TAX MATTERS

Taxachusetts to cut tax?: "With state tax revenues soaring, lawmakers on Beacon Hill are advancing a proposal to lower the Massachusetts income tax rate, if state spending is restored to levels last seen before the fiscal crisis began three years ago. The Senate unanimously approved a Republican measure Thursday that would trigger a series of income tax rate reductions to lower the rate to 5 percent from 5.3 percent, but only if state spending on education and municipal services reaches 2002 levels. The fiscal crisis prompted lawmakers to slash funding that year. Passage of the bill by the Senate, where the Democrats have a large majority, is the first sign that Democrats may be warming to the idea of an income tax cut."

Globotaxes: "Most Americans have come -- correctly, if reluctantly -- to the conclusion the United Nations has been a failure. Sixty years ago, the U.N.'s founders envisioned it as an engine of freedom, an international mechanism in which sovereign nations would come together to protect liberty and to facilitate its spread throughout the world. Instead, for most of its life, the 'world body' has been dominated by the unfree. Under their influence, the U.N. has morphed into a protection racket for the world's despots and, effectively, an abettor of those who would supplant liberty with corrupt authoritarianism, or worse. In recent months, evidence of how far the United Nations has strayed from its original purpose has steadily leached into plain sight."

The Ohio lesson: "In 1970, Ohio had one of the lowest tax burdens in the Union--it now has one of the highest. As of 2005, the state's tax burden, as estimated by the Tax Foundation, is 35.8% higher than it was in 1970, the largest increase in the nation over this period. The next largest, 26.5% in Arkansas, was far smaller, and the average increase in the U.S. tax burden was just 3.1%. Over the past decade alone, Ohio's state and local government direct spending per $1,000 of personal income has risen 19.6%, by far the highest such spending growth in the region and light years beyond the 6.8% figure for all states. To finance this expansion, higher taxes have come along hand-in-hand. The consequences have been harsh. Since 1970, Ohio's share of the nation's personal income has declined from roughly 5.3% to under 3.8% today. In the first quarter of 2005, Ohio had the fifth highest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 6.2% versus the overall unemployment rate of 5.3%. Meager Ohio employment growth of 0.3% through the first quarter placed the state third-to-last nationally, far behind the U.S. overall rate of 1.7%. With falling relative incomes, high unemployment and poor job growth, it is no wonder that people are voting against Ohio with their feet. State-to-state migration shows Ohio losing residents, while total population growth of 0.2% ranks it a dismal 47th in the nation".

Panel suggests repealing alternative minimum tax : "A federal tax-reform panel advising President Bush called Wednesday for repeal of the alternative minimum tax, which has mushroomed from a law targeted on the rich to one that threatens more than 20 million taxpayers with higher taxes next year. The panel's chairman, former senator Connie Mack of Florida, cited the AMT's 'extremely negative effect' on middle-income taxpayers as the nine-member panel reached its first conclusion."

"Death tax" in final throes? "Final repeal of the estate tax is high on the agenda of the White House and congressional Republicans. It has already passed the House, but vote counters are not sure they have 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. This has emboldened estate tax supporters, who want to keep it alive any way possible. There is a lot of pressure to resolve the issue one way or another this year. Under current law, the estate tax is repealed for one year, 2010, but comes back again in 2011. This nonsensical law is the result of Senate budget rules that prohibited enactment of permanent repeal in 2001. But the result makes estate planning almost impossible, since no one has any idea what the tax regime will be after 2010."

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ELSEWHERE

We all know how Communist Parties always enforced ideological uniformity on their members. It should therefore be no surprise that the Left side of the blogosphere has similar conformist impulses. The top Lefty bloggers have got together to form something called Blogpac which will ensure that they all march in lockstep with one-another -- thus defeating the chief attraction of blogs -- which is their individuality. I wish them success. It will just make people turn to conservative blogs for genuine originality, creativity and independent thought. Wizbang has more.

The stupid wing of the Presbyterian church is digging its own grave: "The Presbyterian Church (USA), the nation's leading Presbyterian congregation, is helping to advance the absurd agenda of the slave reparations movement which demands that whites compensate African Americans for the suffering of their slave ancestors.... the Presbyterian Church (USA) is rapidly losing members. Church leaders are committed to pursuing reparations, as well as other left-wing fads, while everyday church-goers just want to worship the orthodox faith. In 2003, the Presbyterian Church (USA) reported that membership totaled 2.4 million, a sharp decline from 4.2 million in 1983. Church leaders argue that they aren't losing members to other churches but to "the secular society." Not true. Presbyterian Churches that remain true to Christian orthodoxy, such as the Presbyterian Church in America and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, are growing, due in part to disillusioned exiles from the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is what happens when a "mainline" Protestant denomination abandons the traditional faith and embraces liberal causes such as the ordination of homosexuals and same-sex marriage."

Still some restraint on police powers in Britain: "A key part of the Government's policy for cracking down on antisocial behaviour was ruled unlawful in a judgment that stops police officers using indiscriminate power to detain children. Two judges, sitting at the High Court in London yesterday, upheld the right of a 15-year-old boy to be out on the streets at night unless the police suspected him of criminal or anti-social behaviour. The boy, who comes from Richmond, south-west London, and can only be identified as W, was challenging the new police powers to detain and forcibly return home any child who ventures into a designated curfew zone after 9pm. Lawyers for W, who has never been in trouble with the police, told the court that in a democracy, only those suspected of wrongdoing should be subject to curfews and police arrest."

Property decision galvanizes the right: "Property rights have become -- quietly and suddenly -- the battle cry for conservatives in the brewing fight over replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Conservatives say last month's Supreme Court ruling that expanded the government's power of eminent domain is now Exhibit A for their case that the high court has abandoned the original meaning of the Constitution and is in desperate need of more conservative jurists. 'It's so bad, it's good,' said Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which is dedicated to getting President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed. 'Property rights is now the number one issue.' In Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government can seize private property from its lawful owner and give it to a private developer who promises to generate more tax revenue with it."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftist movers and shakers is perfectly shown by the 2004 Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftist ideologues are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions and can con "the masses" into giving them power.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist"

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