Saturday, September 13, 2014

Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Sept. 13 & 14, 2014


Let's get to it...

 (The actual Newsbites can be found within the Comments section of this post!)


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12 comments:

William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/james-foleys-family-say-us-official-threatened-them-with-charge-of-supporting-terrorism-if-they-paid-ransom-30583790.html

* SEE, FOLKS... THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO READ THE FOREIGN PRESS!

* HAT TIP - MICHELLE ZORNES

The family of murdered American journalist James Foley say they were threatened by a U.S. official who warned that family members could be charged with supporting terrorism if they paid a ransom to his Islamist captors, ABC News reported today.

* ABC, HUH? OK... GOOD FOR ABC!

* AND THE NAME OF THIS "U.S. OFFICIAL?"

ABC News quoted Foley's mother and brother as saying a military officer working for President Barack Obama's National Security Council had told them several times that they could face criminal charges if they paid a ransom.

* HMM... THAT ACTUALLY SOUNDS... er... REASONABLE...

The White House refused to discuss conversations that the family had with officials, but said they involved people from different government branches, including the White House, the FBI, the intelligence agencies and the Defense Department.

OK...

"I'm not going to get into who said what in the context of these individual conversations," spokesman Josh Earnest said, but he reaffirmed the U.S. policy not to pay ransoms because it can encourage further abductions.

* BUT... BUT... BUT... DIDN'T OBAMA TRADE FIVE TERRORISTS FOR ONE AMERICAN DESERTER...??? (DID I IMAGINE THAT...???)

* SO... JOSH... MR. EARNEST... WHEN SHOULD WE EXPECT CRIMINAL CHARGES TO BE FILED AGAINST PRESIDENT OBAMA?

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 13, 2014 at 10:19 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Foley's mother Diane told ABC News they were told several times of the possibility of charges if a ransom were paid. "We took it as a threat and it was appalling," she said. ABC did not identify the official she was referring to.

"Three times he intimidated us with that message. We were horrified he would say that. He just told us we would be prosecuted. We knew we had to save our son, we had to try," Diane Foley said in an ABC interview.

* WHILE I SYMPATHIZE WITH THE FAMILY, I'M WITH THE GOVERNMENT ON THIS ONE, ON THE GROUNDS THAT SINCE THE CRIME TOOK PLACE OVERSEAS IT FALLS UNDER THE HEADING OF "FOREIGN POLICY" - WHICH IS RIGHTLY UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S PERVIEW.

ABC quoted a spokeswoman for the National Security Council as saying that the Foley family was informed of U.S. laws banning terrorism financing but denying the family was told they could face charges if they made a ransom payment.

* AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENT...???

Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice...

* CASE IN POINT!

...while not discussing the family's charges directly, said she had gotten to know Diane Foley in the last 18 months as she pressed the government to help secure her son's release. "She's just relentless in a good way, in a way any mother who wanted to do her utmost would. And I admire her very much, all that she did. As a mother, I can only imagine her pain," Rice told a group of reporters.

Secretary of State John Kerry said he was "taken aback" by the report. "I am totally unaware and would not condone anybody that I know of within the State Department making such statements," he told reporters during a visit to Istanbul to discuss international action against Islamic State.

* AGAIN... FOLKS... DOES ANYONE TRUST A WORD THAT COMES OUT OF THIS MAN'S MOUTH?!

A video of the beheading of James Foley by an Islamic State militant was posted on the Web on Aug. 19. Two weeks later a similar video showed another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, being beheaded.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

The United States mounted an unsuccessful military mission to try to rescue Foley and other U.S. hostages held by the group in Syria this summer.

* THE CARTER YEARS ALL OVER AGAIN... ONLY COMPARED TO OBAMA - PRESIDENT CARTER WAS A PATRIOT! A MAN OF HONOR!

"We have found that terrorist organizations use hostage taking and ransoms as a critical source of financing for their organization and that paying ransoms only puts other Americans in a position where they're at even greater risk," Earnest said.

