INTERVIEW: Jesse Eisenberg on watching Woody Allen on set, on coming to Rome, on his favourite Italian dish, his favourite place in Rome and his future movie plans at the To Rome With Love World Premiere in Rome, Italy on April 13, 2012
Film Independent has announced that Woody Allen’s new film “To Rome, With Love” will open the L.A. Film Festival this year after premiering in Italy last week.
The film is made up of four adventures and misadventures and sees numerous A-list actors such as Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin, Judy Davis, Roberto Benigni, and Ellen Page, among others.
Ahead of the screening of the film during its premiere Friday, Allen expressed his positive outlook of the film’s setting, Italy, during a news conference.
“[Americans] have an enormously affectionate feeling about Italy,” he declared. They think of Italy as a country that is enormously warm … It’s a very strange place to live, a place that enjoys life and that stands for everything positive about life.”
Headquartered at downtown’s L.A. Live, the film festival will run from June 14-24. More than 200 feature films, shorts, and music videos will be presented from over 30 countries during the event.
Following Friday’s premiere of the film in the Eternal City, Italian critics voiced objections and deemed “To Rome, With Love” as being “superficial,” reported the Associated Press.
Despite its predicted success, Allen was forced to defend his new movie- calling it a tribute to old Italian films and not a means to foster old-fashioned Italian stereotypes. The acclaimed director responded to the critics by explaining his simple desire to entertain audiences with Rome as the film’s setting.
“When I come to a place to make a move, I give you my own impression of it,” said the legendary director. “The things that strike me as dramatic or comic, that would be fun to see. I have no great insights at all into Italian politics, Italian culture.”
The Letty Aronson and Stepehn Tenenbaum-produced film opens in U.S. theaters everywhere on June 22 via Sony Pictures Classics.
Earlier this year, Allen coveted an Academy Award for original screenplay with his hit film “Midnight in Paris.”
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/22/morning-bell-religious-liberty-under-attack/ | The controversy over the Obama Administration’s anti-conscience mandate and the fight for religious liberty only serves to highlight the inherent flaws in Obamacare. This conflict is a natural result of the centralization laid out under Obamacare and will only continue until the law is repealed in full.
___________________________
President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Congress recognizes more each day that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known widely as the Obamacare statute, interferes unconstitutionally with the liberty of Americans. From the Obamacare individual mandate to buy health insurance that awaits the action of the Supreme Court, to the Obamacare mandate that many religious hospitals, charities, and schools abandon the tenets of their faiths and include in their group health insurance for employees coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, Obamacare assaults the Constitution and American freedom.
Fortunately, Members of Congress and the American people are waking up to the need to repeal the Obamacare statute and move instead to market-based, patient-centered health care. Action in Congress this week to defend religious liberty continues to highlight the need to repeal the Obamacare statute.
The Obama Administration continues to trample on religious liberty by applying the Obamacare statute to mandate that many religious institutions’ group health insurance for employees cover abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization. The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Treasury, and Labor published on February 15, 2012 final regulations that compel many religious hospitals, charities, and schools to abandon the tenets of their faiths and comply with that mandate beginning April 16, 2012, or pay fines for maintaining their religious faiths. The final regulations did not include any changes to respect religious liberty that President Obama had led people to expect.
Although Secretary of HHS Sebelius has said that, for one year, she will simply not perform her duty to enforce the final regulations, her decision not to enforce the regulations temporarily as a matter of grace does not eliminate the mandate’s interference with religious liberty. Indeed, her pronouncements reflect a failure to understand that religious liberty in America is an unalienable right with which our Creator has endowed us and a right that our Constitution’s First Amendment protects. Our religious liberty does not arise from the discretion of the Federal Government to do Americans a “favor” and tolerate their religions. Because President Obama and his agents continue to attack the constitutionally-guaranteed right of these religious institutions to free exercise of religion, Members of Congress are stepping forward to protect the Constitution.
Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) has fought for religious liberty against the Obamacare assault. He plans to offer this week Senate Amendment No. 1520 to S. 1813, the highway authorization bill, to protect the right to religious liberty against the Obamacare mandate. The Blunt Amendment notes that, until the enactment of the Obamacare statute in 2010, “the Federal Government has not sought to impose specific coverage or care requirements that infringe on the rights of conscience . . . .” The Blunt Amendment would override the Obamacare mandate that religious institutions provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization when it is contrary to their faiths, allowing them to keep their faiths and provide health care coverage for their employees.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has announced his intention to keep the Senate from voting on the Blunt Amendment by making a motion to “table” — that is, to refuse to consider — the Blunt Amendment. Senator Reid said he considered the Blunt Amendment that protects religious liberty to be a “distracting proposal.” Senator Reid may treat legislation to protect religious liberty as a “distraction,” but hundreds of millions of Americans hold their right to free exercise of religion to be a precious freedom.
