Decision making without a grasp of the impact

There’s a Financial Storm Coming

Taxation is a weapon of government. Taxes directly affect the well-being of every American. Taxes are a necessary evil. We do need to fund a limited constitutional government. But what does that mean? What should our system of taxation look like?

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Graph - Diminishing Returns

Higher Tax, Less Rehiring

With the pandemic driven business shutdowns, New Hampshire is expecting enough of a drop in Business Enterprise Tax (BET) to trigger a tax rate increase under a law passed a few years ago. The BET is a tax on having employees.

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Biden admits his court packing position

Janus … They’re Back … Public Unions Need Revenue

Labor leaders have launched a state-level counterattack against the Janus decision because public unions need revenue. Janus is a 2018 Supreme Court decision. It declares mandatory union dues and fees for government workers unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that mandating union fees as a condition of employment violates the free speech rights of workers. The … Read more

Public Unions Need Revenue… They Are Attacking Janus

Labor leaders from public unions need revenue which has led them to launch a state-level counterattack the Janus decision.  Janus is a Supreme Court decision. It declares mandatory union dues and fees for government workers unconstitutional. The Supreme Court rule is that mandating union fees as a condition of employment violates the free speech rights … Read more

Extinguishing Tobacco Revenue In Our Lifetimes

photos-of-extinguished-cigarette - Tobacco taxes in danger thanks to ObamacareI told them.  If you want people to quit smoking, you had best not get used to the revenue from tobacco taxes.   Don’t count on it for anything if you want to extinguish smoking in our lifetime.  You know, make it history?  But what did New Hampshire Democrats do when Republicans tried to back away from tobacco by lowering the tax just one thin dime?  They snapped like addicts in withdrawal.  They got the Democrat DT’s and everything.

You can’t cut the tobacco tax.  We’re losing revenue.  We need that revenue.  I gotta have revvvaaaaannnooooo.  (Insert primal scream here.)

Their new plan?  Same as their old plan.  Raise the tax on a product they don’t want around to tax.  Yeah, that will fix the wagon (actually it wont) ….until January2014 when a provision in Obama-Care delivers the coup de gras.

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MYTH 3: We have a “revenue” problem

You can read Myth’s 1, 2 and 4 here should you care to; my purpose for the moment is to mug and pummel the idea that spending is not the problem and this helps illustrate that.

The revenue problem refers to the notion that revenues are too low. Typically, special attention is drawn to the tax rates paid by the “wealthy.” However, taxes are not too low. In actuality, taxes are too high. Once again, take a look at the last 20 years. In 1992, federal tax revenue totaled $1.642 trillion in 2012 dollars. In 2012, revenue skyrocketed to $2.435 trillion in 2012 dollars. While federal spending has eclipsed revenue by more than $1 trillion each of the last four years, too little revenue has not been the culprit!

Put another way, imagine that you are earning 793 billion more dollars today than you were twenty years ago and yet your lifestyle still exceeds your income by more than a trillion dollars a year.

Do you think the someone with the Name tag that reads ‘Hello My Name is: Federal Government” could use a little  intervention?

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Smoke Em After You Buy Em…In New Hampshire

Right off the bat, thanks to Matt at Red Hampshire for reminding me about Ken Wyler’s bill to cut the cigarette tax by $0.10 cents per pack.  (HB 156) I’ve been queuing up a post on this having written about it often and what better time than now to unload it.

First the basics.  Wyler thinks cutting the tax by a buck a carton will actually increase revenue by attracting more out of state traffic.  Ken is correct.  A larger cut would be better, but I guess we can crawl before we walk.  And with that in mind, lets review why it will raise more revenue.  And I’m not even going to have to go back very far for a decent flashback.

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