Right to Opine

Liberal voters are finding themselves victims once more of their own economic policies, this time in New Jersey as Mercedes-Benz has announced it is moving its headquarters to Georgia. The reason?

Mercedes USA made one thing very clear about its decision to leave — the cost of doing business and the tax environment is just too high here to be competitive with a state like Georgia

This really should come as no surprise. Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Hyundai, Nissan…all have major manufacturing sites sprinkled across the South because of the favorable business environments offered by conservative states. It makes sense to move headquarters as well, since, as a corporate site location specialist cited by the NYT noted,

New Jersey’s high taxes, particularly its tax on personal income, were a factor often cited by corporate executives in deciding whether to move or stay in the state.

Yep. Just like us worker schmucks, CEOs like to keep more of what they earn. Who knew? (Hint: not Democrats or their constituents.)

Not surprisingly, the underlying lesson is completely missed by New Jersey politicians (including the Republican quoted in the article). Incentives offered to businesses are temporary. The real problem is the entire underlying economic policy of high corporate and personal taxes, burdensome regulations, and the rest of the anti-business philosophy of the Left.

There were discussions to offer sizable incentives to retain Mercedes in its current form within the state. But you can’t go beyond a place where it doesn’t make sense from a net positive perspective for the state.

So driving businesses out of your state is a net positive? Sounds to me like a win for us ignorant, cousin-lovin’ rednecks.

In the WSJ, James Taranto has an incisive analysis of a new study (done by a moderate-to-left-leaning think tank and published in that bastion of conservatism—the NY Times) which shows that when a home is run by a single mom, boys suffer more—educationally and economically—than girls. Taranto makes a number of salient points, but what caught my attention was this thought experiment:

But of course it isn’t. To illuminate why, try a thought experiment: Think about the family as a “business” partnership whose “product” is the next generation.

One reason a business has hierarchies of authority and responsibility is to make the best use of the time of the most vital employees. The CEO may type faster or more accurately than his secretary, but he still delegates the typing because it isn’t the highest use of his time. By contrast, the lone entrepreneur may of necessity do his own clerical work, but at some point he won’t be able to expand further without hiring support staff.

Think of the single mother as the lone entrepreneur. Of necessity she takes on every responsibility of the household: bearing and nurturing the children, providing food, maintaining the physical plant—and, by the way, working outside the home in order to raise operating funds.

Now think of the traditional 1950s household with an employed father and a stay-at-home mother. The mother is able to devote her full efforts to the children and the home. The father may have some secondary household duties—taking out the trash and playing ball with Junior—but most of his time is spent away from home, doing a boss’s bidding, in order to raise money to meet the family’s needs.

Let’s stipulate that in the latter scenario, the mother could do the father’s job just as well as he can. Would that be the highest use of her time? Only if one thinks that office work is intrinsically superior to the development of the next generation. [Emphasis mine.]

I, for one, believe the latter is far more important, and deserves the full attention of a parent.

The latest numbers from the Department of Labor should surprise, well, nobody.

The highest numbers of new filings came from Pennsylvania and Ohio, where there were thousands of layoffs in the construction, manufacturing, and automobile industries.
Both states had been targeted by the presidential campaigns. President Obama highlighted his record of job creation in Ohio in particular, focusing on the automobile industry. The state reported 6,450 new jobless claims in the week after the election–second-highest after Pennsylvania, which recorded 7,766 new claims.

The only remedy for foolishness at the ballot box is to get what you request. Looks like OH and PA are getting an early dose. Both states rely heavily on “dirty” energy and heavy manufacturing, and can expect more of the same from the admin they helped reelect. Hopefully the treatment will be strong enough to cure the disease without killing the patient.

With all the demagoguery from the Left about “tax cuts for the rich” it’s time for some real fact checking with, well…facts.

Investors Business Daily has a very clear exposition on the effect raising and lowering tax rates has on federal tax revenue—complete with the actual numbers.

Will this end the socialist talking points? Of course not, because their argument isn’t based on the facts—what would actually generate greater revenue—but on the emotional issue of “fairness”—which they can ride forever because a free economy rewards productivity so there will always be income inequality.

The demagoguery on “trickle down” economics is reaching epic proportions again this election cycle. The inimitable Thomas Sowell explodes the lies and misdirection of the Left in this excellent treatise.

A lesson liberals demonstrate a continuous refusal to learn is cropping up again: the law of unintended consequences. That their policies so frequently do more harm than good is deemed irrelevant because their intentions were good.

Before ObamaCare was rammed through Congress, conservatives warned that it would hurt workers, costing both income and jobs. Those warnings were, of course, ignored. Those smart and compassionate folks on the Left know better than we mean, dumb conservatives—and the bulk of Americans—do.

Chickens meet roost.

The Darden family of restaurants has announced that it is cutting workers’ hours to stay under the 30 hour per week trigger built into ObamaCare—above which employers are required to provide government-approved health insurance or pay hefty fines.

Liberals can’t say we didn’t warn you. But you’re also not likely to care enough to accept the responsibility. It just felt like the “right thing to do.” Of such is the road to hell paved.

