The Environmental Protection Agency has doled out nearly $100 million in grants to foreign groups and governments over the past decade, according to a new congressional report.
The report from Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee shows the pace of foreign grants has quickened under the Obama administration, with $27 million in EPA funds going abroad since early 2009 — not counting projects in Canada and Mexico. Continue reading “EPA Spent $100M on Foreign Grants in Last Decade, Study Finds” »
These are the bills, thus far, vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer. Governor Brewer currently has over 160 bills on her desk that she has until May 2nd to act upon.
HB 2177 presidential candidates; qualifications; affidavit
Requires a presidential candidate that is for running for office to prove their eligibility to run and hold office by providing documentation that proves citizenship, age and if the candidate meets residency requirements.
Would have required the filing of an affidavit with appropriate proof attached. Brewer objected to “Christian” and “Jewish” materials being part of the proof requirement.
H.B. 2338 special districts; secondary levy limits
Would have put a cap on secondary property tax levels by cities and counties. Now they can charge pretty much what they want. A tax limit on any property tax is not only appropriate, but needed. Continue reading “Arizona vetoes as of today.” »
Was that a memorial for the victims of the Tucson shooting tragedy or a pep rally for President Obama that was held at the University of Arizona? Many were discomforted by the constant screams and cheers at a memorial service for the victims of the shooting.
Adding to the inappropriate atmosphere were thousands of blue “Together We Thrive,” t-shirts and posters plastered all over the place, an obvious play on a popular Obama presidential campaign theme from 2008.
Perhaps it was also the fact that the whole event was “branded” in the first place: “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America.”
Perhaps it was the cheering throngs of Obama fans whooping and hollering as the President took to the stage, making the whole event seem more like a pep rally than a memorial. (And the same goes for Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who also reportedly received a thunderous reception.)
Or, conversely, perhaps it was the smattering of boos that erupted when Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, took to the stage to deliver her remarks — a reaction that “would have been hard to imagine, say, in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing,” the New York Times noted.
After passing transparency legislation in 2008, the state of Arizona finally launched its state spending portal this week that gives taxpayers insight into where their money is going. Arizona OpenBooks is a searchable website that provides information on the size and beneficiaries of funds appropriated by the state. Other data featured on the new site include state expenses, sources of state revenue, and the budgets of some independent governmental agencies.
OpenBooks advocates are optimistic about the potential impact of a state budget transparency website on fiscal responsibility in the Arizona government, and they have good reason to be. An article in the Arizona Capitol Times was quick to point out that transparency is not only a good end in and of itself; it is also a tool to realize significant savings. This has been true in several states that have pursued transparency reform, such as Texas where Comptroller Susan Combs has pointed to almost $9 million in savings wrought by her state transparency portal.
While OpenBooks is a timely, much-needed transparency mechanism, the new website is in need of some improvements. Information regarding government contracts and state subsidies are difficult to track, as it is located on an entirely different site. Furthermore, while the amount of money the state is spending is now visible to Arizona taxpayers, those who search OpenBooks will not find details about individual purchases. Knowing state spending figures in addition to where Arizona tax dollars are going will go a long way to prevent fraud and improve government efficiency.
With state and federal government spending figures at an all-time high, prioritizing fiscal transparency and accountability has perhaps never been as critically important as it is now. What’s more, Arizona passed a bill last year that would require local spending to be disclosed as well – the deadline for implementation is at the end of January so we are looking forward to data being revealed!
Death and taxes, it is said, are life’s only two certainties. But in the wake of President Obama’s tax compromise with congressional Republicans, only death retains the status of certainty: The future for taxes has been left up in the air. And uncertainty is not a friend of investment, growth and job creation.
The deal has several key features. It reduces payroll taxes, extends unemployment benefits and keeps current tax rates intact. So far, so good. But intermixed with the benefits are considerable costs of consequence. Given the unambiguous message that the American people sent to Washington in November, it is difficult to understand how our political leaders could have reached such a disappointing agreement. The new, more conservative Congress should reach a better solution.
The deal keeps current tax rates from rising to pre-Bush era levels for two years. But in 2013, unless Congress acts again, rates will increase dramatically.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we’re-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 – and House Democrats don’t have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years – which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.
The new ObamaCare1099 rule for reporting of all cash, credit and check business transactions of $600 or more is scheduled to begin January of 2012. This is really an extension of the 2008 Housing and Recovery Act IRS rules that start this January when merchant banks and PayPal will report business sales directly to the IRS (the reporting threshold is $20,000 and 200 transactions a year).
These new IRS rules will affect every American:
• Income tax collection could rise as much as $345 billion a year
• Small businesses will be crushed and unemployment will rise
• A cashless economy is further set in motion
• IRS snooping and audits will increase
• Gold can be tracked
• Identity theft is a risk
• Government surveillance will increase
THE TAX GAP
ObamaCare requires that businesses and self-employed individuals submit 1099 forms to the IRS for all business purchases of $600 or more. The stated purpose for this is to close the ‘tax gap’ which is the difference between the amount of what is “owed” and what is paid, due to lack of reporting and under-reporting, and is estimated at $300 billion dollars a year. Last week, the Senate failed to repeal the ObamaCare 1099 rule because they could not agree on how to make up the “lost” revenue that would be generated from strict reporting, which they estimated to be $19 billion over 10 years, which is a GROSS underestimate.