* AND THIS MAKES SENSE!

September 13, 2014 at 10:19 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/266t-tax-revenues-fy14-hit-record-through-august-gov-t-still-runs-589b

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $2,663,426,000,000 for the first 11 months of the fiscal year this August...

but the federal government still ran a $589,185,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... WHAT ELSE DO Y0U NEED TO KNOW?

* WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY - AND HE IS US.

* WASHINGTON IS WAGING WAR UPON THE NATION... UPON THE TAXPAYERS... UPON GENERATIONS AS YET UNBORN.

The largest share of the tax revenue so far this year has come from individual income taxes...

* NATURALLY...

* FOLKS... "BUSINESS TAXES" ARE A SCAM! IT'S JUST A WAY OF GETTING YOU TO TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE BALL!

In constant 2014 dollars, the $2,663,426,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through August in fiscal year 2014 was $134,705,540,000 more than the $2,528,720,460,000 it collected in October through August in fiscal year 2013.

The Treasury has been tracking this data since 1977, and at that time, the federal government collected $1,262,469,450,000 in inflation-adjusted revenue in the first 11 months of fiscal 1977. This means that since then, revenues have more than doubled, increasing by 111 percent.

* MORE... THAN... DOUBLED...!!! THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S DEMANDS UPON REGULAR CITIZENS HAVE MORE THAN DOUBLED SINCE 1977!

* AND AGAIN... HERE'S THE WORST OF IT... ADDING INSULT (AND MORE INJURY) TO INJURY:

Although the federal government brought in a record of approximately $2,663,426,000,000 in revenue in the first 11 months of fiscal 2014, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately $3,252,611,000,000, leaving a deficit of approximately $589,185,000,000.

* OVER HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS... ROUGHLY 1/6TH OF THE BUDGET FINANCED BY INTEREST-BEARING LOANS...

* FOLKS... AMERICAN IS NO LONGER A GREAT NATION. AMERICA IS HOPELESSLY IN DEBT AND IN STEEP DECLINE.

September 13, 2014 at 10:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/266t-tax-revenues-fy14-hit-record-through-august-gov-t-still-runs-589b

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $2,663,426,000,000 for the first 11 months of the fiscal year this August...

but the federal government still ran a $589,185,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... WHAT ELSE DO Y0U NEED TO KNOW?

* WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY - AND HE IS US.

* WASHINGTON IS WAGING WAR UPON THE NATION... UPON THE TAXPAYERS... UPON GENERATIONS AS YET UNBORN.

The largest share of the tax revenue so far this year has come from individual income taxes...

* NATURALLY...

* FOLKS... "BUSINESS TAXES" ARE A SCAM! IT'S JUST A WAY OF GETTING YOU TO TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE BALL!

In constant 2014 dollars, the $2,663,426,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through August in fiscal year 2014 was $134,705,540,000 more than the $2,528,720,460,000 it collected in October through August in fiscal year 2013.

The Treasury has been tracking this data since 1977, and at that time, the federal government collected $1,262,469,450,000 in inflation-adjusted revenue in the first 11 months of fiscal 1977. This means that since then, revenues have more than doubled, increasing by 111 percent.

* MORE... THAN... DOUBLED...!!! THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S DEMANDS UPON REGULAR CITIZENS HAVE MORE THAN DOUBLED SINCE 1977!

* AND AGAIN... HERE'S THE WORST OF IT... ADDING INSULT (AND MORE INJURY) TO INJURY:

Although the federal government brought in a record of approximately $2,663,426,000,000 in revenue in the first 11 months of fiscal 2014, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately $3,252,611,000,000, leaving a deficit of approximately $589,185,000,000.

* OVER HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS... ROUGHLY 1/6TH OF THE BUDGET FINANCED BY INTEREST-BEARING LOANS...

