With an entourage of 500 staff, an armour-plated limousine and a fleet of decoy helicopters, America's new president emperor will arrive for his first visit to Britain amid huge razzmatazz on Tuesday for the G20 summit. But it will be his closed-door meetings with world leaders that are likely to prove the most significant of the trip
Governor David A. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature have reached a deal to temporarily raise taxes on New York's highest earners to close the state's yawning budget deficit, said lawmakers and officials .
The plan, which would expire after three years, would represent the largest income tax increase in recent state history, significantly larger than the surcharges imposed from 2003 to 2005, when the state last faced a major recession.
The plan would raise $4 billion a year by creating two new tax brackets, the highest one affecting those who earn $5,00,000 or more. If approved by rank-and-file lawmakers in the Assembly and state Senate, the tax increases would be a major victory for unions and liberal advocacy groups and a signal of the new balance of power in Albany, where Democrats won control of both Houses of the Legislature and the Governor's office in last year's election.
Officials said Mr. Paterson, who has argued for months that new income taxes should be a last resort for balancing the budget, accepted the plan after winning significant spending cuts in areas like health care and education.
Baloney. Dollars to doughnuts that when you look at the budgets for those items, they're still higher than last year, just not as high as Paterson and the Dhimmicrats wanted. That's a 'cut' in their minds ...
Mr. Paterson's willingness to accept the new taxes reflects, in part, how rapidly the state's finances are deteriorating. Since proposing his budget in December, projected tax revenues for the fiscal year beginning April 1 have dropped by $3.2 billion, while rising Medicaid caseloads will cost $750 million more than originally projected for this year and next year. That shift has left Mr. Paterson and lawmakers with little choice but to employ every possible mechanism for shrinking budget gaps, including enormous cuts as well as new taxes. The highest bracket would start at $5,00,000 with a tax rate of 8.97 per cent -- the same as New Jersey's current highest rate. A lower rate of 7.85 per cent would apply to incomes over $3,00,000.
By all means, drive the best, most productive people out of your state, Guv'nor ...
Currently, New York's highest tax rate, 6.85 per cent, kicks in for couples and joint filers making more than $40,000. "It's a profound breakthrough for tax fairness," said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party. "The era of phony prosperity has ended, and a new era of real shared sacrifice must begin."
But not for Dan. The 'Working Families Party', by the way, is an ACORN front group.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/30/2009 00:00 ||
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"It's a profound breakthrough for tax fairness,"
Until they move to another State. Because they can.
#3
Where does George Soros live? Will he be paying his fair share on the 1.5 billion profits he ha recently made. How about a 100% tax rate on those profits?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
03/30/2009 4:51 Comments ||
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#4
The two rules of economics are
If you punish something you get less of it.
If you subsidise something you get more demand for it.
#5
"Temporary taxes"....? Oh yes of course. They're about to turn New York into California but it's blue on blue, so quite frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn!
Health care spending has indeed been slashed. School spending is sucked up by mandatory union-negotiated teacher salaries and as a result, the schools in many districts are in serious trouble.
NY took a major financial hit as a result of 9/11 and has not recovered. The state's hostility to small business doesn't help, but what broke things irrevocably was the impact on NYC of the attacks (disrupted finance industry, for one thing) and the massive expenses incurred for security since.
#9
hmmm...maybe because so many of the Trunks in NY are Rockerfeller types who think the way to win is just to be different shade of Donk? Did Guiliani come across as a regular listener of El Rushbo?
#12
"Tax fairness". What exactly does that mean? Isn't it interesting that the very people who collect the taxes are the same ones who decide what one's 'fair share' is, and are also the ones who decide the punishment for not paying one's 'fair share'.
#14
Why doesn't "tax fairness" mean that EVERYBODY pays at least something in taxes for the services they're getting from the state/feds.
Right now at least 40% of the US population not only doesn't pay any taxes, but I'm betting the majority of that 40% gets money stolen by the gummint from you and me. What's "fair" about that?
Of course, if the Dems would just PAY the taxes they OWE, the gummint would have more money than it knew what to do with. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/30/2009 18:16 Comments ||
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#15
Right now at least 40% of the US population not only doesn't pay any taxes,
I see and hear this statistic all the time. I believe it is true for the Federal Income Tax. But virtually every one pays sales tax. And then there are all the other taxes for phones, property, either directly or through rent, excises on cigarettes and alcohol, and social security. I would not be surprised to learn that the full, all tax and excise, tax rate on the middle 90% or even 95% of the population is about the same.
But the "millionaires" in the top .5% will find a way around the tax, even if it means changing legal residence.
Via Instapundit
Too bad there is no category for Seedy News Media
A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a a game changer.
Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the groups Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committees litigation against ACORN, she had been a confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.
Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORNs election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.
During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORNs Washington, D.C. office.
Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.
Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel: Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, it was a game changer.
Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.
U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the ranking Republican on the committee, said the interactions between the Obama campaign and ACORN, as described by Ms. Moncrief, and attested to before the committee by Ms. Heidelbaugh, could possibly violate federal election law, and ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
03/30/2009 20:43 ||
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President Hussein and his socialist/marxist/corrupt party will have a new group in place come next election. They are smart enough to move from move-on to acorn. The next group will be paid for directly by you and I and that group is the new civilian "Gift Act" bunch that the dems in Congress just approved.