President Obama and Senator Reid can man the ramparts of Castle Obamacare against the people for only so long. The American people want their liberty and they shall have it. The Obamacare statute must go.
__________-
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on June 15, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have linked several of the letters I sent to him below with the email that I received. (May have been these listed below 84.5, 84.8, 85, 85.2, 85.3, or 85.4) However, I think it was probably this one below:
President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
I see a few problems with Obamacare. Although you promised that it would cover everyone, Obamacare will not give everyone coverage!!! Also there are religious values that Obamacare would trangress. For instance, you promised Ben Nelson and other prolife members of Congress that these healthcare plans would not cover abortion.
I also anticipate a drop in quality we will be seeing and it seems stupid to shove millions into an already bankrupt Medicaid system that will bankrupt Arkansas’ state government.
The real question is how efficient is the government versus the private market. Take your $50 lightbulb.
But even I’m shocked the federal government gave an affordability award for a light bulb that costs $50. I’m not making this up. Here’s a blurb from ABC News.
The U.S. government has awarded appliance-maker Philips $10 million for devising an “affordable” alternative to today’s standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. That standard bulb sells for around $1. The Philips alternative sells for $50. Of course, the award-winner is no ordinary bulb. It uses only one-sixth the energy of an incandescent. And it lasts 30,000 hours–about 30 times as long. In fact, if you don’t drop it, it may last 10 years or more. But only the U.S. Government (in this case, the Department of Energy) could view a $50 bulb as cheap.
Isn’t that wonderful? My tax dollars were used to reward a company that produced a light bulb I can’t afford.
Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
This week marks two years since of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and if the Obama administration has chosen to all but ignore the second anniversary of Obamacare, the rest of us should pause and reflect on just what a monumental failure of policy the health-care-reform law has been.
What’s more, it has been a failure on its own terms. After all, when health-care reform was passed, we were promised that it would do three things: 1) provide health-insurance coverage for all Americans; 2) reduce insurance costs for individuals, businesses, and government; and 3) increase the quality of health care and the value received for each dollar of health-care spending. At the same time, the president and the law’s supporters in Congress promised that the legislation would not increase the federal-budget deficit or unduly burden the economy. And it would do all these things while letting those of us who were happy with our current health insurance keep it unchanged. Two years in, we can see that none of these things is true.
Obamacare is a costly and dangerous failure.
For example, we now know that, contrary to claims made when the bill passed, the law will not come close to achieving universal coverage. In fact, as time goes by, it looks as if the bill will cover fewer and fewer people than advertised. According to a report from the Congressional Budget Office released last week, Obamacare will leave 27 million Americans uninsured by 2022. This represents an increase of 2–4 million uninsured over previous reports. Moreover, it should be noted that, of the 23 million Americans who will gain coverage under Obamacare, 17 million will not be covered by real insurance, but will simply be dumped into the Medicaid system, with all its problems of access and quality. Thus, only about 20 million Americans will receive actual insurance coverage under Obamacare. That’s certainly an improvement over the status quo, but it’s also a far cry from universal coverage — and not much bang for the buck, given Obamacare’s ever-rising cost.
At the same time, the legislation is a major failure when it comes to controlling costs. While we were once told that health-care reform would “bend the cost curve down,” we now know that Obamacare will actually increase U.S. health-care spending. This should come as no surprise: If you are going to provide more benefits to more people, it is going to cost you more money. The law contained few efforts to actually contain health-care costs, and the CBO now reports that many of the programs it did contain, such as disease management and care coordination, will not actually reduce costs. As the CBO noted, “in nearly every program involving disease management and care coordination, spending was either unchanged or increased relative to the spending that would have occurred in the absence of the program, when the fees paid to the participating organization were considered.”