* FOLKS... AMERICAN IS NO LONGER A GREAT NATION. AMERICA IS HOPELESSLY IN DEBT AND IN STEEP DECLINE.

September 13, 2014 at 10:30 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/09/12/justice-sotomayor-americans-should-be-alarmed-by-spread-of-drones/

Americans should be more concerned about their privacy being invaded by the spread of drones, Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an Oklahoma City audience on Thursday.

* AMEN!

Speaking before a group of faculty members and students at Oklahoma City University’s law school on Sept. 11, Justice Sotomayor said “frightening” changes in surveillance technology should encourage citizens to take a more active role in the privacy debate.

* THE SHEEPLE...? NAH... NOT A CHANCE...

(*SADLY SHAKING MY HEAD*)

She said she’s particularly troubled by the potential for commercial and government drones to compromise personal privacy. Said Justice Sotomayor:

"There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don’t like the fact that someone I don’t know…can pick up, if they’re a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property."

Technological advances make it possible for devices to “listen to your conversations from miles away and through your walls,” Justice Sotomayor said. “We are in that brave new world, and we are capable of being in that Orwellian world, too.”

Justice Sotomayor also talked about diversity on the high court bench, saying there was still room for improvement in areas beyond race, ethnicity and gender.

“We don’t have one criminal defense lawyer on our court,” she said, saying the high court also lacked justices with big law experience or who come from solo practices. “There’s something not good about that.”

* AGAIN... AMEN! (WHEN SHE'S RIGHT, SHE'S RIGHT!)

“The president should be paying attention to that broader diversity question,” she said, according to a report in the Oklahoman.

Justice Sotomayor, whose visit to the school coincided with 9/11 ceremonies, also spoke about lessons that Americans could draw from the 2001 terror attacks.

“I learned what being a united America was like,” the native New Yorker said, according to the Oklahoman. “I watched people see past their differences and find their commonality.”

(*NOD*)

September 13, 2014 at 10:43 AM
William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.steynonline.com/6560/coalition-of-the-unwilling

I was overseas when Obama gave his momentous Isis address, but figured I could pretty much guess how things would go.

Despite being the greatest orator of the last thousand years, he's a complete bust at selling anything but himself...

(*NODDING WHILE SMIRKING*)

When it comes to war, he suffers from an additional burden: before he can persuade anybody else, he first has to persuade himself. And he can't do it. So he gave the usual listless performance of a surly actor who resents the part he's been given.

* WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE STEYN IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT...?

It's not just the accumulation of equivocations and qualifications - the "Islamic State" is not Islamic, our war with them is not a "war," there'll be no boots on the ground except the exotic footwear of a vast unspecified coalition...

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

But [there's] something more basic: What he mainly communicates is that he doesn't mean it.

That's what the jihadist militias now in control of Tripoli understood about his "leading from behind."

That's what Putin grasped about Obama's "red line" in Syria.

And that's what any Isis member who took time out of his beheading schedule to watch the President on CNN International will have taken away from this week's speech.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 13, 2014 at 11:55 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

As for the "coalition", they seem to intuit that, with a leader leading from this far behind, you want to stand even further back. From the mellifluously named Jacaranda FM:

"Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighboring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday."

So much for the only NATO member to border Isis.

What of the other Atlantic allies? Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists on Friday that Germany will not take part in US-led air strikes against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria.

The United Kingdom's position is more, ah, nuanced. First, the Foreign Secretary: Asked about plans for an open-ended bombing campaign, Mr. Hammond said: 'Let me be clear – Britain will not be taking part in any air strikes in Syria. We have already had that discussion in our parliament last year and we won't be revisiting that position.'

On the other hand, the Queen's first minister: Hours after Mr Hammond's appearance in Germany, the Prime Minister's official spokesman insisted Mr Cameron was 'not ruling anything out.'

* BUNCH OF FRIGGIN' RETARDS...

What about American allies closer to the action?

"There is a disinclination to believe his promises," said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

(*SNORT*)

* WELL... THAT'S ONE WAY OF PUTTING IT...