$160,000 streamed in as senator gained power on banking committee
As Democrats prepared to take control of Congress after the 2006 elections, a top boss at the insurance giant American International Group Inc. told colleagues that Sen. Christopher J. Dodd was seeking re-election donations and he implored company executives and their spouses to give. The message in the Nov. 17, 2006, e-mail from Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, was unmistakable: Mr. Dodd was "next in line" to be chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the insurance industry, and he would "have the opportunity to set the committee's agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.
"Given his seniority in the Senate, he will also play a key role in the Democratic Majority's leadership," Mr. Cassano wrote in the message, obtained by The Washington Times.
Mr. Dodd's campaign quickly hit pay dirt, collecting more than $160,000 from employees and their spouses at the AIG Financial Products division (AIG-FP) in Wilton, Conn., in the days before he took over as the committee chairman in January 2007. Months later, the senator transferred the donations to jump-start his 2008 presidential bid, which later failed.
Now, two years later, Mr. Dodd has emerged as a central figure in the government's decision to let executives at the now-failing AIG collect more than $218 million in bonuses, according to the Connecticut attorney general - even as the company was receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). He acknowledged that he slipped a provision into legislation in February that authorized the bonuses, but said the Treasury Department asked him to do it.
The decision has generated national outrage and put the Obama administration into the position of trying to collect the bonuses after they were distributed. It also endangers Mr. Dodd's re-election chances in 2010 as his popularity tumbles in his home state.
Despite all the claims that Washington has changed, the tale of Mr. Dodd's lucrative political ties to AIG is a fresh reminder that special interests continue to use donations and fundraising to sow good will with powerful lawmakers like Mr. Dodd.
"The message seems clear: The boss says I want you to support the senator," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which studies political fundraising and ethics. "And I think the employees got the message."
Representatives for Mr. Dodd did not answer specific questions about AIG's fundraising, but spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said in a statement: "Senator DoddŽs fundraising has always been above board, transparent and in accordance with campaign finance rules.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of the people named this week to President Obama's new Task Force on Tax Reform is a member of the AIG board of directors.
Makes perfect sense in a way ...
Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University, has been on the board of American International Group since 1988. He also was a prominent economic adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Thus demonstrating the point from the Atlantic article yesterday about the revolving door between the financial industry, government and academia ...
Asked about the AIG connection, a senior administration official said Friday that the White House declined to comment on the story.
Like the others named to the tax reform task force, Feldstein also serves on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
Why does Bambi need two boards then if the membership is the same?
Joining Feldstein on the task force are Laura Tyson of the University of California at Berkeley and a former chairman of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers; Roger Ferguson, CEO of TIAA-CREF; and Bill Donaldson, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a teleconference briefing Wednesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said Obama believes the "prospective members of the board would be especially well-suited to carry out the mission of tax reform."
The task force's job description is to propose ways to simplify the tax code, reduce tax evasion, close loopholes and make changes in corporate tax breaks. It is to provide recommendations to the president by December 4. No revenue target is being set, but the administration said it is placing two constraints on the group's efforts: Members may not propose tax increases for 2009 and 2010; and beyond 2010, they may not propose tax increases on families making less than $250,000.
A major focus for the task force will be to reduce the estimated $300 billion-a-year tax gap, the difference between what individual and corporate taxpayers owe and what they actually pay.
The announcement of the tax-reform task force drew a cool reaction this week from the top Senate Democratic tax writer. "We'll certainly look at [its recommendations], but we're the Congress, we'll do what we think makes sense," Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, told reporters.
And more importantly, what gets you re-elected ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/30/2009 00:00 ||
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A major focus for the task force will be to reduce the estimated $300 billion-a-year tax gap, the difference between what individual and corporate taxpayers owe and what they actually pay.
Rantburg translation: Eliminating income tax deductions such as home loan interest, charitable giving, real estate taxes, etc. and putting everyone on the short form.
#2
Why does Bambi need two boards then if the membership is the same?
So each team can cast the blame on the other team of course.
Is anyone suprised by this - after all we have a tax cheat as a Treasury Secretary. The Obama administration is looking like one of those street hustlers selling a shell game every day.
#3
"on the board of American International Group since 1988" I hate greedy people too, but if the Hospital that the First Lady worked on the board botched an operatrion, would we then blame her? Same scenario here. This guy was a member of a large board that for the most part hired/fired senoir the CEO and other officers. The derivatives office (cause of collapse) was several chains below that level. Not everyone with AIG was a crook or greedy and most of those are long gone.
#4
AIG couldn't have taken on the massive risks of credit default swaps w/out Board approval. Every Board has a compensation committee, so they were doubtless doling out huge bonuses to the CDS masters of the universe -- and themselves, of course.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/30/2009 12:03 Comments ||
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#5
Why does Bambi need two boards then if the membership is the same?
