February 2, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Robert Reich, ever the Marxist, says:

After three decades of government starvation of necessary resources, the next president needs to champion progressive taxation with the proceeds invested in social outlays that make for a more productive economy.

Please examine this budget (nearly $3 trillion–over 20% of GDP) and tell me our national government is starved for resources. If our government starves any more, we’ll all be in the poor house.

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February 2, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Exxon, it seems, does more for the public good (as measured only by taxes paid to support the state) than the bottom 50% of taxpayers. Mark Perry explains:

Just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

By the way, Mark only refers to income taxes. Take a closer look at the numbers from the 2006 10-K and you’ll see income taxes of $28 billion, “sales-based taxes” of $30.3 billion, and “other taxes and duties” of $39.3 billion. Exxon paid $98 billion in taxes to Uncle Sam (and other governments) in 2006. Granted, these are collected from consumers, but government is to blame for those taxes, not Exxon.

Do the math: Exxon paid $98 billion in taxes in 2006. Our national government collected taxes and fees of $2.4 tillion in 2006. Assuming all of those taxes, duties, and fees Exxon paid in 2006 was to Uncle Sam (it was not–other governments benefited too), Exxon was responsible for over 4% of Uncle Sam’s collections in 2006. Every  spendthrift in Washington should be required to kiss the ass of Exxon’s CEO.

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February 2, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

A primer on the Laffer Curve (video is around 7 minutes).

(HT: Cafe Hayek)

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February 2, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

IBD says:

The London Telegraph is reporting that the doctors believe “smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations.”

A “free” health care system creates a moral hazard problem. You can eat, drink, and smoke yourself to death on someone else’s dime. That is, a ”free” system encourages unhealthly lifestyles. Once the operators of this national health care system notice the significant costs of the system, they will adopt policies to better ration the scarce medical resources. The reality that medical resources are scarce did not change with the nationalization of health care in the UK, only the rationing system changed. Whereas medical resources were once allocated via willingness to pay, they are now being allocated in London based on living the government-approved lifestyle (at least that’s the plan). Control, control, control. What comes next? No treatment for those living a promiscuous lifestyle that leads to illness. How about those taking excessive risk–race car drivers and extreme sports junkies? Are this activities going to be on the government-approved lifestyle list in the future?

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