Month: May 2017

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The Budget Mistakes that Endanger America, Part 3

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its examination of the danger posed by inadequate defense budgets.

During its tenure, the Obama Administration engaged in policies which were breathtaking in their scope and in the extraordinary danger they posed. Among  these actions were slashing the defense budget, preventing the development of  an adequate anti-missile shield, proposing unilateral reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, withdrawing all US tanks from Europe, (some have since been returned) cutting benefits to active duty service members, alienating  regional allies such as Israel, betraying key nuclear defense secrets of the United Kingdom to Moscow, prematurely withdrawing U.S. forces from key hot spots, not responding to Chinese aggression towards allies Japan and the Philippines, ignoring Russian, Chinese, and Iranian military growth in Latin America, softening sanctions against Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, and taking no viable steps in response to North Korea’s imminent deployment of nuclear ICBMs.

These actions occur in the face of a US military that was already sharply reduced from its strength in the recent past.  The navy has shrunk from 600 ships to 284, the Army is down from 17 divisions to ten, the Air Force from 37 fighter commands to 20.

This diminished force must contend with a Russia that has returned to cold war strength, possesses a 10 to 1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, has invaded two neighboring nations in the past ten years, has returned to cold war bases around the world, assisted in the shooting down of a civilian airliner, and has allied itself with China.

China has engaged in unprecedented espionage against civilian, governmental and military targets in the U.S., and has increased its nuclear and conventional military strength at a pace faster than either the Soviet Union or the United States did at the height of the cold war. It is a full-fledged military superpower on land, sea, air, and space, with technology every bit as capable as Washington’s.  It unabashedly asserts hegemony over a vast swath of seas that it has no legitimate right to, and has brazenly stolen resources from the Philippines. It makes no secret that it views the United States as an adversary, and its extraordinarily powerful armed forces are precisely structured to fight what is left of the American military.

Those with problems leading to ED such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood sugar level, kidney problem, blood related problem, cheapest levitra neurological issue, nicotine and wrong lifestyle are some of very common causes of erectile problem. 100mg tablet is said to be standard dosage to treat ED. Importance of Outside canadian discount cialis Help After sharing a conversation about ED, you can prevent it from ruining your relationship. Kamagra Jelly Online is an ingenious tadalafil tablets india invention; especially, for men who cannot swallow pills. Diuretic and Anti-inflammatory Pill is created by herbalist Lee Xiaoping who specializes in the field of male and women sexual dysfunction. wholesale cialis price The oft-cited clichés about the amount the U.S. spends on defense, and its comparison with potential enemies, serve to cloud the debate.  Defense spending as a percent of GDP, at about 3.3%, is at a near post-World War 2 low, and represents less than 16% of the federal budget.

Comparisons with the publicly stated budgets of Russia and China, which those opposed to adequate American defense spending often point to, is deceptive.  The non-transparent governments of those nations hide substantial portions of their military spending. They also do not include within their stated figures many items that their U.S. counterpart does.  Additionally, within their essentially command economies, manufacturers are not taking the type of profit American companies do, making the purchase of weapons exceptionally less costly.

The Trump Administration has called for a $54 billion increase in defense spending, although some estimates indicate that the actual figure may be closer to $30 billion. After the Obama disinvestment years, either figure represents merely treading water.

A True Pundit review of the request notes that “The Trump administration claimed that the proposal increases defense spending by 10 percent (approximately $54 billion), however, that number is based on unfounded estimations from 2011. The increase may actually represent a 3 percent increase, when based on the number former President Barack Obama said he would have liked to have seen last year.[Defense Secretary] Mattis said…while the $30 billion is necessary, it is only enough to fill current gaps, and not enough to improve capabilities in the future.”

Writing for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Mackenzie Eaglen explains: “The current outlook for the U.S. defense budget is middling with a chance of disappointment. When Trump’s first budget is eventually signed into law, it will likely just be a more muscular version of the status quo, increasing defense spending only a few percentage points above last year’s enacted levels… On the campaign trail, Trump set a fairly nebulous goal of growing the military to 350 navy ships, 540,000 active-duty army soldiers, 200,000 marines, and more than 1,200 combat-capable air force fighters. Such growth would cost an estimated $60 billion per year more than what Obama planned for in his five-year budget from 2017, or about $90 billion per year more than the levels prescribed by the Budget Control Act.”

