“Hamel: No more taxes, Mr. President”

Public Notice Executive Director Gretchen Hamel editorializes in The Richmond Times Dispatch, “In business, you have to compete. The only way to attract new jobs and create economic growth is by cultivating a better environment for businesses to thrive. Virginians understand this, and so do their neighbors. North Carolina is considering legislation to drop its corporate tax rate to 4.9 percent, which would be the lowest in the Southeast. Why take that step? According to one of the bill’s primary sponsors, it will make North Carolina ‘more competitive for economic development’ and bring tax rates ‘in line with our neighboring states.’ So when President Obama issued his latest budget proposal on April 10, which included a pitch for some $580 billion in higher taxes, the first question most are asking is how higher taxes will make Virginia and America more competitive.”

“USPS losing $25 million daily with ‘broken business model’”

The Washington Post reports, “The U.S. Postal Service could become ‘a significant burden to the taxpayer’ if it does not get needed flexibility to change its business operations, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told Congress Wednesday. Appearing before a congressional hearing for the first time since the Postal Service had to back away from a plan to reduce delivery days from six to five, Donahoe told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that ‘the Postal Service is currently operating with a broken business model.’  ‘We are losing $25 million dollars every day and we are on an unsustainable path,” he added. … Donahoe announced in February that a five-day delivery schedule would save $2 billion annually and would begin in August. He had to change course, he said, after congressional action ‘specifically designed to prevent the Postal Service from changing its delivery schedule.  According to this law, we are now required to deliver mail as if it were the year 1983.’”

IRS Caught Employees Stealing Unemployment Benefits

The Tennessean reports, “First it was the families of dead people and state employees. Now, authorities say Internal Revenue Service employees in Tennessee were stealing unemployment and other benefits while fully employed. On Thursday, 13 of those employees were indicted on federal charges that they lied to get unemployment, food stamps, welfare and housing vouchers. An additional 11 have been indicted on state charges of theft greater than $1,000. In all, authorities say the workers improperly received more than $250,000 in government benefits.”

What is Funding the Welfare State?

George Will writes in The Washington Post, “The regulatory, administrative state, which progressives champion, is generally a servant of the strong, for two reasons. It responds to financially powerful and politically sophisticated factions. And it encourages rent-seekers to exploit opportunities for concentrated benefits and dispersed costs (e.g., agriculture subsidies confer sums on large agribusinesses by imposing small costs on 316 million Americans). Such government inevitably means executive government and the derogation of the legislative branch, both of which produce exploding government debt. … Today’s government uses regulation to achieve policy goals by imposing on the private sector burdens less obvious than taxation would be, burdens that become visible only indirectly, in higher prices. Often the goals government pursues by surreptitious indirection are goals that could not win legislative majorities — e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of greenhouse gases following Congress’s refusal to approve such policies. And deficit spending — borrowing — is, DeMuth says, ‘a complementary means of taxation evasion’: It enables the political class to provide today’s voters with significantly more government benefits than current taxes can finance, leaving the difference to be paid by voters too young to vote or not yet born. … Funding the welfare state by vast borrowing and regulatory taxation hides the costs from the public. Hence its political potency. Until the implosion.”

Tax Code Needs Simplicity

Robert Samuelson editorializes in The Washington Post, “At this time of year, when most Americans have just filed their returns, exasperation with the income tax system reaches a peak. Hardly anyone denies that it is a complex mess. In 2010, calculating their taxes cost Americans $168 billion, estimates the Taxpayer Advocate Service of the Internal Revenue Service. That’s about 15 percent of taxes collected — a heavy overhead. Almost 60 percent of taxpayers pay accountants or other tax preparers. Public esteem for the tax system is low; in a 2011 Pew poll, 55 percent judged it unfair. Disaffection was fairly even politically: 47 percent among Republicans, 58 percent among Democrats and 56 percent among independents. … The value of tax breaks is roughly reckoned at about $1 trillion annually. There seems ample room for trimming. Guess again. Tax breaks have huge constituencies. The largest is the exclusion of employer-paid health insurance from the income tax. That’s worth an estimated $213 billion in 2014. If Congress tried to reduce it, there would be howls of protest — from affected workers and firms, insurance companies, hospitals. The next largest is the deductibility of home mortgage interest: $101 billion. Builders, real estate agents and homeowners would resist any cut. Charitable contributions ($54 billion) and individual retirement accounts ($19 billion) also involve big breaks. Politicians abet tax complexity, because dispensing preferences enhances their power. This helps explain why the Tax Reform Act unraveled. New tax breaks multiplied; rates were raised.”

