Date: April 13, 2012

Wall Street Journal

Over the past decade, states without an income levy have seen much higher growth than the national average.  Which state will be next to abolish theirs?

Barack Obama is asking Americans to gamble that the U.S. economy can be taxed into prosperity. That’s the message of his campaign for the Buffett Rule, which raises income-tax rates on millionaires to a minimum of 30%, and for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. He wants to raise the highest income tax rate by 20%, double the rate on capital gains, add a new 3.8% tax on all capital earnings, and nearly triple the dividend tax rate.

All this will enhance “economic efficiency,” insists a White House economic report. As for those who disagree, says President Obama, they’re …

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by Ralph Benko

“Don’t confuse me with the facts. I’ve got a closed mind.” These words were famously uttered by Rep. Earl Landgrebe (R-IN), a Nixon partisan to the bitter end, at the Watergate hearings. They are all that remain of that legislator’s political legacy. And yet, they reveal a truth. Michael Kinsley defines a gaffe as when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.  A statue should be raised in Rep. Landgrebe’s memory for daring to state explicitly one of the governing principles of modern American government: “Don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Obama has taken the position that tax increases — apparently including a whopping half trillion dollar tax increase scheduled to hit on January 1, 2013, called “Taxmageddon” — are the way to go. He seems convinced that not only is this the responsible thing to do but it is the popular thing to propose. It brings to mind the story recorded in Jeff Birnbaum and Alan Murray’s “Showdown at Gucci Gulch” (Random House, 1987, p. 35), of Walter Mondale at the Democratic convention. Upon nomination he delivered the line “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.” He then privately turned to Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski and said, “Look at’em, we’re going to tax their ass off.” Mondale, famously, went on to lose 49 out of 50 states in a landslide of historic proportions.

Either high tax rates are bad for people — economically or socially (or both) — or they are not. One of the hallmarks of Washington is the degree to which it is guided by dogma rather than evidence, including the left’s dogma that high taxes are good. But “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” (John Adams, 1770.)

Therefore, it is extraordinarily refreshing when a group of public intellectuals issue a high profile analysis of what’s going on in the real world rather than relying on the doctrinaire polemics that have become the staple of American politics. Each year, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a network of almost 2,000 (about one-third of all) state legislators, issues a rigorous analysis of the impact of 15 different economic policies on the 50 States: Rich States, Poor States. This important report can be downloaded for free, or purchased, here. It is co-authored by iconic economist Arthur B. Laffer, by Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore, and by ALEC’s director of the Center for State Fiscal Reform, and Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, Jonathan Williams.

ALEC is one of the most influential and respected civic institutes in the United States and one with which this columnist is professionally associated in working, with American Principles in Action, toward equitable public employee pension plan reform. ALEC stands for “limited government, free markets, and federalism.” By virtue of these principles, it recently has become the target of a hard left vilification campaign led, at least in part, by Van Jones. Jones was Obama’s “Green Jobs” White House Czar. Jones issued a midnight resignation from his White House post when the media began to investigate whether he had, perhaps merely carelessly, lent his personal prestige to a 9/11 Denier group as well allegations of ties to a Marxist militant group, STORM, some years before.

Rich State Poor State’s essence is an empirical assessment of the economic policies of all 50 states, both currently and prospectively. It explores the correlation between high taxes (and other economic policies that are defiant of free markets) and the actual social and economic vibrancy of each of these states.

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From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120625/OPINION01/206250313#ixzz1z1Nd1bMq ]]> http://www.alec.org/taxes-dont-matter-the-return-of-junk-economics-3/feed/ 0 http://www.alec.org/taxes-dont-matter-the-return-of-junk-economics-2/ http://www.alec.org/taxes-dont-matter-the-return-of-junk-economics-2/#comments Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:50:34 +0000 admin http://www.alec.org/?p=2326 By Jonathan Williams 

Just in time for election season, junk economics is making a 2012 comeback bid. Some well-funded groups on the extreme Left are pulling out all the stops to beat pro-taxpayer reforms in the states under the guise that taxes “don’t matter” in economic growth. Unfortunately, the numbers say otherwise. For decades, states with the most competitive, unregulated economic policies have grown while their big government counterparts have suffered.

By Jonathan Williams

Just in time for election season, junk economics is making a 2012 comeback bid. Some well-funded groups on the extreme Left are pulling out all the stops to beat pro-taxpayer reforms in the states under the guise that taxes “don’t matter” in economic growth. Unfortunately, the numbers say otherwise. For decades, states with the most competitive, unregulated economic policies have grown while their big government counterparts have suffered.

Contact: Kaitlyn Buss
Phone: 202-742-8526
Email: kbuss@alec.org

Statement by ALEC on the Coordinated Intimidation Campaign Against Its Members

(Washington, D.C.) April 11, 2012—Ron Scheberle, Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) issued the following statement today in response to the coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of the organization:

ALEC is an organization that supports pro-growth, pro-jobs policies and the vigorous exchange of ideas between the public and private sector to develop state based solutions. Today, we find ourselves the focus of a well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign.

Our members join ALEC because we connect state legislators with other state legislators and with job-creators in their states. They join because we support pro-business policies that promote innovation and spur local and national competitiveness. They’re ALEC members because they’re more interested in solutions than rhetoric.

For years, ALEC has partnered with legislators to research and develop better, more effective public policies – legislation that creates a more transparent, accountable government, policies that place a priority on free enterprise and consumer choice, and tax policies that are fair, simple and that spur the kind of competiveness that puts Americans back to work.

At a time when job creation, real solutions and improved dialogue among political leaders is needed most, ALEC’s mission has never been more important. This is why we are redoubling our commitment to these essential priorities.  We are not and will not be defined by ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the states.

Ron Scheberle
Executive Director, American Legislative Exchange Council

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 The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the nation’s largest nonpartisan individual membership association of state legislators, with over 2,000 state legislators across the nation and more than 100 alumni members in Congress. ALEC’s mission is to promote free markets, limited government, and federalism throughout the states.