This failure to control costs means that the law will add significantly to the already-crushing burden of government spending, taxes, and debt. According to the CBO, Obamacare will cost $1.76 trillion by 2022. To be fair, some media outlets misreported this new estimate as a doubling of the law’s originally estimated cost of $940 billion. In reality, most of the increased cost estimate is the result, not of increased programmatic costs, but of an extra two years of implementation. Still, many observers warned at the time that the original $940 million estimate was misleading because it included only six years of actual expenditures, with the ten-year budget window. The new estimate is, therefore, a more accurate measure of how expensive this law will be. Yet even this estimate covers only eight years of implementation. And it leaves out more than $115 billion in important implementation costs, as well as costs of the so-called doc fix. It also double-counts Social Security taxes and Medicare savings. Some studies suggest a better estimate of Obamacare’s real ten-year cost could run as high as $2.7–3 trillion. And this does not even include the over $4.3 trillion in costs shifted to businesses, individuals, and state governments.
All this spending means that we will pay much more in debt and taxes. But we will also pay more in insurance premiums. Once upon a time, the president promised us that health-care reform would lower our insurance premiums by $2,500 per year. That claim has long since been abandoned. Insurance premiums are continuing to rise at record rates. And, while there are many factors driving premiums up, Obamacare itself is one of them. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, insurance premiums had been rising at roughly 5 percent per year pre-Obamacare. That jumped to 9 percent last year. And roughly half that four-percentage-point increase can be directly attributed to Obamacare. Even Jonathan Gruber of MIT, one of the architects of both Obamacare and Romneycare, now admits that many individuals will end up paying more for insurance than they would have without the reform — even after taking into account government subsidies — and that those increases will be substantial. According to Gruber, “after the application of tax subsidies, 59 percent of the individual market will experience an average premium increase of 31 percent.”
Finally, if the past two years should have taught us anything, it is that we may not be able to keep our current insurance, even if we are happy with it. The CBO suggests that as many as 20 million workers could lose their employer-provided health insurance as a result of Obamacare. Instead, they will be dumped into government-run insurance exchanges. And, the recent dust-up over insurance coverage for contraceptives is a clear illustration of how the government will now be designing insurance plans for all of us. Regardless of how one feels about the contraceptive mandate itself, it is just the tip of the iceberg as government mandates tell employers what insurance they must provide, and tell us what insurance we must buy, even if that insurance is more expensive, contains benefits we don’t want, or violates our consciences.
Next week, Obamacare will slouch its way to the Supreme Court. How the justices decide will be based on questions of constitutional law. Their decision will set a crucial precedent in setting the boundaries between government power and individual rights. But regardless of whether the Court upholds Obamacare or strikes it down, in whole or in part, we should understand that, simply as a matter of health-care reform, Obamacare is a costly and dangerous failure.
____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Michael Cannon on Medicare and Healthcare
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June 15, 2012
Dear Everette:
Thank you for writing. I have heard from many Americans regarding our health care system and the Affordable Care Act, and I appreciate your perspective.
The Affordable Care Act gives hard-working, middle-class families the security they deserve with more control over their health care than ever before. Today, over 2 years after we passed this historic legislation, more young adults have insurance, more seniors are saving money on their prescription drugs, and more Americans can rest easy knowing they will not be dropped from their insurance plans if they get sick. This legislation forces insurance companies to play by the rules, offers increased consumer protection and choice, keeps our promises to seniors on Medicare, strengthens small businesses, and cuts the deficit to help secure a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.
The law has already made a difference for millions of Americans. Because of the Affordable Care Act, 2.5 million more young people up to age 26 now have health insurance because they can stay on their parents’ insurance policies. And 54 million additional Americans now receive recommended preventive services like wellness visits, cancer screenings, and other crucial care without co-pays or deductibles.
These reforms strengthen Medicare by not only preserving but also expanding benefits for Americans who depend on Medicare every day. In 2010 and 2011, over 5.1 million seniors and people with disabilities on Medicare saved over $3.2 billion on prescription drugs thanks to the law. These savings include a one-time $250 rebate check to eligible seniors who fell into the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “donut hole” in 2010. And more than 32 million seniors have already received one or more free preventive services, including the new Annual Wellness Visit. To learn about help available through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, visit www.CMS.gov.
The Affordable Care Act also ends some of the worst abuses of the health insurance industry, and it will continue to hold insurance companies accountable in the future. Insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to more than 17.6 million children with pre-existing conditions, including everything from asthma to high blood pressure to cancer. In 2014, insurance companies will be banned from denying coverage to anyone because of pre-existing conditions. To protect Americans now, the Affordable Care Act includes the temporary Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, which has helped more than 50,000 uninsured Americans with a pre-existing condition gain affordable coverage. Insurance companies can no longer place lifetime or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care patients receive—helping 105 million Americans who no longer have a lifetime dollar limit on their insurance policies.
