President Obama’s Growth-Choking Animus Toward Success — Lawrence Hunter, Forbes.com

President Obama routinely blames the Bush tax cuts for our current economic woes, which he implies have starved the Federal government of the revenue it needs to create jobs and an “economy that is built to last.”  Among his proposals is to impose a new, 30% minimum tax on “millionaires.”

But, as Lawrence Hunter points out :  ”If every taxpayer earning more than $1 million was put under Obama’s 30-percent minimum tax rule, it would generate a maximum of only about $39 billion new revenues a year on a purely static basis, which requires assuming unrealistically that they all take no action to mitigate their increased tax liability.  This is chump change for the federal government (3 percent of the annual deficit) and a clear indication that Mr. Obama’s proposal to increase the progressivity of the already highly progressive federal income tax (See Chart 2) is motivated more by animus toward those at the top of the economic ladder than by the deficit, concern for the economy, or compassion for those at the bottom trying to get a leg up the ladder.”

The call for higher tax rates on those with financial resources is also about increasing the power of the Federal Government over the private sector by starving it of risk capital and money for philanthropic activities.

Categories:     Tags: Bush Tax Cuts, Income Inequality, Lawrence Hunter, Power Motive, Tax policy

The Paradox of Rights ‘Granted’ Us by Government — Lawrence Hunter, Forbes.com

Americans have been taught to think of the U.S. Constitution as a rule, actually a set of rules—the fundamental rule-set for organizing and regulating the national government of the United States of America and protecting certain individual rights delineated in the Constitution from undue encroachment by government. That understanding is upside down and backwards.

The Constitution is not the rule; it is the exception (set of exceptions) that proves the fundamental, unwritten, general rule, to wit: “Anything not proscribed is permitted.” This unwritten rule of natural rights—derived from natural-law theory dating back to Plato, elaborated during the 17th century by John Locke and expounded upon by the Founding Fathers—predates the Constitution, and it is the only legitimate framework in which the Constitution can properly be understood, interpreted and implemented.

Categories:     Tags: Bill of Rights, Constitution, Lawrence Hunter, Liberty, Ninth Amendmenet, ObamaCare, Supreme Court, Tenth Amendment

E-Verify:  Another Federal Assault on Freedom — Lawrence Hunter, Forbes.com

Categories:     Tags: E-Verify, Immigration, Lawrence Hunter