Another nutty idea out of Philly, this time from the head Nutter himself:
Mayor Nutter, balking at cutting “core services” and running out of ways to raise money, is expected to balance next year’s budget with a steep tax on sugary drinks and a $300 annual residential trash fee, sources familiar with the plan said yesterday.
City Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr. said he anticipated a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sweet drinks as part of Nutter’s 2010-2011 budget, to be presented tomorrow. That’s $2.88 on a 12-pack of soda cans.
Hey, you guys over in Philly can run your government however you like, but if they tried that stuff where I’m at there’d be hell to pay. I don’t play around with the price of my Dr.Pepper.
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President Obama likes to assert that economists across the political spectrum agree that big government spending is necessary to fight off recession. “Economists on the left and right,” he insisted early in 2009, “agree that the last thing the government should do during a recession is cut back on spending.” Essentially, he’s saying that all economists are Keynesians. This is simply false, as Harvard Professor Jeffrey Miron tells us today at the Daily Caller.
..That brings us to the second argument for higher spending: the Keynesian claim that spending stimulates the economy. If this is accurate, it might seem the U.S. should continue its high-spending ways until the recession is over.
But the Keynesian argument for spending is also problematic. To begin with, the Keynesian view implies that any spending—whether for vital infrastructure or bridges to nowhere—is equally good at stimulating the economy. This might be true in the short term (emphasis on might), but it cannot be true over the long haul, and many “temporary” programs last for decades. So stimulus spending should be for good projects, not “digging ditches,” yet the number of good projects is small given how much is already being spent.
More broadly, the Keynesian model of the economy relies on strong assumptions, so we should not embrace it without empirical confirmation. In fact, economists find weak or contradictory evidence that higher government spending spurs the economy.
Substantial research, however, does find that tax cuts stimulate the economy and that fiscal adjustments—attempts to reduce deficits by raising taxes or lowering expenditure—work better when they focus on tax cuts. This does not fit the Keynesian view, but it makes perfect sense given that high taxes and ill-justified spending make the economy less productive…
Recently, Obama again cited the entire spectrum of economists as supporters of his agenda: “Now, if you hear some of the critics, they’ll say, well, the Recovery Act, I don’t know if that’s really worked, because we still have high unemployment. But what they fail to understand is that every economist, from the left and the right, has said, because of the Recovery Act, what we’ve started to see is at least a couple of million jobs that have either been created or would have been lost.”
Economist Robert Barro explains in the Wall Street Journal what a load that is.
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The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is throwing out press releases left and right (like this one for North Dakota) highlighting all the money state government’s could soak up if they slapped a $1 tax on cigarettes. If states did this, they inform us that all kind of wondrous benefits would follow, such as fewer kids taking up smoking and more adult smokers dropping the habit. Oh, and we’d save millions in health care costs! Reuters took up the call and trumpeted that the tax “could reap billions” for states.
So what is the problem? It’s two-fold, as I see it. One, raising revenues is not going to make a difference in budget outlooks if lawmakers do not also adopt a fundamentally different approach to governing. Business as usual would just mean spending any additional funds to buy new votes. There is simply no reason to believe the money would be spent only for the purposes for which government was actually instituted. In fact, government has enough money for those purposes already.
Second, nanny taxes like these (which are just excise taxes targeting particularly unpopular or risky activities) limit individual freedom and start us down a slippery slope of deciding what activities people are allowed to partake in. Some people do things, like smoke, which involve some harm to themselves. But it also clearly provides a benefit, or they wouldn’t do it, and the only person capable of weighing the cost and the benefits of an individual activity is the actual individual. After all, the pleasure we take from any particular activity is subjective to ourselves and cannot be universally measured. I take no pleasure in smoking, but others do. That is their right, and they should not be targeted for punishment under the guise of balancing budgets.
If it’s smokers today, who might it be tomorrow? Motorcycle riders? Hunters? Fast food eaters? …Blog readers?
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People respond to incentives:
Conservatives have been exchanging email for weeks about the shocking fact that Obama’s health care bill discriminates against marriage while financially favoring unmarried couples living together. This fact is finally getting national attention, at least in The Wall Street Journal and on Fox News.
Here is the cost in the House bill for an unmarried couple who each earn $25,000 a year (total: $50,000). When they both buy health insurance (which will be mandatory), the combined premiums they pay will be capped at $3,076 a year.
But if the couple gets married and has the same combined income of $50,000, they will pay annual premiums up to a cap of $5,160 a year. That means they have to fork over a marriage penalty of $2,084.
Being married does make someone more likely to vote Republican, so perhaps this is just another way to get Democrats reelected.
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Another successful business targeted for taxation. It’s like the leftists don’t want people to be successful:
The proposal, outlined in a government-commissioned survey, has set the scene for a new Gallic run-in with Google – fast becoming the global internet behemoth the world loves to hate.
The levy on advertising revenue is the latest plank in France’s drive to regulate the internet, which has seen it enact some of the world’s toughest antipiracy legislation.
…Guillaume Cerutti, one of the authors of the report said the tax would put an end to “enrichment without any limit or compensation”.
