THE FOUNDATION
“Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee forced Barack Obama to back away from his one-man approach to negotiations with Iran. Under Sen. Bob Corker’s leadership, the committee on Tuesday passed a bill that would require Congress review Obama’s deal with Iran before lifting sanctions against the country. The bill passed 19-0 and is expected to pass both cambers withveto-proof majorities. Before the bill broke out of committee, Obama lobbied Congress to stay out of his dealings with Iran and its nuclear program. Now, Obama’s saying he may sign the legislation, cowing to the rightful demands of Congress. But Corker’s bill is far from perfect. Conservative commentator Noah Pollack tweeted, “The way Corker & Graham wrote their bill, Obama will win Congressional approval of Iran deal with only 34 votes. Ponder that.” In other words, a decision not to approve Obama’s bill faces the challenge of herding all the cats of Congress in the same direction. The Wall Street Journal argues the ideal role of Congress is to pass a treaty because nuclear deals should not be sealed with talk and a handshake. Corker’s bill is a victory, but merely a political one. More…
While Hillary Clinton established her campaign on reducing income inequality, she has not practiced what she preached. “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” Clinton said in the video announcing her presidential campaign “Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.” Sure, Clinton can talk all she wants, but her platform places her between the idealistic Left and her salary. Progressives are beginning to say a $15-an-hour wage is the only wage they will support, probably to the chagrin of Seattle small businesses that have to close because of the city’s $15-an-hour wage experiment. And Hillary has acted precisely like the CEOs and one-percenters she lambasts. Her $200,000-an-hour speaking gigs place her firmly in the filthy rich category. Furthermore, she directs all her salary through her foundation, so she avoids paying taxes. The income deck is, indeed, stacked in her favor. More…
Meanwhile, she also wants “unaccountable money” out of politics. After she raises $2.5 billion, of course.
The Tennessee governor’s mansion is occupied by a Republican, and the GOP owns supermajorities in both the House and Senate. The result has been a wave of pro-gun measures, including a “Guns in Parking Lots” law approved in 2013 that gives employees the legal right to store a firearm inside personal vehicles even if it’s against an employer’s inclinations. The move was a good one; the problem is that “an attorney general’s opinion later found that while the law decriminalized the actions of those who ignored posted gun bans on private property, employers could still terminate workers for violating company firearms policies,” explains WTVC News Channel 9. Last week, the legislature passed and Gov. Bill Haslam signed a fix that allows fired persons the ability to take legal action. Now, even some Republicans contend the new law infringes on employers' rights. But that’s misguided — businesses still have the right to ban firearms, but vehicles don’t belong to the employer. As Hot Air blogger Jazz Shaw concludes, “This law seems to me to have been a good compromise. The employer can bar carrying weapons in the workplace, but the employee’s car is not the workplace. And punishing them for such storage is an unreasonable burden on their constitutional rights.” Tennessee hit the bull’s-eye on this one. More…
Ted Cruz was right on target when asked about his views on the Second Amendment: “When it comes to constitutional rights, what matters is what the Bill of Rights says. It doesn’t matter what might be popular at the moment. We’ve seen regimes across the face of the earth come and take away people’s guns, strip away their rights to defend themselves, and sometimes it’s been very popular. And yet it is an inevitable prelude to tyranny. Our country was founded on a radical proposition, which is that our rights don’t come from government; they come from God. … The entire reason for the Second Amendment is not for hunting; it’s not for target shooting. … The Second Amendment is there so that you and I can protect our homes and our families and our children and our lives. And it’s also there as a fundamental check on government tyranny. And that, ultimately, is not subject to public opinion polls, it’s subject to the express protections of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution.” Cruz really nailed it.
Just like Indiana and Arkansas, Louisiana started to consider its own version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but it seems the threat of pushback may dissuade state lawmakers. The president of Louisiana’s Senate, Republican John Alario, said, “As it was originally introduced, I’m not in favor of it. It would put Louisiana in such a bad light, we don’t want any part of it.” Whatever happened to trading short-term discomfort for long-term benefit? The state’s governor, Bobby Jindal, said he would fight for legislation like the RFRA “that seeks to preserve our most fundamental freedoms.” The opposition to state-level RFRAs could be nothing more than a heckler’s veto. According to a poll conducted by WPA Opinion Research on behalf of the Family Research Council, 81% of those polled “agree that government should leave people free to follow their beliefs about marriage as they live their daily lives at work and in the way they run their businesses.” But Louisiana lawmakers are scared of the shrill 19% who want government to tell small businesses to bake the cake, to serve the hypothetical pizzas, regardless of the business owner’s most deeply held beliefs. More…
For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSIS
Today is that most mirthless of days, April 15, tax filing day, or as we in our humble shop have long dubbed it, “Income Redistribution Day.” It’s the day each year when government confiscates money from about half the nation’s citizens and gives a lot of it to the other half. (That’s an over-generalization, but you get the idea.) At least they didn’t choose April 19 – Patriots' Day – for tax filing. In honor of today, here are a few things to remember about taxes and the IRS.