Because of the new 80/20 rule, insurance companies must spend at least 80 percent of your premium dollars on your health care or improvements to care rather than excessive marketing costs or CEO bonuses. If they fail to do so, they are required to provide a rebate to their customers. And, for the first time ever, insurance companies must publicly justify rate increases of 10 percent or more.
To help America’s small businesses, who have long paid a higher price for health insurance—often 18 percent more than larger employers—the Affordable Care Act provides tax credits for small businesses to help pay for their employees’ health insurance. An estimated 2 million workers get their insurance from the 360,000 small employers that will receive the credit for 2011. In 2014, small business owners will get more relief with tax credits and affordable insurance choices in the new Affordable Insurance Exchanges in every state. For the first time, they will have a marketplace where they can see and compare their health plan options in one place, and insurers will have to actively compete for their business.
Thanks to the new health care law, American workers and families can feel more secure knowing that neither illness nor accident will endanger their pursuit of the American dream. To learn more about the content of this legislation and how it affects you, visit www.HealthCare.gov or www.WhiteHouse.gov/HealthReform. For more information on resources that may be available to you, please visit www.HealthFinder.gov/FindServices.
Randy Barnett Discusses ObamaCare at the Supreme Court Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 Cato Institute Senior Fellow and Georgetown University law professor Randy E. Barnett discusses the arguments to be presented to the Supreme Court beginning March 26. __________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 […]
Cato’s Michael F. Cannon Discusses ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 The individual mandate to purchase health insurance is the linchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is among the issues to be handled by the Supreme Court beginning March 26, 2012. Michael F. Cannon is the […]
Tim Sandefur Discusses ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 Tim Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation explains some of the implications of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. ___________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. It seems […]
Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog http://www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, […]
Tim Sandefur Discusses ObamaCare’s Medicaid Expansion Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 Tim Sandefur of the Pacific Legal Foundation explains some of the implications of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. _________________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. That is […]
Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 1) Uploaded by DeBunker7 on Feb 21, 2008 READ THIS FIRST: In decline of all civilizations we first see a war against the freedom of ideas. Discussion is limited or prohibited. Speakers at universities are shouted down. Corruption takes over city governments and towns as dishonesty and corruption expands. […]
Milton Friedman – Socialized Medicine at Mayo Clinic in 1978 President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a […]
Milton Friedman – Socialized Medicine at Mayo Clinic in 1978 President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a […]
Cato’s Michael F. Cannon Discusses ObamaCare’s Individual Mandate Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Mar 26, 2012 http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9074 The individual mandate to purchase health insurance is the linchpin of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It is among the issues to be handled by the Supreme Court beginning March 26, 2012. Michael F. Cannon is the […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on May 23, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Great post […]
__________ Milton Friedman – Socialized Medicine at Mayo Clinic in 1978 President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
Dear Senator Pryor, Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion). On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. It seems […]
1,000 Days Without A Budget Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jan 24, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org | Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has […]
Congressman Rick Crawford State of the Union Response 2012 Uploaded by RepRickCrawford on Jan 24, 2012 Rep. Rick Crawford responds to the State of the Union address January 24, 2012 __________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day […]
Sen Obama in 2006 Against Raising Debt Ceiling Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Jun 20, 2011 Rep. Stearns on the House Floor cites Sen. Obama’s opposition in 2006 to increasing the debt ceiling, 6-14-11 ________________________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Here is […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. It seems […]
In your earlier debate with Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary you answered the question concerning the drop in the capital tax by Bill Clinton and the resulting increase in revenues by saying that you would still would raise the capital gains tax on the 100,000 million Americans that owned stock because of the issue of fairness. That is counterproductive.
The corporate tax in the USA is almost double the world average and it should be reduced. In fact, Canada reduced theirs dramatically and still brought in about the same revenue. Take a look at this fine article below from the Cato Institute:
Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and the editor of Downsizing Government.org.
Added to cato.org on March 13, 2012
This article appeared in Daily Caller on March 13, 2012.
The President Obama and most members of Congress agree that the U.S. corporate tax rate should be cut. Thankfully, it is finally sinking in that having a 40 percent corporate tax rate when the world average is just 23 percent is suicide in a globalized economy.
The sticking point on slashing the corporate tax rate has been the fear that the federal government might lose revenues under such a reform. To prevent an expected revenue loss, policymakers have searched for tax loopholes to close in order to “pay for” a corporate rate cut. The problem is that members never find any loophole closings that they can agree on.