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The Budget Mistakes that Endanger America, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues its exposure of the defense budgeting errors that endanger the U.S. 

In his recommendations for the 2018—2022 budget periods, Senator McCain states:

“We are now at a tipping point…We now face, at once, a persistent war against terrorist enemies and a new era of great power competition. The wide margin for error that America once enjoyed is gone. This deterioration of America’s global position has accelerated in recent years, in part, because the Obama administration’s defense strategy was built on a series of flawed assumptions. It assumed the United States could pull back from the Middle East and contain the threat of violent Islamist extremism. It assumed that ‘strategic patience’ toward North Korea would improve conditions for negotiations and not exacerbate the threat. It assumed that a nuclear deal with Iran would moderate its regional ambitions and malign behavior. It assumed that U.S.-Russia relations could be “reset” into a partnership and that American forces in Europe could be reduced. It assumed that a minimal “rebalance” of efforts could deter China from using its rising power to coerce American partners and revise the regional order. “And it assumed with the Budget Control Act of 2011 that defense spending could be cut significantly for a decade. Though all of these assumptions have been overtaken by events, [President Obama] and many in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have nonetheless failed to invest sufficiently in our nation’s defense. Indeed, for most of the past eight years, including this one, Congress has forced the Department of Defense to start the year locked into the previous year’s budget and priorities, which in practice is a budget cut.

“As a result, our military is caught in a downward spiral of depleted readiness and deferred modernization. Readiness is suffering, in part, because the force is too small and being asked to do more with less. This, in turn, harms modernization, as future defense investments are delayed and mortgaged to pay for present operations. That helps to explain why all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have stated that our military cannot accomplish the nation’s strategic objectives at acceptable risk to the force and the mission. Reversing this budget-driven damage to our military must be a top priority for national leaders…

“Donald Trump has pledged to ‘fully eliminate the defense sequester’ and ‘submit a new budget to rebuild our military.’ This cannot happen soon enough. The damage that has been done to our military over the past eight years will not be reversed in one year. Just stemming the bleeding caused by recent budget cuts will take most of the next five years, to say nothing of the sustained increases in funding required thereafter…

“Our adversaries are modernizing their militaries to exploit our vulnerabilities…The cost of further inaction…is worse: We will irreparably damage our military’s ability to deter aggression and conflict. Indeed, as General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army, has said: “The only thing more expensive than deterrence is actually fighting a war, and the only thing more expensive than fighting a war is fighting one and losing one.
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“For many years after the end of the Cold War, U.S. defense planning and budgeting were guided by what was called a “two major regional contingency” force sizing construct. This required the U.S. military to be sized, shaped, and postured to fight and win two major wars in different regions of the world more or less at the same time. In 2012, the Obama administration departed from this construct…it stoked a perception of American weakness and created power vacuums that adversaries have exploited.

“A better defense strategy must acknowledge the reality that we have entered a new era of great power competitions. China and Russia aspire to diminish U.S. influence and revise the world order in ways that are contrary to U.S. national interests. They maintain large, survivable nuclear arsenals. They are modernizing their militaries in order to counter our ability to project power. And they are making rapid progress…the United States must have the will and military capability to deter and, if necessary, defeat these competitors in order to maintain peace through strength. Without sufficient hard power, which is our leverage, our diplomacy will be ineffective.

“A better defense strategy must also account for the threats posed by North Korea and Iran…But these dangers are serious and growing. North Korea already has nuclear weapons and is rapidly developing a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the U.S. homeland. Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons has been postponed but not halted. And it seeks to use its malign influence to remake the Middle East in its image. If left unchecked, these threats will grow, to the detriment of American interests, allies, and partners. Finally, a better defense strategy must recognize that violent Islamist extremist groups will continue to pose a direct threat to American lives, and that U.S. forces will be conducting counterterrorism operations at varying levels of intensity, for the foreseeable future. … the scale of our defense challenges are clear: Major improvements can be made in the next five years, but we will not be able to rebuild and reshape our military to the degree necessary in that timeframe. In this way, the goal of the next five years is more digging out than building up—halting the accumulated damage done during the Obama administration through decreasing force size, depleted readiness, deferred modernization, and sustained high operational tempo.”