It will take Americans 114 days this year to fully pay for the burden of all the levels of government — three more days than last year. In other words, when you pay your taxes today you’ll still have to work another nine days just to actually pay them off.
Then again, not everyone pays income taxes. The top 20% of earners bring in 51.3% of all income and yet pay 83.9% of all federal income taxes. By contrast, the bottom 20% of earners actually receive money from Washington those in higher brackets. What was that about a “fair share” again?
Americans of all tax brackets spend 6.1 billion hours filing individual and business taxes — hours that could otherwise be spent producing wealth rather than redistributing it. The Mercatus Centerestimates the cost of filing to be anywhere from $215 billion per year to nearly $1 trillion. Perhaps that’s because there are nearly 75,000 pages in the tax code.
Where did your tax money go? Just shy of half of all federal tax revenue goes to major entitlements — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other health care programs. (Before we move on, to be crystal clear, some government benefits are “earned,” like Social Security or military benefits. These stand in contrast to “unearned” benefits of welfare, food stamps and the like.) Another 20% goes to various wealth transfer programs like unemployment benefits and food stamps. That’s more than two-thirds of the federal budget that goes from your pocket to someone else’s. See why we call it “Income Redistribution Day”?
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t note that ObamaCare subsidies factored into millions of returns for the first time this year. And that’s going to mean a lot of, er, adjustments. According toInvestor’s Business Daily’s Betsy McCaughey, “If you enrolled in ObamaCare in 2014 and got a subsidy to pay for it, you’re at risk of losing your refund. Surprise: You may even owe Uncle Sam money. Only 4% of people who signed up for ObamaCare got the correct subsidy, so a whopping 96% will see their tax bill adjusted, some up and others down. Who would design a system that’s right only 4% of the time?” Democrats, that’s who.
Oh, and some 800,000 Healthcare.gov customers got the wrong tax form, and some may have to wait months to sort out their tax returns.
All the while, the IRS is essentially rewriting ObamaCare provisions regarding tax credit eligibility. The Supreme Court will settle part of that problem in June (subsidies on federal vs. state exchanges), but the IRS is rewriting other provisions, too. Remember: You can trust the IRS!
Today is a day to take stock of how a government that provides everything for its citizens can become a massive burden. It’s not just financial, either; it’s an issue of trust, power and the future of our great nation.
We close with the immortal words of Will Rogers: “The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr.”
Post script: Today, April 15th, Barack Obama has decreed that all flags are to be flown at half mast “as a Day of Remembrance for President Abraham Lincoln,” who was assassinated 150 years ago yesterday. We can think of other reasons to fly them at half mast, like the fact today is “Forced Income Redistribution Day,” or that Barack Obama is president.
Editor’s Note: It is no small irony that in the same week we observe Patriots' Day — the opening salvos at Lexington and Concord to establish American Liberty — working Americans also endure the April 15th deadline to forcibly surrender a growing portion of our earned income to a gravely bloated central government, which redistributes much of that income to ensure constituent support for its malignant growth. Mark Alexander addresses oppressive taxation in his Wednesday column this afternoon, “Taxing Patriots.”
Barack and RaulOnce again, Barack Obama has demonstrated his brand of “diplomacy,” which can only be described as “on my knees” statesmanship. He makes Neville Chamberlain look like Muhammad Ali.
After meeting with Raul Castro and other Latin American leaders over the weekend, our fearless leader announced he would be removing Cuba from the list of states supporting terrorists — his first move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. This comes on the heels of 18 months' worth of secret meetings between Obama’s and Castro’s negotiators. Considering what came of the negotiations, we can’t understand why it took 18 month, or even 18 days.
Obama reassured Congress that Cuba “has not provided any support for international terrorism” for at least the last six months, and, furthermore, “has provided assurances it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.” And if you believe that we have some beautiful property in the Whitewater development at rock bottom prices.
As Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen observes, “There will be no mention from the White House of terrorists being protected and supported by the Castro regime, such as Joanne Chesimard — who murdered a New Jersey state trooper and was named in 2013 by Obama’s own FBI as one of its Most Wanted Terrorists. There will be no mention of the 70 other U.S. fugitives that Obama’s own State Department reports ‘The Cuban government continued to harbor’ while providing ‘support such as housing, food ration books, and medical care’ — or of the Spanish and Colombian terrorists receiving similar support from the Castro brothers.”
