The Internal Revenue Service has been targeting conservative groups but the powerful federal agency was not content with abuse of groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the IRS was acting in a highly inclusive manner, giving extra scrutiny to groups seeking to “make America a…
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For ten years the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been dropping off bags of money for Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who is grateful for the monthly cash deliveries. The revelation sparked a protest from Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who told the New York Times “I thought we were trying to clean up waste,…
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There’s a long-standing joke among politicians, which kind of goes along the following line: “You had better not threaten my power, or else I’ll set the IRS on you!” Even President Obama has told a version of this joke: Unfortunately, the people and managers who staff the bureaucracy of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),…
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In 1978, California voters passed Proposition 13, which set property taxes at 1 percent of purchase price and limited increases in assessed value to 2 percent. Only when the property was sold could the property be reassessed to market value. Proposition 13 allows businesses to avoid such reassessment if no single entity acquires majority…
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“It was always going to be difficult to implement Obamacare,” explains columnist David Brooks, “but even fervent supporters of the law admit that things are going worse than expected.” Now how could that be? Things got off to a bad start “because the Obama administration didn’t want to release unpopular rules before the election.”…
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The Tax and Revenue Committee of the California Assembly will soon hear AB 927 authored by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi. The measure allows various tax credits against the taxes imposed by the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law: This bill would, under both laws, for taxable years beginning on or after January…
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We’re revisiting the academic furor of the Reinhart/Rogoff data controversy today because there has been some new analysis to come out of the debate that seeks to answer a good question: Does a high national debt burden lead to slower economic growth, or vice versa? Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a…
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Taxes are not the only way government wrings money out of the workers. Governments also impose fees, and the Sacramento Bee has recently exposed one of California’s favorite tricks: Government establishes fees, which the Bee describes as “targeted assessments to people who participate or benefit from a state program for the purpose of funding…
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We’re very close to releasing an updated version of the MyGovCost calculator, with all the latest projections for government spending. Stay tuned!…
Fisker Automotive, Inc, got a federal loan of $529 million to produce its $100,000 Fisker Karma hybrid, built not in America by American workers but in Finland by Finnish workers. Fisker has not produced a car since last summer and recently dumped all its rank and file employees. The company faces bankruptcy and could…
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