I’ve concluded that the effort to close corporate loopholes is a big waste of time. It is simply blocking desperately needed reforms to the tax rate. If I was drafting a corporate tax reform bill, I’d match a tax rate cut with federal spending cuts, but that idea hasn’t caught on either.
The good news is that a corporate tax rate cut without any changes to the tax base probably wouldn’t lose the government any money over the long term. Good evidence comes from Canada’s corporate tax cuts of the 1980s and 2000s.
The chart shows Canada’s federal corporate tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) and the federal corporate tax rate. The tax rate plunged from 38 percent in 1980 to just 15 percent by 2012. Amazingly, there has been no obvious drop in tax revenues over the period.
Canadian corporate tax revenues have fluctuated, but the changes are correlated with economic growth, not the tax rate. In the late 1980s, a tax rate cut was followed by three years of stable revenues. In the early 1990s, a plunge in revenues was caused by a recession, and then in the late 1990s revenues soared as the economy grew.
In 2000, Canadian policymakers enacted another round of corporate tax rate cuts, which were phased in gradually. Corporate tax revenues initially dipped, but then they rebounded strongly in the late 2000s.
The rate cuts enacted in 2000 were projected to cause substantial revenue losses to the Canadian government. That projection indicates that the reform didn’t have much in the way of legislated loophole closing. But the chart shows that the positive taxpayer response to the rate cut was apparently so large that the government did not lose much, if any, revenue at all.
In 2009, Canada was dragged into a recession by the elephant economy next door, and that knocked the wind out of corporate tax revenues. However, it is remarkable that even with a recession and a tax rate under 20 percent, tax revenues as a share of GDP have been roughly as high in recent years as they were during the 1980s, when there was a much higher rate. Jason Clemens of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute notes that Canadian corporate tax revenues have been correlated with corporate profits, not the tax rate.
If a corporate tax rate is high, there is a “Laffer effect” when the rate is cut, meaning that the tax base expands so much that the government doesn’t lose any money. Estimates from Jack Mintz and other tax experts show that cutting corporate tax rates when they are above about 25 percent won’t lose governments any revenues over the long run.
The overall Canadian rate this year is about 27 percent when the average provincial rate is included. By contrast, the average federal-state rate in the United States is 40 percent, which is roughly 15 points above the revenue-maximizing rate. That means that Congress can proceed with a corporate rate cut and everyone would win — taxpayers, the economy and even the government.
Corporate tax reform with loophole closing is a wild-goose chase. Congress never seems to agree on which loopholes to close, with the result that our economy continues to suffer under a super-high rate. If we matched Canada by cutting our federal corporate rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, it would generate a large increase in reported income as corporate investment boomed and tax avoidance fell. The tax base would automatically expand without Congress even legislating reductions to deductions, credits or other loopholes.
In 2012, Canada will collect about 1.9 percent of GDP in federal corporate income tax revenues with a 15 percent tax rate. The United States will collect about 1.6 percent of GDP with a 35 percent tax rate. Do we need any more evidence that our high corporate tax rate makes no sense?
____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Arkansas held a celebration on Dickson Street in Fayetteville to commemorate the start of the 100th year of the school’s Razorbacks mascot on July 21. Coaches, administrators and even a Hugo Bezdek impersonator, were on hand at the event. The Razorbacks debuted a historical maker near the old train station on Dickson Street, where Bezdek called the Arkansas Cardinals a “wild bunch of razorback hogs” after they defeated LSU 16-0 on Nov. 13, 1909.
I wondered why you were claiming that you were not increasing regulations as much as Bush did. However, the real truth coming out in this article below because the regulations you did create were more costly and caused more problems for businesses:
President Obama famously declared in this year’s State of the Union: “I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.” Heritage’s James Gattuso and Diane Katz have run the numbers. And Obama shouldn’t be bragging.
Obama’s comparison encompassed all regulations, including federal rules for such things as Medicare rates, migratory birds and fireworks safety. And on that point, he was telling the truth.
This week’s chart tests Obama’s claim by looking at the number of major regulations imposed by each administration. Major regulations, as defined by the government, are regulations that cost up to $100 million or more each year.
In his first three years of presidency, President George W. Bush imposed 28 major regulations at a cost of $8.1 billion. Obama imposed 106 major regulations at a cost of $46 billion.
“This is almost four times the number—and more than five times the cost—of the major regulations issued by George W. Bush during his first three years,” according to the report.
Gattuso and Katz’s report, Red Tape Rising, documents how the Obama administration has greatly increased government regulations.
A few notable findings from the report:
A majority of the major regulations came as a consequence of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, Obamacare and the EPA’s global warming crusade.
