FreedomTalks

The Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (TBRC) has almost resurrected Opportunity Scholarships in Florida. Not satisfied with a little success, the TBRC followed this effort with a second entry to be placed on the November Ballot on school spending, by mandating 65% of school spending would be require to be spent in the classroom.
The TBRC […]

Peter Swire of the Center for American Progress is urging Congress to enact technical measures that enable users to opt out of online cookies—typically invisible and unobtrusive digital trackers which send information about a user’s behavior back to their hosts. This isn’t a new thing for Swire; previously, he’s complained that current technologies used to […]

Senator Hillary Clinton is the queen of pork barrel spending for fiscal year 2009. As The Hill reports, she is asking for $2.3 billion in earmarks for New York at the expense of taxpayers.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received […]

Calls for regulation almost always mean well. but Congress doesn’t tend to make minor tweaks and tiny fixes.  This AP piece in the Politico makes the point well:
If history is a guide, Congresses and presidents don’t just tackle problems. They turn them into programs, departments and new regulatory regimes. Huge buildings stand around the nation’s […]

British Conservatives are considering reducing corporate tax rates. No doubt this would be a good thing for the Brits, but I suspect it would also be a good thing here in the U.S., if only because it would increase the pressure from international competition to lower corporate tax rates.
Here’s what FW Chaiman Dick Armey wrote […]

The New York Times takes a stand: Taxes must go higher!  How bold, how tough-minded, how serious, how… utterly, utterly predictable.  The editorial is right that the candidates are all making spending promises they can’t keep, and that the budget has been mismanaged. But the solution here isn’t to make a grim face and say, […]

Via Cato’s Jerry Taylor, this wonderful bit on that oh-so-nasty corporate villain, Exxon-Mobil, from a professor of economics at Temple University:
Some presidential candidates have decided that Exxon is a symbol of what is wrong with America. Recent ads complain of Exxon’s 40 billion in profits as if Exxon is some evil entity. First of all, […]

Who’s paying for energy caps, like cap and trade, designed to address climate change?  You are.  Here’s CBO director Peter Orszag:
Under a cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices. Such price increases would […]

Here’s Ron Utt’s newest report on the state of the subprime slowdown:

Many of these proposals would impose substantial regulations on mortgage market partici­pants to deter future problems. While many of these regulatory efforts are well meant, implementing them would likely limit access to mortgages to only those with high incomes and existing financial assets. In […]

Congratulations, America, you’ve officially paid your tax burden for the year. Now start earning!
But while you do, don’t forget to ask yourself — What will they tax next?