InternetSalesTax_v2

Pointlessly Harming Online Businesses Isn’t “Fair”

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If you thought debates over Benghazi and immigration were contentious, just wait until you see Congressmen Derek Kilmer (D-WA) and Steve Daines (R-MT) duke it out on the hotly debated Internet sales tax.

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Money

Raising Your Taxes is Easier Than Checking the Weather!

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Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) claimed that taxing consumers for online purchases is as easy as finding out the weather.  He made those comments in a defense of the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which Heritage Action opposes.  He states that an internet company can find out the tax for any jurisdiction as easily as they could find out the weather just by knowing someone’s zip code.

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guns

Untangling the Spin: Polling on Background Checks Highly Misleading

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Throughout the ongoing gun control debate, polls citing overwhelming support for expanded background checks have been the norm.  Today’s ABC News/Washington Post poll was no different:

With a vote on gun control measures pending, 86 percent support extending background checks to gun sales at gun shows and online.  … Notably, though, even among gun owners and those who think guns make a home safer, 86 and 82 percent, respectively, support expanded background checks.

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it?

President Obama sure thinks so.  Last week, he urged Americans to “find out where your member of Congress stands on this.  If they’re not part of the 90 percent of Americans who agree on background checks, then ask them, why not?”

The real question is what do YOU mean by “background checks” Mr. President?

Are 90 percent of Americans really in favor of requiring a background check to borrow a friend’s hunting rifle?  In the original Reid bill (which was the pending bill when Pres. Obama issued his call to action), borrowing a friend’s hunting rifle without a background check would be a felony.

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Obama

If President Obama Were King

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In response to a question regarding President Obama’s forthcoming budget and the possible implications of using a chained-CPI for Social Security benefits, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, ”This is not the president’s idealized budget.  It is not what he would do if he were king or if only people who supported his proposals were in Congress.”

Essentially, Carney blamed the constitutional limitations on Mr. Obama’s presidential powers for the fact that the President has proposed some very modest Social Security reforms in the budget he’ll introduce on Wednesday.

President Obama, arguably one of the most liberal presidents the United States has seen, is under attack from liberal groups who oppose the chained-CPI.   Chained-CPI is a means of calculating inflation more accurately – about 0.2 or 0.3 percentage points more slowly — than the standard CPI to make cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security Benefits. 

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Capitol Building

But Where Have All the Jobs Gone?!

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Before you rush to celebrate last month’s unemployment rate that ticked down to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent, consider what has happened to labor force participation.  The labor force participation rate fell to 63.3 percent, its lowest level since 1979.  In fact, Austan Goolsbee, former chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, called the March jobs report a “punch to the gut.”

Of course, the White House is singing the same old tune: it’s the sequester’s fault!  But Heritage Foundation experts predicted this reaction last month when they explained:

Looking ahead, policymakers need not fear slower job growth due to the recent sequestration, which will force the federal government to cut $85 billion in budget authority this year. That will slow the growth of 2013 spending by only about $42 billion.

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The federal cuts from sequestration, which will be enacted gradually over the next two years, should not negatively impact private-sector job growth. Economists Alberto Alesina, Carlo Favero, and Francesco Giavazzi have found that spending-based corrections are followed by little decline in gross domestic product (GDP), with recovery following within a year.

The Obama administration wants to replace the sequester with a so-called balanced approach; however, their idea of balanced is more taxes and ultimately more spending.  Increased taxes – like the higher payroll taxes imposed upon us by the fiscal cliff deal – will not contribute to economic improvement. 

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