A professional opinion on the need for even greater increases in defense spending comes from the Military Officers Association .: “While many in Congress, especially the defense hawks, have applauded [President Trump’s] defense increase, several in key leadership positions on the Armed Services committees say it is not nearly enough. The administration termed the $603 billion budget request, which is an increase of $18.5 billion over what the Obama administration had proposed for FY 2018, as an increase of 10 percent, but that number is only in comparison to sequestration levels of $549 billion. So in reality, says Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Chairman of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, ‘That’s really only a 3-percent increase and is fake budgeting’.”

The Report concludes Monday

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Quick Analysis

The Budget Mistakes that Endanger America

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government begins a three-part exposure of the danger caused by the disinvestment in America’s National Security

Two dangerously mistaken assumptions have guided American defense planning since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The first, made by successive administrations, was that there would no longer be a substantial military threat following the end of the USSR, and that the only true danger remaining would be regional conflicts. China’s extraordinary increases in spending on armaments, and its development of a highly advanced and sophisticated force with worldwide reach, has proven that theory wrong, as has President Putin’s dramatic reconstruction of Soviet power and strategy. Both nations have engaged in aggressive actions, confident that their armed strength shields them from repercussions.

Russia has twice invaded neighboring nations, and engages in intimidating actions towards its European neighbors and the North American coastline. China has illegally occupied a resource-rich maritime area belonging to the Philippines. It is now claiming domination over vital sea lanes in contradiction of all international law.  North Korea’s nuclear capabilities have reached an extremely dangerous point, and the Taliban is preparing for a major return to power in Afghanistan. If they do so, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may be within their grasp.

Nikita vladimirov, in an article in The Hill.reports that “Russia and China are increasingly challenging the military superiority that the United States has held since the early 1990s…[they]…are spending heavily on ‘modernization’ to improve their militaries’ quality, efficiency and overall performance…According to the experts, China’s military advancement is most noticeable in its new naval and ballistic capabilities…Researchers at the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted the rapid development of China’s new air-to-air weapons that will ‘make the air environment more difficult for the F-35 and supporting aircraft.’…Moscow, meanwhile, is seeking to develop new technologies that would undermine U.S. capabilities in Europe and Asia.

“In summer of 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted the country’s military progress, asserting that Russia had achieved ‘substantial success’ in modernizing its forces… Tony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said improvements to Russia’s nuclear weapons and precision cruise missiles should be a major concern for the Pentagon…Another highlight of Russia’s push toward military innovation is its lethal T-14 tank…the International Institute for Strategic Studies said the ‘revolutionary’ tank will feature new technologies that will ‘change battlefield dynamics’ in the future.”

The second assumption, solely the work of the Obama Administration, was that significantly scaling back American defense spending and activities would induce hostile nations to do the same.  In essence, President Obama “Gave peace a chance,” to quote the rock song.  It didn’t work. Instead, it had the reverse effect: aggressive nations saw U.S. weakness as an opportunity, and took advantage.
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The errors of judgement and the rise of dire threats should have been headline news. But the prevailing leftist ideology within the American media has kept the overwhelming danger out of the headlines.  It is a mantra of Progressive politics that any penny spent on defense is a penny taken away from social welfare programs. Therefore, dependent on ever increasing benefits for support at the ballot box, left-leaning politicians have ignored the hazardous reality and continued their transfer of funds from the military to the programs that get them re-elected.

Former Defense Secretary  Ashton B. Carter noted  that “DoD’s [Department of Defense] 10-year budget projections have absorbed more than $750 billion in cuts, …DoD’s fiscal year 2016 budget is at a near-historic low, representing about 14 percent of total federal discretionary and nondiscretionary outlays.”

In 2010, the total defense budget was $757 billion.  The 2016 budget was approximately $585 billion.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) noted “Russia has challenged the postwar order in Europe by invading and annexing the territory of another sovereign nation…China has stepped up its coercive behavior in Asia, backed by its rapid military modernization…Military spending is not to blame for out-of-control deficits and debt.  It is now [at] the lowest [share of federal spending] since before World War 2.”

The Report continues tomorrow

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That’s Propaganda, Not Entertainment

Censorship can take many forms.  In some regimes, books are burned, in some others, nonconforming authors are jailed.  In America’s academic, mainstream news, and media culture, one side of the political spectrum is crowded out of the marketplace of ideas, not by government, but by the over-politicized and hyper-biased elites within university leadership, editorial boards, and Hollywood power brokers. “Progressive” positions are force-fed to the public in classrooms, news broadcasts, and entertainment venues.