“Rove: Steaming Toward the ObamaCare ‘Train Wreck’”

The Wall Street Journal reports, “In congressional testimony last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blamed Republican governors for her department’s failure to create a ‘model exchange’ where consumers could shop for health-insurance coverage in states that don’t set up their own exchange. Nice try, but GOP governors aren’t the problem. Team Obama’s tendency to blame someone else for its shortcomings is tiresome. The Affordable Care Act requires HHS to operate exchanges in states that won’t operate their own. Since the act became law in March 2010, it has been abundantly clear that the agency would have to deploy a model exchange. It is Ms. Sebelius’s fault there isn’t one. … Part of this problem stems from the way the law is crafted. For example, a subsidy to help small businesses provide insurance coverage while ObamaCare ramped up was so complicated and difficult to use that only 1% of its $40 billion budget was spent. Other provisions have been poorly executed or needlessly delayed. Ms. Sebelius’s HHS has missed dozens of deadlines for major rule-making or program start dates required by the law.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Plans To Ignore Sequester

Congressional Quarterly reports, “Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md, reiterated Wednesday her plans to ignore the sequester in writing fiscal 2014 spending bills, setting up a likely confrontation with the House. ’I believe that it will be at the $1.058 trillion level that this full committee will be marking up,’ she said at a Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations panel hearing. ‘In terms of dealing with sequester, we need a balanced approach, and we call upon the leadership and the president to help come up with that balanced approach so that we can cancel the sequester.’ House Republicans will use a $967 billion top line as required by the sequester in writing their spending bills. Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget request proposes a combination of new tax revenue and alternative savings to replace the sequester with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.”

“Fed: Economy still growing, but Washington a source of concern”

According to The Hill, “The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that the economy was continuing to expand ‘at a moderate pace,’ but that several policies out of Washington were pinching growth. Fiscal tightening, including automatic sequestration cuts, as well as the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act were cited by the Fed’s business contacts as reasons for concern about the trajectory of the nation’s economy. Businesses in several districts nationwide told the Fed they saw ‘uncertainty or weakness’ in military and defense-related businesses. In San Francisco, manufacturers with ties to the defense industry said they were issuing furloughs, laying off workers, and even closing some production plans. Business contacts in Chicago and Philadelphia were also taking steps to cut costs in anticipation of reduced government spending on defense. … Elsewhere, the expiration of the payroll tax cut was cited as a factor in holding back sales growth.”

EPA Agency Credit Cards Misused?

According to The Washington Guardian, “If Environmental Protection Agency workers went on a spending spree, investigators will find out soon. Government inspectors are looking at the EPA’s purchase card and convenience check programs to make sure agency workers have been making taxpayer funded purchases correctly and on things that are needed for the agency to conduct its business.  Investigators noted the review is not in response to any specific tips or concerns, but is a required routine check-up. The EPA Office of Inspector General said it will evaluate whether the agency has controls to prevent ‘potentially illegal, improper and erroneous use of purchase cards.’  Investigators said they also want to ensure the EPA is getting the best deals and lowest prices for the things it buys.”

“More Children in Greece Are Going Hungry”

The New York Times reports, “As an elementary-school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains. ‘He had eaten almost nothing at home,’ Mr. Nikas said, sitting in his cramped school office near the port of Piraeus, a working-class suburb of Athens, as the sound of a jump rope skittered across the playground. He confronted Pantelis’s parents, who were ashamed and embarrassed but admitted that they had not been able to find work for months. Their savings were gone, and they were living on rations of pasta and ketchup. ‘Not in my wildest dreams would I expect to see the situation we are in,’ Mr. Nikas said. ‘We have reached a point where children in Greece are coming to school hungry. Today, families have difficulties not only of employment, but of survival.’”

“Can European disintegration be reversed?”

Thomas Wright, a Managing Global Order fellow at the Brookings Institution, editorializes in The New York Times, “Throughout the euro crisis, observers have been asking if the euro zone will disintegrate — as if it is a decision that will be made by its leaders at some point in the future. This holds out the prospect of a great historic choice: Europeans can choose to properly unite and overcome their crisis or they can choose dissolution. We wait with bated breath for the next summit or the latest ‘most crucial month in the euro’s history,’ which now seems to come several times a year. But, this may be the wrong way of looking at the euro crisis. Integration and disintegration are not just the products of deliberate decisions. They are both processes, set in motion by actions regardless of the stated intentions of leaders. Once underway, each process takes several election cycles — probably a decade or so — to reach completion. Only one will prevail in the end, but it is possible that in the early stages these two processes can coexist even as each vies for supremacy. Looked at this way, the euro zone is in serious trouble. The events of the past six months are consistent with a process of disintegration, while the process of integration has steadily weakened. The question is no longer, ‘Will Europe unravel?’ We should be asking, ‘Can European disintegration be reversed?’”

Poll: Majority Says Wealth Should Be Redistributed

POLITICO reports, “Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say wealth is distributed unfairly in the United States, and a majority want the federal government to play Robin Hood to fix the problem, according to a poll released Thursday. Only 33 percent of Americans think the current distribution of wealth in this country is fair, according to the Gallup Poll, while 59 percent say it is not. Fifty-two percent said the United States should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich, while 45 percent disagreed. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say wealth is distributed unfairly in the United States, and a majority want the federal government to play Robin Hood to fix the problem, according to a poll released Thursday. Only 33 percent of Americans think the current distribution of wealth in this country is fair, according to the Gallup Poll, while 59 percent say it is not. Fifty-two percent said the United States should redistribute wealth through heavy taxes on the rich, while 45 percent disagreed.”