Taxes Are Not Too Low: It’s the Spending, Stupid

Tax Hikes Can’t Fix the Deficit

• Current Taxation: In 2010, the federal government collected roughly $2.2 trillion in total tax revenue. Income taxes accounted for $900 billion of collections, or about 40% of all tax receipts. The federal government spent around $3.5 trillion; the resulting deficit of $1.3 trillion was made possible by borrowing.
• Covering the Deficit: If Congress, rather than borrowing or cutting spending, raised income taxes by the $1.3 trillion necessary to pay for 2010 deficit spending, it would need to more than double income tax collections. In fact, income tax revenue would need to increase by 144% to cover the overspending.
• Government Spending Hidden from Taxpayers: The future tax burden created by this level of borrowing and spending is frightening. If Americans knew the level of income taxes they would have to pay in the not-too-distant future to cover current and future federal overspending, Tax Day would be even more alarming.

President Obama’s Tax Hike Plan

• Tax, Tax, Tax: Rather than seriously address out-of-control spending and entitlement reform, President Obama is once again proposing major tax increases to help pay for his reckless spending habits.
• Tax the Rich? If Obama convinced Congress to simply tax small business owners and investors who make $250,000 or more per year to pay off the deficit, their rates would have to rise to levels that are not even possible. The top two rates would need to rise to 132% and 142%, which is, of course, more than they earn.
• Killing Economic Growth: Moreover, it is impossible to get even close to 100% and still raise federal revenue because businesses, workers, and investors would simply stop producing, working, and investing as the government came close to confiscating almost every additional dollar they earn. Much of their economic activity would be driven underground.
• Spend More, Tax More: In his recently released budget, President Obama proposes to keep deficits at unsustainable levels throughout the 10-year window. Income tax rates would have to remain nearly 50% higher than current levels through 2021 across the board to close the gap without cutting spending.
• An Unsustainable Path: According to the Congressional Budget Office, if Congress enacts Obama’s 2012 budget, interest payments on accumulated deficits will total $931 billion in 2021 alone. That would account for 20% of all tax receipts. Combined with spending on other mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, 95% of all tax revenues would be spoken for before Congress can allocate funds to national defense or any other essential function of government.

Obama’s Tax Hikes Are Not the Answer

• Tax Hikes Won’t Fix the Spending Problem: Raising taxes in the face of a spending crisis will not solve the problem as entitlement and interest spending continues to balloon out of control. Tax rates would have to be perpetually raised to keep pace.
• Cut Spending: Congress and the President must cut spending, and they must do so soon—before interest expenses and entitlement spending take off.
• Stop Taxing Our Future: It is time for Congress and the President to stop the current trajectory of massive spending and borrowing and be honest with the American people about the hidden deficit taxes that they are asking them to pay in the future.

For more information, please visit: http://heritage.org

Too hot for the HuffPo

American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris emails:

Nearly two years ago, I was invited by The Huffington Post (HuffPo) to become a blogger on their site. I was honored. It is one of the most heavily trafficked news sites anywhere, and it reaches an influential audience. Since September 2009, I have published nearly 50 articles there, and look forward to publishing many more. This week, for the first time, I was told by HuffPo that an article submitted was "not for us." It's below. I ask you to read it and decide for yourself. Apropos, the same article was published on my Jerusalem Post blog earlier this week.

Harris's blockaded post is titled "The Hamas - Oops, Gaza - Flotilla." I'm pretty sure Power Line readers can handle Harris's post. Here it is:

We're on the verge of another "flotilla" to Gaza. Estimates of the number of ships and participants vary from day to day, tending downward, but the erstwhile organizers insist that the maritime operation will take place.

Their spokesmen have been hyperactive in drawing attention to the event. After all, without coverage, they'd be denied their oxygen. And the kind of coverage they seek - idealistic humanists and peace activists determined to aid the poor, beleaguered residents of Gaza versus stone-hearted oppressors in military uniforms determined to block them at all costs - would, needless to say, portray Israel in the worst possible light.

The International Solidarity Movement, Free Gaza Movement, U.S. Boat to Gaza, and kindred spirits want the world to believe there is a strip of land called Gaza that, left to its own devices, would create the Shangri-La of the Middle East.

All its residents want are peace, harmony, coexistence, and tranquility. Some spokesmen acknowledge that Gaza has a governing authority. A very few even mention its name, Hamas, but hasten to add that it was elected democratically, so end of story. The rest don't give it a name, as it might muddy the waters.