That bias is exceptionally prevalent in the entertainment industry.

A National Review examination notes, “If you think liberal media bias is strictly an issue for the New York Times and the Washington Post, you haven’t looked at your average entertainment site lately. Nearly every major Hollywood news site leans left. It has been that way for some time, but in recent years it has gotten worse… Reporters routinely cover Michael Moore like he’s a truth-teller, not a hard partisan. This is hardly a new problem.”

Warner Todd Hudson, writing in Western Journalism, notes:  “It is well known that …Hollywood … is anti-conservative. Let’s just take a few examples in recent movies. In 2010 the director of the then in production Captain America movie suggested that his Cappie would not be a flag waver.” Further, the studio intended to take the “America” out of the title for overseas distribution. That same year the movie Machette portrayed whites as racists out to murder Mexicans, Roger Ebert said that Americans are all racists, and Whoopi Goldberg wondered why anyone would think Muslims might be terrorists. There are certainly too many cases of Hollywood bias to report in this small space…Episodic television is no different than Hollywood in its attacks on the right. For a few examples: NCIS featured a story about terrorists not long ago. Of course, the terrorists were white people mad at US government failures, not Muslims. The series Medium created a character evoking comparisons to the law-and-order Sheriff Joe Arpiao in Arizona. Only the TV show’s version was a child rapist and murderer… naturally. This is not to mention the bias belched out by the chicks on The View on a daily basis…there is, of course, one religion that the Old Media attacks with regularity: Christianity. The anti-Christian bias in the media is endemic…attacks on football player Tim Tebow’s religion [are] a prime example.”

The entertainment industry apparently believes that it’s never too early to start the indoctrination. Hudson reports that “comic books are demeaning conservatives in yet another example of the media attacking the right. For just a very few examples, we had the Captain America comic that portrayed the Tea Party movement as dangerous and anti-American, the Batman comic that portrayed Muslims as heroes…Unfortunately, comic books have for a long time been filled with anti-conservative themes.”

Examples of Progressive perspectives being force-fed through entertainment are voluminous. Many of the scripts of this years’ television dramas, including Designated Survivor, Homeland, 24, the various iterations of NCIS, read more like political screeds than action-adventure dramas.  In one recent instance, an entire episode of Designated Survivor was almost entirely dedicated to an hour-long endorsement of gun control, complete with portrayals of Second Amendment advocates as dishonorable characters.

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Andy Kiersz and Hunter Walker, writing in Business Insider, provide  “quantitative proof” of Hollywood bias by demonstrating the almost total domination of donors to left-wing causes vs. centrists and conservative causes.

Some publications covering the entertainment industry have reported on the matter. Paul Bond, writing for The Hollywood Reporter reports that TV Executives have admitted, while being  interviewed for a new book,  that Hollywood pushes a liberal agenda. “The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda. The author bases his thesis on, among other things, 39 taped interviews… Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — [admits] that liberalism in the TV industry is ‘100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.’ Author Shapiro asks if politics are a barrier to entry. ‘Absolutely,’ Goldberg says.

“When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce the president of ABC in the 1980’s that ‘It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in”to television, he responds: ‘I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, ‘don’t promote it. It stays underground.'”

Stephen Galloway, who is liberal, also discussed the issue in the Hollywood Reporter: “In an astonishing reversal of Hollywood history, just as liberals here once considered themselves an endangered species, so do conservatives today. They no longer are free to talk in the open, because they feel — rightly — we’re no longer prepared to listen… And that worries me. Because nobody should be afraid to speak. Freedom of speech means freedom for all, for our opponents as well as ourselves.

Hollywood’s power brokers are, of course, free to push whatever causes they believe in.  That’s the right guaranteed by the First Amendment.  But their oppressive tactics against those within their industry that have differing views is an affront to the entire American tradition of free speech.

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Tax Reform, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its two-part examination of the tax reform debate. 

