February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Allow me to quickly explain. My data for Exxon comes from this release.  My data for federal government’s revenue comes from the GPO.

The bottom 65 million taxpayers in 2004 paid $27 billion in income taxes (thanks Mark Perry). Exxon paid income taxes of $29.9 billion, sales-based taxes of $31.7 billion and other taxes of $44.1 billion in 2007. Let me be clear: some of these taxes are just pass through, like excise taxes, but these are costs to consumers that are sadly often attributed to Exxon instead of government. Exxon paid $105.7 billion total in taxes last year. That’s around 4x what the bottom 65 million taxpayers paid in income taxes for 2004. It also happens to be over 4% of government revenues in 2007.

I’ve said this before, but let me be clear: Every spendthrift (i.e. Hillary Clinton, Obama and others) in Washington should be put on public display and be required to go to his/her knees and FRENCH KISS the ass of Exxon’s CEO and top management team.

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February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

U.S. Tax Policy Should Adhere to the Three F’s

Record Profits mean Record Taxes

Sanctimony’s Turn at Bat (Awesome piece)

What’s $2 Tril Between Dems And The GOP?

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February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Mark Thoma links to this story, which misses the point. Some people believe a higher high school graduation rate will increase worker productivity. Why, you ask? First, let’s look at part of what the researchers say:

The high school graduation rate is a barometer of the health of American society and the skill level of its future workforce. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, each new cohort of Americans was more likely to graduate high school than the preceding one. This upward trend in secondary education increased worker productivity and fueled American economic growth (Goldin and Katz 2003).

They believe graduation rates result in higher skill levels, which increase productivity. This is true only if students are learning. Now, thanks to NCLB, we are reducing standards, which will eventually increase the graduation rates. Reducing standards improve grad rates, but it does nothing to improve skill levels. Worse, a high-school diploma, when standards are reduced, losses its value as a signaling device. It’s better to tighten standards and have a lower graduation rate than to lower standards and pass everyone. Everyone is left behind when the graduation rate becomes more important than learning. Since I’ve written about this so many times on this blog, I’ll leave it at that.

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February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

I linked to this story yesterday, and now the WSJ has the good sense to follow my lead (tongue-in-cheek). Read the entire WSJ opinion here. Notable:

The rebukes arrive via two new studies in Science, a peer-reviewed journal not known for right-wing proclivities. The first, by ecologists at Princeton and the Woods Hole Research Center, reviews the environmental consequences of increased biofuel consumption, which had never been examined comprehensively. Of course, that didn’t stop Congress and the Bush Administration from jacking up the U.S. mandate to 36 billion gallons by 2022, a fivefold increase from a mere two years ago. Such policies are supposedly justified because corn-based ethanol and other “alternatives” result in (very modest) reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions when mixed with gasoline.

The researchers break new ground by exposing a kind of mega-accounting error: Prior studies had never credited the carbon-dioxide emissions that arise when virgin forests, grasslands and the like are cleared to grow biofuel feedstocks. About 2.7 times more carbon is stored in terrestrial soils and plant material than in the atmosphere, and this carbon is released when these areas are cleared (often by burning) and the soil is tilled. Compounding problems is the loss of “carbon sinks” that absorb atmospheric CO2 in the bargain. Previous projections had also ignored the second-order effects of transferring normal farm land to biofuels, which exerts world-wide pressure on land use.

So, incredibly, when the hidden costs of conversion are included, greenhouse-gas emissions from corn ethanol over the next 30 years will be twice as high as from regular gasoline. In the long term, it will take 167 years before the reduction in carbon emissions from using ethanol “pays back” the carbon released by land-use change. As they say, it’s not easy being green.

It concludes:

as the blockbuster Science studies imply, the unintended consequences of such divination matter more than the self-congratulation that “doing something” provides.

Yet special blame also belongs to the environmentalists, who are engaged in a grand bait-and-switch. They stir up a panic about global warming, and Washington responds to the political incentives. Then those policies don’t work and the greens immediately begin pushing a new substitute, whose outcomes and costs are equally uncertain. But somehow, that never seems to discredit the entire enterprise and taxpayers keep footing the subsidy bill. Our guess is that these new revelations will also be ignored. They’re too embarrassing.

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February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Government to the rescue.

Capitalism to the rescue. (Search Wal Mart and Katerina for more details.)

Capitalism 1 | Government 0

Give me free-market capitalism or give me death! How else can I proclaim my dedication to laissez-faire capitalism?  How about: Viva la capitalism!

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February 13, 2008 by Tom Armstrong.

Barack Obama (BO) expounded his version of leviathan after he trounced Clinton last night. His rhetoric is so silly, it’s hard to see how anyone could take him seriously. He said his keyword “change” many times. What does that mean? Are we going to change our economic system to socialism? Some other economic system? Are we going to convert to monarchy? Are we going to give Roe V. Wade more or less support? Are we going to change the tax code to confiscate more or less from taxpayers, and what taxpayers? His “change” means nothing as far as policy goes. All it can do is remind people it’s time to change the Bush Administration (or change having the Clinton’s in the White House).

He demonized capitalism, the rich, Exxon’s profits, and our health care system (he actually said we need a better health care system in America, but I believe he meant to say health insurance system). He demonizes the rich, and he also expects them to relinquish more of their funds to finance the welfare programs that benefit everyone else. BO is not my guy. If you’re a fan of Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Lenin, and Satan, though, BO may just be your guy (remember: tongue-in-cheek).

BO believes government, primarily federal government, has the solution for everything. You fully understand this, I’m sure, if you’ve heard him speak. He has government programs for everything. They’ve worked so well in the past, haven’t they. Anyone with this ” more government is the answer to everything” mentality is naturally hostile to free markets and free people.

The first thing that pops into my mind when he and others propose another federal program is the constitutionality of the proposal. Health care issues are state issues. It may be a better idea to work on health care at a national level, but it is not constitutional. We must first change the Constitution or risk undermining our government’s founding document and credibility (too late). The Constitution is the document that limits government power and protects our civil liberties. When the people forget this document and allow the government to undermine it, our civil liberties are in jeopardy. What ever happened to duel sovereignty? Few care. Maybe our public schools are not doing such a bad job. Maybe they are doing precisely the job our leaders in D.C. want them to do.

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