Tuesday, October 25, 2011

We Don’t Need Higher Taxes—We Need Lower Taxes!

Congress’s Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is struggling to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This is a unique opportunity to use tax reform to reduce future budget deficits while lowering individual tax rates.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 showed how a tax reform that includes lower rates can change incentives in a way that grows the tax base and produces extra revenue for the federal government. In that law, the top tax rate in the U.S. was reduced from 50% to 28%.

After that law was enacted, there was an enormous rise in taxes paid, particularly by those who experienced the greatest reductions in tax rates. Taxpayers who faced a tax rate of 50% in 1985 were paying 50% of federal taxes. After 1986, they began paying 72% of the federal intake! That was because the decrease in taxes provided an incentive to invest and to take financial risks that grew the economy.

Our government should look at the experience of 1986. Lowering taxes will increase the federal intake of revenue monies.

This blog post was redacted from the Wall Street Journal of 24 October 2011, page A15.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Voter Fraud Perpetrated by ACORN/Project Vote in Colorado

On 4 August 2011, Judicial Watch released documents obtained from the Coloraqdo Department of State showing that ACORN and its affiliate, Project Vote, successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public registration agencies was four times the national average.

The attempts of ACORN/Project Vote to upset the voter registration system in Colorado was spearheaded by Amy Busefink, who at the time was under indictment on 13 voter violation charges in Nevada.

Democrat, Bernie Buesher, who served as Colorado Secretary of State from January 2009through January 2011was complicit in these efforts to jury rig the Colorado voter registration system. He took measures to satisfy the demands of Project Vote related to the registration of public assistance recipients. Buescher sought a waiver from the Obama administration that would have allowed a delay in sending out ballots in time for military personnel to vote in the last election. The Department of Defense rejected the request. Apparently Colorado’s concern for voting rights of its citizens did not extend to military personnel in the state.

This blog post was excerpted from “The Judicial Watch Verdict” of October 2011.