President Trump’s tax reform proposals may include elements of the Republican tax proposal issued in June 2016. An Americans for Tax Reform analysis of the GOP tax reform concept, proposed last June, provides this summary:

  • According to the Tax Foundation’s Taxes and Growth Model, the plan would significantly reduce marginal tax rates and the cost of capital, which would lead to 9.1 percent higher GDP over the long term, 7.7 percent higher wages, and an additional 1.7 million full-time equivalent jobs.
  • The plan would reduce federal revenue by $2.4 trillion over the first decade on a static basis. However, due to the larger economy and the broader tax base, the plan would reduce revenue by $191 billion over the first decade.
  • Although the plan would reduce federal revenue by $2.4 trillion on a static basis in the first decade, much of the revenue loss is one-time. As a result, the plan will cost much less in subsequent decades.
  • On a static basis, the plan would lead to 0.7 percent higher after-tax income for all taxpayers and 5.3 percent higher after-tax income for the top 1 percent. When accounting for the increased GDP, after-tax incomes of all taxpayers would increase by at least 8.4 percent.”

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  • Increases the standard deduction from $6,300 to $12,000 for singles, from $12,600 to $24,000 for married couples filing jointly, and from $9,300 to $18,000 for heads of household.
  • Eliminates the personal exemption and creates a $500 non-refundable credit for dependents who are not children.
  • Increases the Child Tax Credit to $1,500 per child, limits the refundability of the credit to $1,000, and raises the phaseout threshold for the Child Tax Credit for married households from $110,000 to $150,000.
  • Eliminates all itemized deductions besides the mortgage interest deduction and the charitable contribution deduction.
  • Eliminates the individual alternative minimum tax.
  • Eliminates federal estate and gift taxes.

Changes to Business Income Taxes

  • Reduces the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.
  • Eliminates the corporate alternative minimum tax.
  • Taxes income derived from pass-through businesses at a maximum rate of 25 percent.
  • Allows the cost of capital investment to be fully and immediately deductible.
  • Eliminates the deductibility of net interest expenses on future loans.
  • Restricts the deduction for net operating losses to 90 percent of net taxable income and allows net operating losses to be carried forward indefinitely, and increased by a factor reflecting inflation and the real return to capital. Does not allow net operating losses to be carried back.
  • Eliminates the domestic production activities deduction (section 199) and all other business credits, except for the research and development credit.
  • Creates a fully territorial tax system, exempting from U.S. tax 100 percent of dividends from foreign subsidiaries.
  • Enacts a deemed repatriation of currently deferred foreign profits, at a tax rate of 8.75 percent for cash and cash-equivalent profits and 3.5 percent on other profits.
  • Modifies all business income taxes to be border-adjustable, disallowing the deduction for purchases from nonresidents and exempting export profits and foreign-derived profits from taxation.

 Impact on the Economy

According to the Tax Foundation’s Taxes and Growth Model, the House Republican tax plan would increase the long-run size of the economy by 9.1 percent (Table 3). The larger economy would result in 7.7 percent higher wages and a 28.3 percent larger capital stock. The plan would also result in 1.7 million more full-time equivalent jobs. The larger economy and higher wages are due chiefly to the significantly lower cost of capital under the proposal, which is due to the lower corporate income tax rate and the full expensing of capital investment.”

A December, 2016 analysis by Mark Bloomfield, writing for The Hill maintained that all the ingredients necessary for tax reform exist, including the desire of major U.S. corporations to repatriate funds orphaned abroad due to current tax law, the need for those funds to be brought stateside to pay for infrastructure, and the desire of the GOP leadership to get it done.

That doesn’t necessarily indicate that the task is certain or easy. Bloomfield notes that “The Republican majority in the House can pass tax reform without any problem. It’s a different story, however, in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance even the slightest controversial legislation. However, there is a way around the Senate’s filibuster rules. McConnell confirmed on Dec. 12 that the Senate would pass tax reform using the budget reconciliation process, which is a privileged motion that needs only a simple majority to pass…There are also a number of Red State Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018, who could make tax reform bipartisan. I reckon that there’s a 63 percent chance of tax reform succeeding in 2017. Why? Because it has been that many years since the Internal Revenue Act of 1954, the first comprehensive reform of the federal income tax since its origin in 1913.”

Because tax reform is central to almost every other aspect of governance, fighting will be fierce. However, the impact of a reduced tax on the American economy, particularly for jobs creation and economic revitalization, would be exceptionally significant, and the political gains from a simplified tax code would be substantial.  With a majority in both houses of Congress, and with the precedent set by the Gorsuch nomination rules change, expect the GOP to move forcefully on the issue.

