Who Pays Taxes. Hat Tip: Newsbusters

Who Pays What in Taxes?

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By Walter E. Williams | October 18, 2017 5:44 PM EDT

Politicians exploit public ignorance. Few areas of public ignorance provide as many opportunities for political demagoguery as taxation. Today some politicians argue that the rich must pay their fair share and label the proposed changes in tax law as tax cuts for the rich. Let's look at who pays what, with an eye toward attempting to answer this question: Are the rich paying their fair share?

According to the latest IRS data, the payment of income taxes is as follows. The top 1 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted annual gross income of $480,930 or higher, pay about 39 percent of federal income taxes. That means about 892,000 Americans are stuck with paying 39 percent of all federal taxes. The top 10 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income over $138,031, pay about 70.6 percent of federal income taxes. About 1.7 million Americans, less than 1 percent of our population, pay 70.6 percent of federal income taxes. Is that fair, or do you think they should pay more? By the way, earning $500,000 a year doesn't make one rich. It's not even yacht money.

But the fairness question goes further. The bottom 50 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income of $39,275 or less, pay 2.83 percent of federal income taxes. Thirty-seven million tax filers have no tax obligation at all. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 45.5 percent of households will not pay federal income tax this year. There's a severe political problem of so many Americans not having any skin in the game. These Americans become natural constituencies for big-spending politicians. After all, if you don't pay federal taxes, what do you care about big spending? Also, if you don't pay federal taxes, why should you be happy about a tax cut? What's in it for you? In fact, you might see tax cuts as threatening your handout programs.

Our nation has a 38.91 percent tax on corporate earnings, the fourth-highest in the world. The House of Representatives has proposed that it be cut to 20 percent; some members of Congress call for a 15 percent rate. The nation's political hustlers object, saying corporations should pay their fair share of taxes. The fact of the matter -- which even leftist economists understand, though they might not publicly admit it -- is corporations do not pay taxes. An important subject area in economics is called tax incidence. It holds that the entity upon whom a tax is levied does not necessarily bear its full burden. Some of it can be shifted to another party. If a tax is levied on a corporation, it will have one of four responses or some combination thereof. It will raise the price of its product, lower dividends, cut salaries or lay off workers. In each case, a flesh-and-blood person bears the tax burden. The important point is that corporations are legal fictions and as such do not pay taxes. Corporations are merely tax collectors for the government.

Politicians love to trick people by suggesting that they will impose taxes not on them but on some other entity instead. We can personalize the trick by talking about property taxes. Imagine that you are a homeowner and a politician tells you he is not going to tax you. Instead, he's going to tax your property and land. You would easily see the political chicanery. Land and property cannot and do not pay taxes. Again, only people pay taxes. The same principle applies to corporations.

There's another side to taxes that goes completely unappreciated. According to a 2013 study by the Virginia-based Mercatus Center, Americans spend up to $378 billion annually in tax-related accounting costs, and in 2011, Americans spent more than six billion hours complying with the tax code. Those hours are equivalent to the annual hours of a workforce of 3.4 million, or the number of people employed by four of the largest U.S. companies -- Wal-Mart, IBM, McDonald's and Target -- combined. Along with tax cuts, tax simplification should be on the agenda.

Buying a Vehicle

When buying a new or used vehicle, price, while an important point, it should not be the only thing considered.  The service must be considered.  When purchasing new vehicles under warranty the dealer’s service department is very important.  Even the best designed and built machines will fail, a modern car/truck has about 10,000 parts built by humans and subject to fail.  The reason for a warranty is not that the car will never break, but that they will.  In a used car/truck, consider your normal mechanic and/service center.  Do they have the knowledge, facilities or desire to work on your new to you vehicle?  Does the used unit have a favorable history of reliability?  If not, why are you buying it?

Once you settle on a vehicle, new or used, it needs to be at a reputable dealer or trusted individual.  Once it is located, it is important as this is the one you will spend years driving and maintaining, settle in and buy it.

An inspection by a qualified technician is always a good idea.  If you don’t have someone who you know and trust the selection of an inspector has a bit of chance to it.  A thorough inspection may cost upwards or $100.00, depending on location/labor rates.  This is NW Ohio. 

Your time and the salesman time has value.  It’s not a good thing to waste the dealer’s time by not being honest about if you even want their vehicle.  Most people have other things to do, rather than drive around looking at possible purchases.  Some folks seem to revel in jousting, verbally, with their sales representative, mostly its wasting everyone’s time.  Too much time is spent, never to be recovered, by looking past the great in pursuit of the perfect. 

A key to negotiating a price is not to fall in love with the unit.  It is nuts and bolts, has no feelings and there is bound to be others very similar to it available.  Convey this sentiment to the salesman/owner.  Do not be afraid to get up and walk away.  This is why it is always best to buy a car before you need one, and have time on your side.  One of the worst scenarios to be in is to have an accident, your car is a total loss and the insurance company is only paying rental fees for three more days.  Really not enough time to research and then find it’s replacement. 

Typical Democrat Slime

Florida Democrat Wilson no friend of veterans, vote record shows

By Lukas Mikelionis

Published October 19, 2017

FoxNews.com

The Florida Democrat who criticized President Donald Trump this week for being "insensitive" toward the widow of a U.S. soldier slain in Africa might be facing similar criticism herself.

It turns out that U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson has frequently voted against measures intended to help veterans and their families, according to VoteSmart.org, a vote-tracking site whose founding board members included former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

The measures that Wilson opposed included a bill that could have ensured that families of four soldiers slain in Afghanistan in 2013 received death and burial benefits.

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In fact, Wilson’s voting record on veterans issues may call into question the sincerity of her recent defense of U.S. service members and their families.