"We have reached a low point of trust in this administration," he said. "We think in a time of crisis Mr. Obama will walk away from everyone if it means saving his own skin."

* YEP. PRETTY ACCURATE. (AND OBAMA AND HRC ARE TWO PEAS IN A POD WHEN IT COMES TO CHARACTER - OR RATHER... LACK THEREOF!)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 13, 2014 at 11:56 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Different countries are suspicious of the United States for different reasons, but all feel betrayed in some way by recent U.S. policies, said Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Doha Institute in Qatar.

* SHALL WE LOOK AT THE LIST? ISRAEL... EGYPT... MIDDLE-EASTERN CHRISTIANS... KURDS...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

They, too, take "the leader of the free world" at face value: If he can't sell it to himself, why should they buy it? The good news is that there is one nation state interested in signing on in a big way:

(*DRUM ROLL*)

"U.S. Opposes Iran Role in Coalition Against Islamic State"

(*SNORT*)

* FOLKS... YA CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP! AND TO EMPHASIZE THIS...

Barack Obama observed the anniversary of 9/11 by visiting something called Ka-BOOM!, a non-profit that helps build playgrounds for children.

Neither the President nor the First Lady nor anyone else in the 40-car motorcade appears to have thought it odd that, on the day the Twin Towers went Ka-BOOM!, America's Commander-in-Chief should be helping put children's toys in backpacks marked Ka-BOOM!

From Kabul to Madrid, Bali to London, a lot of backpacks have gone Ka-BOOM! over the past 13 years, but evidently the thought did not discombobulate those who manage what the President calls his "optics."

And so... a day in which Islamic imperialists killed thousands of Americans by flying planes into skyscrapers has somehow devolved into a day for raising awareness of the need for better play facilities for children.

(Did he also visit Habitat for Humanity and help hang a new window treatment? Did he plant a tree?)

* DID HE CHANGE HIS FB PROFILE PHOTO...???

(*SNORT*)

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

September 13, 2014 at 11:57 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/despite-obama-s-pledge-to-curb-it-nsa-mass-surveillance-wins-rubber-stamp-20140913

* THE HEADLINE: Despite Obama’s Pledge to Curb It, NSA Mass Surveillance Wins Rubber Stamp

* THE SUBHEADER: Mass surveillance just earned another 90-day blank check, nine months after President Obama promised to rein in the NSA’s spying powers.

In the face of congressional inaction, a federal court on Friday renewed an order allowing the government to collect phone records on virtually all calls within the United States.

* CONGRESSIONAL INACTION, HUH? WHAT ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION? OR DON'T COURTS REFER TO THAT DOCUMENT ANYMORE?

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved the Justice Department's request for another 90-day extension of the National Security Agency's controversial mass surveillance program, exposed publicly last summer by Edward Snowden and authorized under Section 215 of the post-9/11 Patriot Act.

* WHAT A FUCKING JOKE...

* HEY... HERE'S A JOKE FOR THE AGE OF OBAMA: WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU PUT MEMBERS OF THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SERVEILLANCE COURT IN THE SAME ROOM WITH ERIC HOLDER'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICALS? ANSWER: A CONSPIRACY TO SHRED THE CONSTITUTION! (FUNNY... HUH...?)

The extension marks the third of its kind since President Obama pledged in January to reform how the NSA spies on Americans during a major policy speech delivered amid withering scrutiny of the nation's intelligence-gathering practices. Obama outlined a series of immediate steps to reform government surveillance and boost transparency, but noted he would wait for Congress to deliver him a bill before ending the bulk collection of U.S. call data.

In July, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced the USA Freedom Act, which would effectively end the government's collection and storage of phone metadata and instead require phone companies to retain those records, which intelligence agencies could obtain only after earning court approval for their queries. The measure is a more ambitious proposal of a version of the bill that passed the House in May, and it has accrued support from tech companies, privacy groups, the administration, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

* AND...??? (LEAHY IS A DEMOCRAT. THE SENATE IS CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRATS. OBAMA CLAIMS HE SUPPORTS THESE REFORMS...)