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Tax Reform and America’s Financial Death Spiral

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government takes a two-part look at the tax reform debate.

Tax reform is about to be debated in Washington—and not a moment too soon.

America’s finances are in a death spiral. Similar to a heroin addict that has reached the point where ever-larger doses are necessary to get a desired “high,” federal tax rates are at a point that discourages businesses from investing in job-producing activities in America, and penalizes individuals who seek to grow their income.   Continuing the current system and rates (or increasing them) to address the near-$20 trillion national debt and the annual deficits that add to it won’t cure the problem; it will kill the patient.

Washington is certainly collecting a great deal of revenue. The U.S. Treasury  has disclosed that during the first six months of the current fiscal year, it has pulled in a record haul of $695,391,000,000 in individual income taxes. This was in addition to $547,491,000,000 in Social Security and other payroll taxes.  The Tax Foundation  gave a bad mark to the United States in individual income taxes, ranking it behind 24 other developed nations in ease of burden of this type of levy.

The Congressional Budget Office describes how the current tax system discourages incentive:

“When workers’ earnings rise but their after-tax income rises less—because of increases in their income and payroll taxes or declines in their benefits from government programs—their incentive to work typically declines.”

Despite the record intake from individual income taxes, the federal government still ran a $526,855,000,000 deficit. Even with that vast intake from the Individual Income Tax and all that deficit spending, crucial needs, including an underfunded national defense, a crumbling infrastructure, and a social security system headed for insolvency all remained unresolved.

In fact, total federal tax collections declined because of lower returns from the corporate income tax. America’s uncompetitive corporate tax rates discourage business survival, growth and job creation within the nations’ borders.

The Tax Foundation notes that The United States has the third highest general top marginal corporate income tax rate in the world, at 38.92 percent. The U.S. rate is exceeded only by the United Arab Emirates and Puerto Rico. The worldwide average top corporate income tax rate, across 188 countries and tax jurisdictions, is 22.5 percent. Forbes  found that America has the highest statutory corporate income tax rate of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nation.

The OECD also reports that the tax-to-GDP ratio in the United States increased by 0.5 percentage points, from 25.9% in 2014 to 26.4% in 2015. The corresponding figures for the OECD average were an increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

High rates, combined with an extraordinarily complex code, serves as a significant drag on the national economy. Americans for Tax Reform  notes that “…the U.S. has one of the most complex, internationally uncompetitive tax codes and double taxes income earned abroad. As a result, this money is unable to be reinvested back into the [U.S.] economy.”

Former NY lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey, writing in the NY Post   has suggested cutting corporate tax rates to 20%, and candidate Donald Trump had suggested reducing the rate to 15%.

Lowering taxes was a major plank in President Trump’s campaign platform.

President Trump is promising “the biggest tax cut in history,” in a bid to jump-start the sluggish American economy, improve a weak job market, and restore stability to the nation’s middle class.

Specifics appear to include reducing business taxes, currently the highest in the developed world, to 15%, doubling the individual income standard tax deduction and simplifying individual tax returns.

Additional details were not available at the time this report was prepared.

The GOP plan prepared by a “Tax Reform Task Force” began to take shape last June. It established its’ central logic:

“The United States stands at a pivotal moment. Today’s policy decisions will have a lasting effect on future generations – for better or worse. If we stay within the bounds of the current tax discussion, we have only three choices for the path forward:

  • We can do nothing, leaving our children with the responsibility to clean up the tax code and its ruinous effects.
  • We can raise taxes under the existing system, which would levy harsher penalties on hard work, savings, and entrepreneurship.
  • We can tinker around with little tax changes while the sun sinks ever lower on the age of American excellence.

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“The Tax Reform Task Force rejects these false choices and believes it is time to go in a completely new direction. Today we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to move forward with bold, pro-growth tax reform. As the Task Force worked to develop smart reforms, we asked ourselves two questions about each policy or provision: ‘Will this policy reform grow our economy?’ and ‘Is it worth raising taxes on everyone else to include this provision?’ We are committed to growing our economy without increasing the deficit – taking into account the increased Federal revenues that result from economic growth.”

In its essence, the GOP plan combines lower rates for both companies and individuals, along with a far simpler tax code—including a goal of making the annual individual income tax filing as simple as filing out a single sheet of paper.