According to this narrative - a word particularly popular in Middle East discussions- the residents of Gaza face a neighboring oppressor, Israel, which, for diabolical reasons of its own, wants to inflict maximum harm on people whose only dream in life is to live and let live. For these spokesmen, the wealth of vocabulary in the Oxford English Dictionary fails to capture the true nature of Israel's venality.

Enter, then, the self-described, modern-day Freedom Riders. They're boarding flotilla ships, they suggest, to bring aid, relief, and attention to those trapped in Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1963.

George Orwell, where are you? You could have a field day with this story.

Actually, you anticipated it when you wrote about the Ministry of Truth in your classic book, 1984. What were the ruling party's slogans on the outside of the 1,000-foot-tall building housing the ministry? Weren't they "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength"? And didn't the ministry rewrite history at will to ensure it always served the party's interests?

The Gaza flotilla spokesmen are inverting the truth and rewriting history at will to serve their interests. And what are those interests? To prop up the Hamas regime in Gaza and delegitimize Israel.

While they are entitled to their own opinions, however misguided, they are not entitled to their own facts.

They cannot separate Hamas from the equation. Much as they might try, the central fact is that Hamas is key to understanding Gaza today.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Don't take my word for it. Check with the United States and European Union, both of which have designated Hamas as a terrorist entity.

Hamas preaches the elimination of Israel and a toxic brew of classical anti-Semitism. Again, don't believe me. Read the Hamas Charter.

While Hamas may have been elected to govern with the PA in 2006, the first and only national Palestinian elections, one election does not a democracy make. Hamas used the ballot box to gain a foothold, then employed anti-democratic means to impose its own suffocating vision on the land. Hamas violently ousted the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 and has ruled ever since. Because Hamas cannot reform, the much heralded "unity" agreement it signed with Fatah six weeks ago is headed for an uncertain future.

Hamas celebrates violence. It joyously speaks of jihad, martyrdom, conflict, and the ultimate destruction of Israel. It has matched its fiery rhetoric with a sustained effort to import weapons, courtesy of Iran, smugglers in the Sinai, and tunnels from the Egyptian side of the border. In recent years, literally thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired from Gaza at Israel. Why?

Israel has no claim on Gaza. To the contrary, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Soldiers and settlers alike were pulled out by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, giving local residents the first chance ever in their history to govern themselves.

Indeed, with Israel's encouragement, a number of Jewish donors purchased Israeli greenhouses in Gaza and left them behind to help jump-start the local economy. The first reaction was to ransack them, when they could have been sources of flowers and vegetables for the local economy.

Israel has an interest in a stable, peaceful, and prospering Gaza, not a gun-toting, missile-firing, jihad-preaching entity. After all, you can change a lot of things in life, but not neighbors. Israel and Gaza are destined to be neighbors for a long time to come.

The Quartet - the U.S., EU, Russia, and UN - set three conditions for engagement with Hamas. The group must forswear violence, recognize Israel's right to exist, and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. To date, none of those conditions have been met. Apologists for Gaza would have you believe otherwise, but Hamas's spokesmen always undercut them. When it serves their purposes, they might briefly curtail violence to regroup and rearm, but Hamas is adamant that it will never abandon its struggle against Israel.

So, let's be clear. The flotilla participants, whether they acknowledge it or not, are handmaidens of a terrorist regime. That regime, not Israel, is responsible for the conditions in Gaza, which may not be enviable, but are a far cry from the dire picture of starvation and stunted growth painted by the hyperbolic spokesmen.

Israel has only one concern, which is to ensure that Hamas, a declared enemy of Israel, does not get additional means to threaten its neighbor. That's it, pure and simple.

As has been said, if Hamas laid down its weapons, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its weapons, there would be no Israel.

The flotilla participants claim their mission is nothing more than humanitarian, but, in reality, it serves the interests of a regime that espouses terrorism, peddles anti-Semitism, and praises the memory of Osama Bin Laden.

To portray themselves as the new wave of Freedom Riders is to trample grotesquely on the legacy of America's civil rights struggle and rewrite history. Orwell's Ministry of Truth is back.

And the friends of Orwell's Ministry of Truth seem to be running the show over at the Huffington Post.

Supreme Court reinstates collective bargaining law

By Patrick Marley and Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel Updated: June 14, 2011 5:32 p.m.

Madison - Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers.

The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge.

The majority opinion was by Justices Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. The other three justices - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks - concurred in part and dissented in part.

The opinion voided all orders in the case from the lower court. It came just before 5 p.m., sparing Republicans who control the Legislature from taking up the contentious issue of collective bargaining again.

Legislative leaders had said they would have inserted the limits on collective bargaining into the state budget late Tuesday if the court hadn't acted by then. But the high court ruled just before that budget debate was to begin.