So they can be paid two salaries for one job?(Graft or bribery, take your pick)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/30/2009 20:59 Comments ||
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Last month, a hit squad sent by a Mexican drug cartel brazenly broke into the homes of nine police officers in a ranching town in northern Mexico. They kidnapped the officers, piled them into a convoy of SUVs and sped off into the night.
After being summoned by local authorities, troops from Ciudad Juarez, 80 miles to the north, located the convoy and fought a running gun battle with the kidnappers. When the smoke cleared, 21 people were dead, including six policemen who had been tortured and murdered before the soldiers could save them.
Even in Mexico, where a spiraling drug war has claimed more than 7,000 lives in the last 15 months, the scale of the violence was shocking. But in one respect, the shootout represented a breakthrough.
Soon after the bullets stopped flying, a Mexican military officer called a trusted U.S. contact and offered to let American officials inspect the weapons taken from the hit men. The guns were mostly AK-47 knockoffs, and U.S. agents traced them to a dealer in El Paso, just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez. The dealer was already on trial for arming the cartels. He now faces new charges.
Mexico is not the failed state that some pundits have warned about, ...
... yes it is ...
... but the crisis is undeniable -- and it cannot be addressed without the United States and Mexico working together to combat crimes that respect no border. But our response must be respectful of our long partnership with Mexico.
At least as much as Mexico is respectful of us, which isn't very ...
Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a field hearing in El Paso to hear from U.S. and Mexican officials about ways to develop a better joint response to the border violence.
Our two countries are already cooperating at an unprecedented level. President Felipe Calderon has approved the extradition of a record 178 drug traffickers to the U.S., and he deserves praise for his courageous stand in going after the drug cartels. But there is more that can be done on both sides.
Too often the kind of cross-border cooperation seen in the recent kidnappings is the result of personal relationships rather than institutional partnerships. Mexico's military and government should allow the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to examine every gun seized to identify and shut down the sellers, who are almost always on our side of the border.
We must stop the flow of handguns, assault rifles and machine guns, which pass from the U.S. to Mexico at a rate of 60,000 a year.
How exactly do machine guns get through the border? Ordinary US citizens don't own machine guns. Where do they come from?
Right now, southbound traffic crosses the border essentially uninspected. That cannot continue. The Obama administration's decision to increase resources assigned to interdict guns at the border is a good first step, but other actions must be taken as well. For instance, we must enforce existing laws against exporting weapons across international borders. We should revive the ban on assault rifle imports to the U.S., which was mistakenly allowed to expire in 2004.
How does banning the import stop the export? Wouldn't vendors just import them directly into Mexico? If Mexico can stop arms from coming in directly from other countries, shouldn't they be able to stop them coming in from the U.S.? Indeed, isn't it their responsibility to patrol their side of our border to stop these arms?
#1
ok , no one in the gov gave a damn about all the drugs and illegals pouring in through our borders but when money and guns go the other way now there is a stonr sentiment too close it going the other way i do believe that our governement is tee totally ass backwards now
#2
What crosses the border into Mexico is Mexico's responsibility, and what crosses the border into the USA is the USA's responsibility. What is so hard about that?
#3
We must stop the flow of handguns, assault rifles and machine guns
- J.Kerry
The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico's drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.
Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
...
These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said. - LAT
Another politico misdirect to gut the 2nd Amendment.
#4
the gun-running is a problem, but most of their real hardware comes from Central America and the Mexican Army. When a stoopid tool like Kerry jumps into the fray, you should watch the hands, not the mouth. This'll be a step towards limiting guns, ammo sales, you watch
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2009 12:53 Comments ||
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#5
the gun-running is a problem, but most of their real hardware comes from Central America and the Mexican Army.
Hmm, I just assumed it was dealers at the local Gun & Knife Show trying to unload left-over RPGs and crew-served weapons they were unable to sell to the Michigan Militia.
#7
Eventually, there is going to be a major gun battle in a US border city that will result in a bunch of dead Americans. But unlike the attack on Columbus, NM by Poncho Villa, the left will raise the hue and cry against Americans.
They will desperately search for some way of blaming Americans for being massacred.
Much of Mr. Obama's vaunted online strategy involved utilizing "Internet trolls" to invade enemy lines under false names and trying to derail discussion. In the real world, that's called "vandalism." But in a political movement that embraces "graffiti" as avant-garde art , that's business as usual. It relishes the ability to destroy other people's property in pursuit of electoral victory.
This kind of post is on the up-tick here at the 'Burg.
#1
"Andros" and other "Concerned Conservatives Who Voted For Obama This Year" have been astroturfing Ace of Spades for over a year. They're predictable and identifiable because they have absolutely NO IDEA how conservatives, or Republicans in general, think. The script is pathetic as are the trolls
Abuse and invective result, as it should be
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2009 21:37 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of the people named this week to President Obama's new Task Force on Tax Reform is a member of the AIG board of directors.
Last month, a hit squad sent by a Mexican drug cartel brazenly broke into the homes of nine police officers in a ranching town in northern Mexico. They kidnapped the officers, piled them into a convoy of SUVs and sped off into the night. 