Obama’s move puts him at odds with the previous 10 presidents — both Democrat and Republican — who have all recognized that Cuba’s anti-American, despotic communist government terrorizes its formerly prosperous, hard-working people, keeps them in poverty, and locks up political dissenters who often languish for years in Cuban prison holes.
The ignorance of the American public is Obama’s best hope. Leftmedia newsreaders cheer Obama’s “courageous” move to finally recognize our island neighbor, which they say has suffered under the U.S. embargo and its other unjust policies. At first, a majority of low-information Americans agree that Obama is doing the right thing. But when told that Cuba is harboring Russian ships in its ports, opposition for normalization rises to 58%. And, Thiessen notes, when told that Cuba “attempts to smuggle 240 tons of weaponry to North Korea, opposition jumps to 63 percent and support plummets to 26 percent. When … told that Cuba is harboring a cop-killer and terrorists, opposition jumps to 63 percent and support plummets to 23 percent … and when asked whether Cuba’s designation as a supporter of terrorism should be maintained because it harbors terrorists, respondents agreed 68 percent to 16 percent.”
Americans aren’t quite as dumb as you think, Señior Obama.
Being the consummate negotiator he is, as demonstrated with the Iranians, Obama displays his brilliant “give all, take nothing” diplomacy as he moves toward the goal of normalization. Castro refuses to complete the deal until the U.S. pulls out of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and, of course, our president would gladly oblige if that pesky Congress weren’t in the way. The military also sees Gitmo as essential to our national defense.
There also remains the small issue of congressional approval on the way to his lifting the trade embargo and later recognizing Cuba. But Obama doesn’t often concern himself with the niceties of constitutionality, so he could very well decide to recognize Cuba without Congress. Sadly, Congress will probably blather about it but do nothing else.
Obama has angered many Americans, including politicians on both sides of the aisle, with his apologizing to dictators for America’s offenses and now with his kissing up to the Castro regime.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), whose parents came to America from Cuba just before his birth,said, “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), also born of Cuban immigrants, likewise slammed Obama’s actions. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rubio wrote that Obama’s giving Castro’s regime diplomatic legitimacy “isn’t just bad for the oppressed Cuban people or for the millions who live in exile and lost everything at the hands of the dictatorship. Mr. Obama’s new Cuba policy is a victory for oppressive governments the world over and will have real, negative consequences for the American people.”
We have to say that all this comes as no surprise. Obama did promise to fundamentally transform the country, and his communist mentoring means he must lean in that direction. Actually, many people have suggested that’s where he stands. As Red State’s Erick Ericksonwrites, Obama’s “mentor, communist Frank Marshall Davis, would be proud of him.”
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Plato (429-347 BC): “Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.”
Arnold Ahlert: “In a rare Democratic rebuke of President Obama, the bipartisan Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted unanimously to advance the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). The bill would grant Congress the ability to review the deal currently being crafted by the Obama administration and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. President Obama, sensing rebellion from within his own party, stated for the first time publicly that he would be willing to sign the bill. Thus, the lobbying effort undertaken by the Obama administration fell flat. … For the moment, Congress has asserted itself. However, the true test will come when the accord with Iran is finalized in a few short months. It remains to be seen whether lawmakers, including those in Obama’s own party, will hold the president accountable for his reckless deal-making. So far prospects are promising, but far from certain.”
Terence Jeffrey: “Married couples with children under 18 years of age, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (Table HINC-04), made an average household income of $107,054 in 2013 and a median household income of $85,087. … [M]arried couples with no children under 18 had an average household income of $91,870 in 2013 and a median household income of $70,995. … Unmarried couples with children under 18 had an average household income of $65,337 and a median of $50,031. … Unmarried couples with no children did only a little bit better, with average household incomes of $76,609 and median household incomes of $62,126. … Why do married couples with kids have higher household incomes? Perhaps it is because they are not primarily driven by greed but something quite the opposite: a willingness to make sacrifices so their children may live better lives. It is telling that married couples with children tend to end up with higher incomes than people who only need to maintain a household for themselves. And it is a telling irony that some politicians would like to redistribute wealth from the former type of household to the latter while making fewer people dependent on themselves and their families and more dependent on government.”
Humorist Frank Fleming: “Hillary Clinton is going to run for president again? Cool. Last time, a charismatic empty suit dashed her dreams, but she’s not deterred.”
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform – Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen – standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.
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