BY Erica Pearson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, November 19th 2010, 4:00 AM
A Manhattan group is helping illegal immigrants recoup unclaimed state tax refunds – even if they used fake Social Security numbers to work.
The Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project got back thousands for a dozen undocumented New Yorkers who overpaid.
One bodega worker from Jackson Heights had been paying taxes since 2002 but never got a refund – until the group helped him get back $670 from his 2008 return.
by Scott A. Hodge, The Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 252
U.S. Governments Offer Little Support to Energy Firms
In advance of the G-20 meeting in Seoul, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual World Energy Outlook, a 738-page analysis of the global energy market. The report discusses the market for various types of energy and summarizes the energy policies of the world’s governments, devoting two chapters to raising the alarm about government subsidies for fossil fuel usage.
Just five months earlier the IEA had published in conjunction with OPEC, the OECD and the World Bank a stand-alone study of governmental subsidies to energy in advance of the G-20 meeting in Toronto. That joint report found that no systematic effort has been undertaken within the last decade to estimate subsidies to fossil-fuel production over a wide range of countries. Continue reading “IEA Study Ranks Nations’ Subsidies to Fossil Fuel Consumption” »
Washington, DC, November 19, 2010 - State and local government budgets are in suspense over the expiring Bush tax cuts, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation.
If the taxable value of business property in a given district goes down, the overall tax rate — the figure against which the assessment is multiplied to compute each property owner’s bill — has to go up to raise the same amount of money. That shift means homeowners, whose assessment ratio will not drop, will pay more.
Pierce said there’s nothing unfair about that.
PHOENIX – Republican legislative leaders are crafting plans to shift property taxes now paid by businesses onto the backs of homeowners.
But they say their constituents will understand.
At a forum Friday for business leaders and lobbyists, Senate Majority Whip Steve Pierce, R-Prescott, said he wants to reduce the assessment ratio on business property to 18 percent of its full cash value, down from the current 21 percent. That is the figure used to compute taxes owed by a company.
He also wants changes to reduce what companies owe each year on taxes on business equipment.
“These are unmistakable steps toward making us a business-friendly state instead of where we are right now, which is a reputation of being business unfriendly,” he said.
House Majority Leader Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, said his chamber shares the same goal.
By Kim Dixon and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 18, 2010 7:27pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Democrats said on Thursday they would vote to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the lower and middle classes only, setting up a clash with Republicans only two weeks after midterm elections.
The moves end days of hand-wringing by Democrats to find a common strategy before a December 31 deadline for expiration of tax cuts for nearly all Americans and a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives next year.
A clash over taxes augurs badly for any chance that the two parties will work together after this month’s elections on major issues like cutting the budget deficit and creating jobs.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he believes he has President Barack Obama’s support in pursuing tax cuts for everyone except the wealthy, after some concern that Obama had been ready to deal with Republicans over cuts for the rich.
“The main thing we’ve learned is that we’re united in recognizing that we have to protect the middle class,” Reid told reporters.
President Obama senior adviser David Axelrod insisted Thursday that comments he made to an an online publication conceding to an extension of tax cuts for all income levels are no different from remarks by the president over the weekend.
Axelrod, who confirmed to Fox News comments he made to The Huffington Post, suggested that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board continuation of current tax rates, marking a turnaround from the White House’s pre-midterm election stance on impending tax increases. Continue reading “White House Concedes on Upper Income Tax Cuts” »
Now that Republicans have taken office, it is time to consider some new tax bills. Obama will, no doubt, veto them, but let’s have a look.
H.R.99, the Fair and Simple Tax Act of 2009 would, according to the January 6, 2009 summary:
Fair and Simple Tax Act of 2009 – Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) establish an alternative income tax rate system with three tax brackets (10, 15, and 30%); (2) repeal the estate and gift tax; (3) adjust the increased alternative minimum tax (AMT) exemption amounts for inflation after 2008 and make such exemptions permanent; (4) reduce the maximum corporate income tax rate to 25%; (5) reduce the maximum tax rate on capital gains to 10%; (6) allow an inflation adjustment to the basis of capital assets for purposes of determining gain or loss; (7) establish new tax-exempt accounts for retirement savings, lifetime savings, and lifetime skills accounts; (8) exempt individuals under age 65 who do not have employer health care coverage from the adjusted gross income threshold for the medical care tax deduction; and (9) make permanent the tax credit for increasing research activities.
Repeals the terminating dates applicable to provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.
February 5, 2012 1906 John Carradine 1920 Frank Muir CBE 1946 Charlotte Rampling 1948 Barbara Hershey 1948 Lord Haden Guest 1948 Sven-Goran Eriksson 1952 Russell Grant 1962 Jennifer Jason Leigh 1966 Jose Maria Olazabal
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