Huh? Google provides a service. The only people looking for enrichment without limit or compensation are the big government statists like Guillaume Cerutti, who want to take from the productive sector without providing any value of their own.
Not that I feel much sympathy for Google, which is notorious for supporting France-style big government right here in the U.S. But I’m also confident that, as the successful search giant is increasingly turned upon by its supposed leftwing allies (because they really do hate any business that is successful), it will realize the error of its ways.
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Rep. Poe is looking for co-sponsors for his resolution, which would amend the rules to prevent the House from considering “a regulation of individual activity disguised as a tax.” In other words, no pretending that an individual mandate is authorized under the powers to tax.
So far he has found only a single cosponsor in fellow Texan Rep. Johnson.
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I take on calls for a value-added tax in my latest post at Big Government:
As Congress prepares to raise the debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, there are renewed calls from political elites for a value-added tax in America. The New York Times all but campaigned for the idea while touting it as a possible “cure for deficits.” But a VAT would do nothing to solve our deficit problem. Rather, it would supply new fuel to big government bureaucrats addicted to spending.
You can read the rest here.
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We need to “pitch in” more:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea of a “global” tax on stock trades and other financial transactions, saying the estimated $150 billion in annual revenue from such a tax could be used to help fund more stimulus spending.
At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi said the financial transactions tax (HR4191) currently before Congress would have to be made “global” to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach.
…Pelosi said she thought the idea might have currency among a public eager to see Wall Street firms “pitching in” to help the government grow the economy.
“I think there would be a market for it among the American people to say that we are all participating in the economic prosperity of our country, and we are all pitching in to continue that prosperity,” said Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi’s view of society and the economy is gloriously and unabashedly foolish.
Let me get this straight: we need to tax productive financial transactions and give that money to a cadre of bureaucrats and politicos, who will then waste it various and sundry ways, in order to be prosperous. No.
Taxes are not how we contribute to prosperity. We contribute to prosperity by producing, and taxes are a burden on production. Nancy Pelosi has it exactly backwards.
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No matter how much it begs:
Would you gladly pay more for a cheeseburger today if it keeps your local librarian working tomorrow?
Several members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors think so. So do supervisors in neighboring Loudoun County, who hope the General Assembly will allow them to impose a meals tax, too.
Despite the recession, a growing number of Northern Virginia officials say they think people would be willing to pay more when dining out to avoid further cuts in budgets for schools and local government.
Statists always play this trick. Anytime there is a potential need to cut the budget, or even just to not increase it, they always pick the most popular items and threaten to cut those. Yet there’s little reason to believe that this are actually the programs or services threatened. Don’t believe the spin, you don’t need to pay yet more in taxes to keep having a library. That’s just bunk.
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Voters will be going to the polls on November 3rd. If you haven’t been paying much attention, here’s a quick recap of what’s going on:
The Races
Virginia Governor: Easy R Pick-up
McDonnell (R) is trouncing Deeds (D), who he has previously defeated in a statewide election (Attorney General). The Washington Post pulled out all the stops on behalf of Deeds in this race, at one point penning 12 hit pieces in 11 days, but it hasn’t mattered. The White House has already preemptively thrown Deeds under the bus, blaming his impending loss on not using them enough. Ha!
New Jersey Governor: Toss Up
Corzine’s (D) favorables are bad news for an incumbent, but the race is complicated by a third party candidate in Daggett (I). Christie (R) has been outspent by Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs Chairman who pretty much bought the seat in the first place, by a factor of 3 to 1. Nevertheless, polls have the race as a dead-heat.
Of note in the race has been some Corzine digs at Christie’s weight, which prompted Christie to say that he is gonna be a “big, fat winner.”
New York District 23: Likely Conservative Pick-up (he’ll caucus with Republicans, so also an R Hold)
Most recent polls have this three-way race down to Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Republican Dede Scozzafava, a card-check and stimulus supporting liberal endorsed by DailyKOS, was appointed the Republican candidate by the local party bigwigs. There was no primary for this special election.
After running a terrible campaign (which at one point included an odd episode where the cops were called on a conservative reporter for asking her questions), and numerous prominent conservative Republicans endorsed Hoffman, recent polls have shown her falling fast. With campaign funds completely dried up, she finally threw in the towel this morning. Expect Hoffman to pick up most of her supporters.
Ballot Initiatives
Six states will have state-wide ballot initiatives up for vote on November 3rd. Some of the more interesting ones include:
Maine Question 1: A “People’s Veto” attempt to repeal an act which authorized same-sex marriage in Maine.
Maine Question 4: A TAxpayer Bill Of Rights (TABOR) initiative, question 4 would require taxpayer approval of taxing and spending efforts above a certain threshold (tied to inflation and population growth). The last TABOR attempt in Maine failed to pass.
Maine Question 5: Would allow for legal medical marijuana, and a regulated system of distribution.
Texas Proposition 11: Will prevent government, via constitutional amendment, from acquiring land for non-public use (Eminent Domain abuse).
Washington Referendum 71: A veto referendum that seeks to overturn SB 5688, a state domestic partnership law which granted all marriage rights to domestic partners.
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I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