The bill is unlikely to earn a vote in the Senate before the midterm elections, and it could be tabled until next year.

* FUNNY, THAT - HUH? ANYONE WANNA CONNECT THE DOTS ON THAT ONE?

(*SMIRK*)

September 14, 2014 at 10:42 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-yet-again-atlantic-city-is-in-need-of-a-comeback/2014/09/11/3798d77c-39df-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html

Atlantic City.

The get-rich-quick town is going broke.

Again.

On a recent breezy Saturday night, row after row of slot machines at the Trump Plaza sat eerily unused, their symmetrical, semi-synchronized blinking creating a sort of hall-of-mirrors effect. In a few days, almost immediately after Miss America contestants pack up their sashes and crowns, the casino will close.

The Revel, a $2.4 billion gleaming white elephant completed only after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) offered $261 million in tax credits, shuttered just two weeks earlier. Its 57 glittering, vacant stories cast a long shadow over the empty lots and broken-down brick homes just across South Metropolitan Avenue.

* SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT CHRISTIE, FOLKS? HE'S A RINO. AT BEST AN OLD-STYLE DEMOCRAT WHO BECAME A REPUBLICAN BECAUSE HE COULD BE A BIGGER FISH IN A SMALLER POND WITHIN THE NJ GOP.

All together, five of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos are expected to close this year. The onslaught of job losses, totaling at least 8,000, briefly turned one of the city’s celebrated convention centers into a makeshift unemployment office. With its biggest employers and taxpayers folding, and nearly a third of the city already below the poverty line, the city’s credit rating has been downgraded to junk bond status.

Yet, somehow — despite being the subject of one of Bruce Springsteen’s dourest songs, no small feat given that the Boss’s oeuvre includes an entire album about 9/11 — Atlantic City remains a font of optimism. Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact; but maybe everything that dies someday comes back: That essentially was the mantra of this town long before Springsteen crooned those lyrics in 1982. For more than a century, Atlantic City has died and reinvented itself again and again, experiencing a boom-blight-boom cycle like perhaps no other place in America.

In a way, Atlantic City is both a parable for, and parody of, the American spirit of ingenuity. Each time the city’s economy threatens to finally fall into the ocean for good, it hatches some new, crazy, long-shot, bet-it-all-on-black scheme for self-rejuvenation.

During Prohibition, the bet was moonshine, since the city’s political machine was one of the few in the country willing to ignore the 18th Amendment. Around the same time, the city birthed the Miss America pageant, a stunt initially created to extend the tourist season. The city then invested in its big, noisy convention business. For years, Atlantic City hosted the conferences of every major professional group — doctors, teachers, salesmen and even mafiosos — until, of course, other cities got into that lucrative game, too.

Then, in the desperation of the mid-1970s, Atlantic City convinced the state to legalize gambling, here and here only.

In an interview, Jos. F. Bradway Jr., who was mayor at the time, described other brash revitalization strategies the city considered. Offshore oil drilling, for example. Or luring the Concorde to Atlantic City, since New Yorkers were reportedly unhappy with the jet’s noise.

“We thought about trying to attract insurance companies, or some other major industries here,” Bradway said. “But we didn’t have the educational base or employment base to do it.” Even today, more than a quarter of the city’s population lacks a high school diploma.

* JERSEY, BABY... FEEL THE PRIDE...

(*SNORT*)

September 14, 2014 at 10:30 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/articles/were-number-32-1410729349

* THE HEADLINE:

We're Number 32!

Any day now the White House and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) will attempt to raise taxes on business, while making the U.S. tax code even more complex.

The Obama and Schumer plans to punish businesses for moving their legal domicile overseas will arrive even as a new international ranking shows that the U.S. tax burden on business is close to the worst in the industrialized world.

