the big-spending, high-borrowing image of Congress will worsen. All pretense that Obamacare is not a reckless spending bill will be stripped away, and we will be face to face with the reality that it will add hugely to the deficit.

5 Ugly Truths

John Hawkins at Right Wing News gives us his latest column at Townhall. Hawkins discusses what he sees as five political truths that America will be facing soon.

What is that going to mean in real terms? It means that barring an unforeseen miracle, our out-of-control spending is going to lead to some very painful decisions that will make a lot of people, including conservatives, very unhappy. What you’re about to read are the ugly truths about what our behavior today means for our country’s future.

Salvation for New Jersey

New Jersey has had a long history of fiscal irresponsibility and excessive spending, on both a state and municipal level. The worsetning economy and increasing debt of the federal and other state governments, however, has brought more pressure to reduce deficits, and New Jersey has come out ahead of the game here. Thanks to the efforts of Republican Governor Chris Christie, and surprising support from the Democrat-controlled legislature, New Jersey is coasting to fiscal responsibility and viability. RiShawn Biddle at the American Spectator takes a look at what is going on in New Jersey.

Government vs Business

Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute cites a recent survey(.pdf) that indicates that the biggest obstable to the success of small business is government.

According to the latest Small Business Economic Trends survey conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, 31 percent of respondents said the single most important problem facing small businesses is “poor sales.” “Taxes” and “Government Regulations and Red Tape” came in second and third place at 22 percent and 13 percent respectively. Combining the two, the biggest problem facing small businesses according to respondents is government.

Wow. Government regulation and high taxes are bad for business. Who’d have thought? Don’t worry, though — the government is working on helping small businesses out – by increasing taxes and regulation.

A Radical Recovery Proposal

Jeffrey L. Scribner at American Thinker presents a radical, crazy, almost unheard of plan for economic recovery: cut spending and lower taxes. Unlike the current plan of the Obama administration to spend the nation into debt to save it economically, cutting spending and reducing taxes actually makes sense, and has actually been effective in he past – every time it has been employed.