Apparently Americans like trucks. Who knew?

Pickups drive U.S. auto sales in August

Americans aren’t buying what the Left is selling—tiny electric cars. I’m not surprised that the average vehicle in the U.S. is 11 years old. I have a car that age and a truck that’s 17. We’re finally replacing the truck (today!), but not with a glorified golf cart—with another truck. Americans don’t want toddler-sized cars with 30 mile ranges. We want real vehicles with the capacity to haul our families and gear around this beautiful, expansive country of ours.

Oh how I wish I’d had President Obama as an advisor during my formative years. I was raised with the horrible misunderstanding that success and failure are direct consequences of the choices we make. How unbelievably foolish my mentors were!

If only someone as wise and insightful as he had been there to tell me that my future success wouldn’t be the result of studying long hours in high school, college, and grad school, working hard, getting married before having children, spending less than I earn, trying to keep my life and family centered on a relationship with God—all that not-fun, responsible adult stuff—I’d have had so much more time to goof off. Heck, I might’ve even lit up a doob with our current POTUS—just buzzing on his bong-besotted brilliance.

All those years of effort wasted now that I know I was just lucky. How terribly sad for me.

Who needs Congress?

That, apparently, is the attitude of the current administration. In a truly unprecedented move, Health and Human Services queen Secretary Sebelius quietly announced this week that states can apply for waivers to the federal welfare work requirements.

Under whose authority? Congress enacted the current welfare regulations with a very explicit work requirement—and did not designate any waiver authority to HHS or any other agency.

So now Obama and his minions have decided the legislative branch is wholly unnecessary and they can not only ignore duly enacted laws, but amend them at will. Where in the Constitution does the supposed Constitutional expert find such an executive power?

Unless he is removed from office, Obama will certainly fulfill one of his campaign promises: to fundamentally transform America. He is very swiftly changing the Executive from a coequal branch—checked by Congress and the Supreme Court—into a kingship.

Didn’t we fight a revolution to avoid just such despotism?

The Left, led by our Wealth-Redistributor-in-Chief, keeps hammering away at how the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. The latest faux example of unfairness they’re trotting out before the gullible (and sadly ignorant) public is Republican candidate Mitt Romney. In what can only be either a deliberate hit piece or shoddy journalism (or, more likely, both), the AP today asks, “ Why is investment income taxed less than wages?”

From the beginning to the end, the article is sprinkled with liberal talking points and misleading inferences.

Why do Mitt Romney and other wealthy investors pay lower taxes on the income they make from investments than they would if they earned their millions from wages? Because Congress, through the tax code, has long treated investment more favorably than labor, seeing it as an engine for economic growth that benefits everyone.

Yes, and the reason Congress has done so is that it’s true. As I pointed out before, when you tax something too much, you get less of it. If you want capital to flee the country for better business environments, raise the capital gains rate.

They throw in the obligatory comment from a conservative economist who points out that capital gains taxes amount to taxing the same income twice. This of course, is immediately rebutted with:

Lots of people are double taxed, says Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Check out your last pay stub: There‘s income tax and payroll tax, so you‘re double taxed, too,” Marr said.

The problem with this—and Marr can’t possibly be ignorant of the fact—is that before a shareholder receives a capital gain from a stock investment, that money has already been taxed under both the income and payroll taxes at the corporate level. The shareholder, as an owner of the company in question, has already paid both income and payroll taxes. The capital gains tax is an additional tax on the same money, belonging to the same person. It’s as if the IRS looked at every individual taxpayer on April 16 and said, “Oh, you have money left over? Let’s take another 15% of that.”

No, it’s actually worse than that. If I want to buy shares in a company, I have to first earn the money with which to do so. That income is taxed (income and payroll) at my individual rate. With what the government graciously allows me to keep, I take a risk investing it in a company. As an owner of that company I pay taxes on its earnings (income and payroll). If there’s enough left over for the company to pay me a dividend, I now pay a third tax for capital gains.

But the real gotcha is this beautiful class warfare gem:

Romney, who released his 2010 and 2011 tax returns this week, has been forced to defend the fact that he paid a tax rate of about 15 percent on an annual income of $21 million. His tax rate is comparable to the one paid by most middle-income families. His income, however, is 420 times higher than the typical U.S. household.

It took me all of thirty minutes to research the facts that display how utterly false this statement is. If I can do it on my own time for free, why doesn’t a “journalist” do the same? Consider:

• CNN points out that “roughly 45% of households, or about 69 million, will end up owing nothing in federal income tax.”
• According to the Census Bureau, median income is $49,777 for 117,538,000 households.
• According to the IRS, the total individual tax liability was $865,948,271,000.

So even though almost half of households pay no taxes at all, the average household tax liability is just under $7400. Now 15% of $21 million is $3,150,000. So Romney paid roughly 425 times the taxes of the typical household. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that 425 > 420. So Mitt Romney paid more than his fair share in taxes.

So when the prevaricator who currently occupies the White House tells you,

“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want,” Obama said. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

take a look at the facts and use your own common sense. Don’t buy the “fairness” lie.