The report used information given by the agencies that have no incentive to report accurately, so the costs estimated are understated, giving agencies the benefit of the doubt.
More regulations are looming. Obamacare is imposing rules faster than the regulators can write them.
In order to help the economy and put a stop to regulations, Katz and Gattuso suggest three prongs of strong oversight: approval of new major regulations by Congress, a congressional Office of Regulatory Analysis, and sunset dates for existing regulations.
Katz spoke about the report at The Bloggers Briefing, which is available on Livestream and BlogTalkRadio.
__________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t create new employment.
Video produced by Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg.
___________________________
President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
I don’t understand why people think that big government is the answer for everything when what the federal government should do is get out of the way. Cutting taxes and regulations would help us get out of the recession!!
The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank has a very useful interactive website that allows anybody to compare recessions and recoveries during the post-World War II era. It takes only a couple of clicks to complete the exercise, and does not reflect well on the current occupant of the White House—as you can see at this link.
This does not mean that Obama caused the economic downturn. That was the result of policies that were implemented during the Bush years (though the current president was a big supporter of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subsidies that played such a big role in the financial crisis). Indeed, the recession officially began in December 2007, more than one year before Obama’s inauguration.
Taking money out of the economy’s productive sector and letting politicians engage in a spending spree is the opposite of prudent policy.
But we can hold the president at least partially responsible for an extraordinarily weak and slow recovery. It’s been nearly three years since the recession officially ended in June 2009, yet jobs are still well below their pre-recession levels. And overall economic output, or gross domestic product, has just now finally gotten back to where it was when the downturn began.
This is an anemic record. Especially since an economy normally enjoys a strong bounce when coming out of a deep recession.
Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy at the Cato Institute.
The problem is that Obama has tried all the wrong policies. He tried a big-spending Keynesian package that was supposed to be a “stimulus,” butthat’s the same failed approach that Bush tried in 2008, the same failed approach that Japan tried in the 1990s, and the same failed approach that Hoover and Roosevelt tried in the 1930s. Taking money out of the economy’s productive sector and letting politicians engage in a spending spree is the opposite of prudent policy.
The president also has continuously expanded subsidies for unemployment, even though academic scholars (and even left-wing economists) all agree that such policies cause more joblessness.
And now he’s demanding higher tax rates, holding a Sword of Damocles over entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners.
The nation recently endured eight years of a big-spending interventionist in the White House. The problem with Obama is that he promised hope and change, but he’s continuing the failed statist policies of his predecessor.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Penelope Cruz, Woody Allen “To Rome With Love” Premiere ARRIVALS LA Film Fest
Below is a picture from Woody Allen’s latest movie and then below are some Italian films that influenced him over the years. Woody Allen is my favorite director and he is even getting better.
<!–By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY
6/4/2012
After more than 40 films in just less than 50 years, director Woody Allen has turned to Italy as the location for his latest film, To Rome with Love, opening in the USA on June 22. Allen talks with USA TODAY’sSusan Wloszczyna about the movie, and he also discusses films by some of his favorite Italian directors.
By Andrew Medichini, AP
7/14/2011
Ever since he switched to European settings, Allen, seen here filming in Rome last year, has allowed the mood of each city to dictate the tone of the movie.
“There are such strong personalities to these cities,” he says. “Rome is chaotic, hilarious, joyfully alive and full of farce… In Italy, you don’t think back to the earlier eras so much. It really came into its own post-World War II, and that is when Italian filmmakers began to define their country for Americans. It is very energetic and lusty.”
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The Criterion Collection
For movie lovers who need to brush up on their Italian films, Allen suggests these five must-see titles. Bicycle Thieves (also known as The Bicycle Thief, 1948). In this neo-realist classic directed by Vittorio De Sica, a poor man and his young son search the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle that he needs for his job.
Allen’s observation: “It is as great a film as has been ever made, an out-and-out piece of artistic perfection.’’
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Shoeshine (1946). A rarely seen film, also directed by De Sica. A pair of shoeshine boys in Rome get into trouble when they try to save money to buy a horse.
Allen’s observation: “De Sica was a very simple filmmaker but a great storyteller, and these films are profoundly moving and beautifully told.”
Canadian corporate tax revenues have fluctuated, but the changes are correlated with economic growth, not the tax rate. In the late 1980s, a tax rate cut was followed by three years of stable revenues. In the early 1990s, a plunge in revenues was caused by a recession, and then in the late 1990s revenues soared as the economy grew.
The Daily Hatch 