Daily Policy Digest
Tax and Spending Issues
| Benefits of Private Infrastructure Highways, railways and bridges are all auction-worthy assets that can bring much-needed funds to state and local governments... |
| Smokers Change Habits to Avoid Higher Taxes Monthly sales of pipe tobacco increased from approximately 240,000 pounds in January 2009 to over 3 million pounds in September 2011 after a change in federal excise tax rates on tobacco... |
| Corporate Tax Madness The high-tax-rate lobby treats American businesses as if they are a static good that can be exploited... |
| Administration Pushes False General Motors Success Story General Motors still owes more than half the $50 billion in federal funds it received when the combination of the recession and its costly union contracts drove it into bankruptcy... |
| How Retirement Benefits May Sink the States Early last year, Illinois imposed $7 billion in new taxes on residents and business, pledging to use the money to eliminate its deficit and pay down unpaid bills, but more than a year later the state is in worse fiscal shape... |
| The Dangers of Raising Taxes on Investment Income According to the Joint Tax Committee, the Buffett Rule will raise only $47 billion over the next decade -- a small fraction of the projected deficits for that period, which the Committee places at $6.7 trillion... |
| States Without Income Taxes Rely on Varying Forms of Revenue New Hampshire, a state without an income tax, collected 39 percent of its $2.3 billion of tax revenue from excise taxes, compared to the national average of 17.4 percent... |
| How the Swiss "Debt Brake" Tamed Government Before Switzerland's "debt brake" went into effect in 2003, government spending was expanding by an average of 4.3 percent per year; since then it's increased by only 2.6 percent annually... |
| Social Security Trustees: We're Going Broke The actual liability for Social Security and Medicare is almost twice what the government is reporting, says John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis... |
| The Future of Tax Policy: Implications for Small Business and Entrepreneurs The American Action Forum has attempted to create a guide to the potential tax policy outcomes for the next year, outlining three possible scenarios and the probable outcomes of each one... |