The Assembly is to take up the budget Tuesday night.

The court ruled that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi's ruling, which had held up implementation of the collective bargaining law, was void ab initio, or invalid from the outset.

In its decision, the state's high court concluded that "choices about what laws represent wise public policy for the state of Wisconsin are not within the constitutional purview of the courts."

The court concluded that Sumi exceeded her jurisdiction, "invaded" the Legislature's constitutional powers and erred in halting the publication and implementation of the collective bargaining law.

The court added that its role is limited to determining whether the Legislature employed a "constitutionally violative process in the enactment of the act. We conclude that the Legislature did not violate the Wisconsin Constitution by the process it used."

Tens of thousands of public workers and their supporters demonstrated at the Capitol in February and March. They are now ramping up efforts for more protests over the state budget, which makes deep cuts in state aid to schools and local governments.

Lawmakers' stance on collective bargaining triggered efforts to recall state senators. Recall elections are scheduled this summer for six Republicans and three Democrats.

The legal fight over Walker's plan will continue on other fronts. Two other lawsuits are already pending, and "numerous" others are expected, according to Madison attorney Lester Pines, who represented Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) in the case the Supreme Court decided Tuesday. The other cases challenge the law on other grounds, rather than on open meetings violations.

The justices issued their order just one week after hearing oral arguments that lasted more than 5 hours, making them the longest in memory if not state history, attorneys said.

Walker's fellow Republicans in the Legislature passed the measure in March and he signed it, but Sumi quickly blocked it and then later struck it down because she said a committee of lawmakers violated the open meetings law in adopting it.

Walker's administration then asked the Supreme Court to take over the case, and the court scheduled oral arguments for June 6 on whether to do that. Until Tuesday, the court had not officially said whether it would even accept the case.

In February, Walker proposed eliminating most collective bargaining for all public workers except police, firefighters and State Patrol troopers.

The day the Senate was to take up the bill, the Democrats prevented action on the bill by fleeing to Illinois. Under the state constitution, at least 20 senators had to be present to pass the measure because it included fiscal elements, and the Republicans hold just 19 seats.

After three weeks, Republicans - with less than two hours' notice - created a conference committee with lawmakers from both houses and stripped out the parts of the bill that were considered "fiscal" under the narrow state definition. The Legislature then passed it and Walker signed it.

Democratic Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne then filed a court complaint alleging the committee violated the open meetings law. He said the committee needed to give 24 hours' notice before meeting and had to allow more people into the room to see the meeting.

The room was packed with legislative aides, reporters and camera crews, but just 20 members of the general public were allowed into the meeting. Hundreds if not thousands of others attempted to get inside.

The state constitution requires the doors of the Legislature to remain open when it is in session, and that portion of the constitution is referenced in the state's open meetings law.

The open meetings law requires public entities to provide 24 hours' notice before meeting except in emergencies, when they can give two hours' notice. The meetings have to be accessible to the public and can be closed only for certain reasons, such as considering legal matters.

No one argued in court that the conference committee had good cause to meet with less than 24 hours' notice, and as it happened, the committee met with a little less than two hours' notice.

The open meetings law has an exception that allows the Legislature to write rules that exempt it from the meetings law. The two sides disagreed whether lawmakers have established a rule on when meetings must be noticed for joint committees.

During arguments, four of the justices signaled they were skeptical of Sumi's ability to halt the law. "I think frankly you've got to amend the constitution" to have the open meetings law apply to legislators, Roggensack said during arguments.

Sumi first blocked the law with a temporary restraining order, saying Ozanne was likely to succeed on his open meetings arguments. Walker's administration then filed a petition for what is known as a supervisory writ - a request that the high court take over the case.

Last month, while the Supreme Court was considering whether to take the case, Sumi entered her final order enjoining the implementation of the collective bargaining law.

In its ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said it took up the case because the lower court had "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature."

The Republican lawmakers are immune from civil process during the legislative session, and so far they have been unwilling to appeal decisions by Sumi because they would have to give up that immunity to do so.

Sumi determined she was able to rule on the case even though the Republican lawmakers never appeared in court. She said they would be allowed to mount a full defense once their immunity expires. Violating the open meetings law could cost them fines of up to $300 each.

The order comes just after Prosser narrowly won re-election April 5 after a campaign that prominently featured the collectively bargaining measure and claims that Prosser was an ally of Walker's. Prosser and his opponent, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, did not comment during the campaign on the merits of the case, but others portrayed Prosser as being in support of the law and Kloppenburg as being opposed to it.

Prosser served as Assembly speaker as a Republican, but he said during the campaign that he set aside his partisanship when he joined the court in 1998.