The Report concludes tomorrow

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Non-citizen Voting Evidence Expands

The news that Victor David Garcia Bebek, a noncitizen in Kansas, has pleaded guilty to three counts of voting unlawfully in 2012 and 2014 has implications far beyond a single state or a single incident

Denial of voter fraud has been a mantra of the left for some time, even as reports of clear and evident voting and voting registration fraud have become available.  Columnist Pamela Gellar has noted that “Voter fraud is rampant. Were the full extent of it known, I am sure it would shock the world.”

It is not surprising that the prosecution arose in Kansas. The “Sunflower State” is the only one of the fifty that empowers its secretary of state to prosecute election law violations.

The Obama Administration engaged in consistent and significant efforts to prevent the detection and prosecution of these crimes. Leftist politicians are keenly aware that new arrivals to the U.S., especially those that come illegally, vote Democrat.

Indeed, not only did the Obama White House fail in its duty to prevent violations of the law, it actually encouraged this activity by moving with great force to foster the conditions that allow voter fraud to occur.  J. Christian Adams, an attorney in the voting rights section of the Department of Justice, has written that the Obama Administration killed any moves to address voter fraud, and specifically hired attorneys “whose main career experience was in subverting voting laws…”  Harassing state officials who sought to insure accurate balloting by imposing identification requirements, and cleaning up voter rolls, became an obsession of the Obama’s Justice Department

Hans Von Spakovsky, writing in National Review last year as the Presidential contest moved into gear,  described how “The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) had moved to allow Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, and Arizona to enforce their proof-of-citizenship voter-registration requirement. The Obama Justice Department moved against the action, part of its ongoing goal of allowing illegals to vote and to allow other voting violations to occur.”

Also in 2016, the True the Vote organization pleaded unsuccessfully with the DOJ to move against a clear-cut caser of alien voting. A letter to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District Annette L. Hayes, Catherine Engelbrect, the organization’s chief, provided information concerning a specific case of non-citizen voting:

“As you know, 18 U.S.C. § 611 prohibits ‘any alien’ from participating in federal elections
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while the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires individuals wishing to register to affirm their U.S. citizenship. The Washington State voter registration form also expressly notes that those unable to attest to the same shall ‘not complete this form.’  According to most recent data available from the Washington Secretary of State, [an alien described by name and address in the letter] registered to vote on September 27, 2014 and proceeded to cast and be credited for votes in the 2014 General, 2015 General and 2016 Primary. His voter registration at the time of this letter’s submission is still listed as Active, according to public records…”

In 2015, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government reported that “State officials are raising an alarm about the potential for noncitizen, unlawful voting to substantially affect upcoming elections.  This is a major issue when considering the significant numbers of illegals entering and remaining in the United States, particularly during the tenure of the Obama Administration.”

Ohio’s Secretary of State, Jon Husted wrote a letter  to the White House protesting Obama’s policy, stating:

“I write regarding the consequences the recent Immigration Accountability Executive Actions may have on the administration of federal and state elections. Consistent with federal and state law, states are responsible for ensuring the integrity of our elections. As a swing state with access to voting that is already expansive, Ohio takes this responsibility very seriously. In spite of our diligence maintaining accurate voter registration rolls, however, the recent executive actions could jeopardize their integrity by making it much easier for people who are not U.S. citizens to illegally register and cast ballots…

“The source of the problem is that the recent executive actions enable millions of non-U.S. citizens to obtain valid Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. Under federal law, any person with a valid Social Security number or driver’s license can register to vote, so long as they attest to their eligibility to do so.1 As a result, the recent executive actions dramatically expand the opportunities for illegal voter registrations in Ohio and other states by non-citizen voters who have valid forms of identification and who willingly or negligently affirm their eligibility to vote. This problem is especially serious in the context of third-party voter registration drives, which are prevalent in Ohio and other states. Such drives occur outside of the presence of election officials who could explain that citizenship—not mere lawful presence—is a fundamental requirement for registering to vote and who can caution non-citizens against erroneous attestations.

“In short, by enabling millions of non-citizens to access valid forms of the types of identification required to register to vote, the recent executive actions have increased the risk that non-citizens may illegally register to vote and vote in our elections…”

The effort by left-wing and progressive politicians to ignore voting fraud, and to protect the environment that allows this brand of crime to be committed, has become the greatest challenge to America’s electoral system.