Way to go, Washington!

On Monday the Tax Foundation, which manages the widely followed State Business Tax Climate Index, will launch a new global benchmark, the International Tax Competitiveness Index. According to the foundation, the new index measures "the extent to which a country's tax system adheres to two important principles of tax policy: competitiveness and neutrality."

A competitive tax code is one that limits the taxation of businesses and investment. Since capital is mobile and businesses can choose where to invest, tax rates that are too high "drive investment elsewhere, leading to slower economic growth," as the Tax Foundation puts it.

By neutrality the foundation means "a tax code that seeks to raise the most revenue with the fewest economic distortions.

This means that it doesn't favor consumption over saving, as happens with capital gains and dividends taxes, estate taxes, and high progressive income taxes.

This also means no targeted tax breaks for businesses for specific business activities [such as] crony capitalism that rewards the likes of green energy with lower tax bills while imposing higher bills on other firms; political arbitrage that misallocates capital and reduces economic growth.

The index takes into account more than 40 tax policy variables. And the inaugural ranking puts the U.S. at 32nd out of 34 industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

* MOST OF AMERICA'S POLITICIANS SHOULD BE SHOT. IT'S REALLY THAT SIMPLE.

With the developed world's highest corporate tax rate at over 39% including state levies, plus a rare demand that money earned overseas should be taxed as if it were earned domestically, the U.S. is almost in a class by itself. It ranks just behind Spain and Italy, of all economic humiliations. America did beat Portugal and France, which is currently run by an avowed socialist.

(*HEADACHE*)

The Tax Foundation benchmark compares developed economies with large and expensive governments, but the U.S. would do even worse if it were measured against the world's roughly 190 countries. The accounting firm KPMG maintains a corporate tax table that includes more than 130 countries and only one has a higher overall corporate tax rate than the U.S.

* AND THAT ONE...

The United Arab Emirates' 55% rate is an exception, however, because it usually applies only to foreign oil companies.

(*SMIRK*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 14, 2014 at 10:45 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The new ranking is especially timely coming amid the campaign led by Messrs. Obama and Schumer to punish companies that move their legal domicile overseas to be able to reinvest future profits in the U.S. without paying the punitive American tax rate. If they succeed, the U.S. could fall to dead last on next year's ranking. Now there's a second-term legacy project for the President.

The new index also suggests taxation is a greater burden on business in the U.S. than in countries that American liberals have long praised as models of enlightened big government. Finland, Germany, Norway and Sweden, with their large social safety nets, all finish in the top 20 on the new ranking. The United Kingdom manages to fund socialized medicine while finishing 11 spots ahead of the U.S.

The new champion of tax competitiveness is Estonia, where liberals may be astonished to learn, people enjoy the rule of la... and even paved roads... despite reasonable tax rates.

Liberals argue that U.S. tax rates don't need to come down because they are already well below the level when Ronald Reagan came into office. But unlike the U.S., the world hasn't stood still. Reagan's tax-cutting example ignited a worldwide revolution that has seen waves of corporate tax-rate reductions. The U.S. last reduced the top marginal corporate income tax rate in 1986. But the Tax Foundation reports that other countries have reduced "the OECD average corporate tax rate from 47.5% in the early 1980s to around 25% today."

* DO... YOU... PEOPLE... UNDERSTAND...??? (IS THIS CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU?)

This is also a message to self-styled conservative "reformers" who lecture that today's economic challenges aren't the same as they were under Reagan but propose to do nothing about the destructive U.S. corporate tax code. They're missing what could be the single biggest tax boost to economic growth and worker incomes. Abundant economic research, by Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur among others, has shown that higher corporate taxes lead to lower wages.

Rather than erecting an iron tax curtain that keeps U.S. companies from escaping, the White House and Congress should enact reform that invites more businesses to stay or move to the U.S.

* AMEN!

September 14, 2014 at 10:45 PM

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