Despite Wilson's claim to be “committed to honoring our service members, not only with words but with deeds,” she has voted against most bills ensuring continued funding for veteran benefits, including payments to widows of fallen soldiers, the vote-tracking site shows.

She has also opposed measures designed to improve the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In March 2013, Wilson opposed the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act,” which prevented a government shutdown and provided funds for the U.S. military and the VA.

The bill, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by the Obama administration, provided funding to the military and the VA until the next government shutdown showdown.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., stands by her statement that President Donald Trump was "insensitive" toward the widow of a U.S. service member who was slain in Africa. Wilson is seen in Miami Gardens, Fla., Oct. 18, 2017.  (Associated Press)

Later in the year, Wilson again voted against a resolution aimed at ensuring benefits paid to the veterans and their families would not be affected by the government shutdown in October that year.

The motion was particularly important in the wake of reports that the families of four soldiers slain in Afghanistan in 2013 had been deprived of benefits due to the shutdown in Washington.

The families of slain soldiers were denied burial benefits and up to $100,000 to each family, among other benefits, the New York Times reported. Wilson voted against the resolution ensuring that the benefits reached the families.

Defense Department spokesman Carl Woog said the department did not have “the authority to pay death gratuities and other key benefits for the survivors of service members killed in action” due to the government shutdown.

The congresswoman also opposed numerous bills aimed at improving VA services provided the veterans and their families.

Wilson's office has not responded to a Fox News request for a comment.

The former elementary school principal, who first came to Congress in 2011, has been portrayed this week as a staunch defender of the military and military families after accusing the president of being “insensitive” toward Myeshia Johnson, widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four service members who were killed last week in the African nation of Niger.

According to Wilson, Trump told the grieving widow that her husband “knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens, it hurts anyway.” But Trump, in a response on Twitter, said Wilson had “totally fabricated what I said.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that Wilson’s attack on the president using the soldier’s widow was “appalling and disgusting.”

The congresswoman has stood by her account of the call.

Lukas Mikelionis is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @LukasMikelionis.

Loyal Opposition vs. Resistance

Back in the day, the party out of power was considered to be “loyal opposition” and could be patriotic and counted on to have the best interests of our country at heart.  Now, we have the Democrat Party, out of power considering itself as “resistance”.  The goal is winning the elections and gaining power as the ultimate end.  Seems the underlying use of this term suggests a similarity to the resistance of the partisans of the WW II.  They almost oppose things because the other party wants them, not on any principled argument.  Strong arm tactics abound in some of these “demonstrations” and any opposing views, or statements are not permitted.  Witness the University of Missouri.  Nothing to see here, move along.  Some of these activities appear to be financed by organizations that have motives other than those espoused by the Democrats.

Losing our Moral Compass, Hat Tip: Newsbusters

By Walter E. Williams | October 11, 2017 9:05 PM EDT

As George Orwell said, "some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." Many stupid ideas originate with academics on college campuses. If they remained there and didn't infect the rest of society, they might be a source of entertainment, much in the way a circus is. Let's look at a few stupid ideas peddled by intellectuals.

During the Cold War, academic leftists made a moral equivalency between communist totalitarianism and democracy. Worse is the fact that they exempted communist leaders from the type of harsh criticism directed toward Adolf Hitler, even though communist crimes against humanity made Hitler's slaughter of 11 million noncombatants appear almost amateurish. According to Professor R.J. Rummel's research in "Death by Government," from 1917 until its collapse, the Soviet Union murdered or caused the death of 61 million people, mostly its own citizens. From 1949 to 1976, Communist China's Mao Zedong regime was responsible for the death of as many as 78 million of its own citizens.

On college campuses, the same sort of equivalency is made between capitalism and communism, but if one looks at the real world, there's a stark difference. Just ask yourself: In which societies are the average citizen richer -- societies toward the capitalist end of the economic spectrum or those toward the communist end? In which societies do ordinary citizens have their human rights protected the most -- those toward the capitalist end or those toward the communist end? Finally, which societies do people around the world flee from -- capitalist or communist? And where do they flee to -- capitalist or communist societies?

More recent nonsense taught on college campuses, under the name of multiculturalism, is that one culture is as good as another. Identity worship, diversity, and multiculturalism are currency and cause for celebration at just about any college. If one is black, brown, yellow or white, the prevailing thought is that he should take pride and celebrate that fact even though he had nothing to do with it. The multiculturalist and diversity crowd seems to suggest that race or sex is an achievement. That's just plain nonsense. In my book, race or sex might be an achievement, worthy of considerable celebration, if a person were born a white male and through his effort and diligence became a black female.

Then there's white privilege. Colleges have courses and seminars on "whiteness." One college even has a course titled "Abolition of Whiteness." According to academic intellectuals, whites enjoy advantages that nonwhites do not. They earn higher income and reside in better housing, and their children go to better schools and achieve more. Based on those socio-economic statistics, Japanese-Americans have more white privilege than white people. And, on a personal note, my daughter has experienced more white privilege than probably 95 percent of white Americans. She's attended private schools, had ballet and music lessons, traveled the world, and lived in upper-income communities. Leftists should get rid of the concept of white privilege and just call it achievement.

Then there's the issue of campus rape and sexual assault. Before addressing that, let me ask you a question. Do I have a right to place my wallet on the roof of my car, go into my house, have lunch, take a nap and return to my car and find my wallet just where I placed it? I think I have every right to do so, but the real question is whether it would be a wise decision. Some college women get stoned, use foul language and dance suggestively. I think they have a right to behave that way and not be raped or sexually assaulted. But just as in the example of my placing my wallet on the roof of my car, I'd ask whether it is wise behavior.

Many of our problems, both at our institutions of higher learning and in the nation at large, stem from the fact that we've lost our moral compasses and there's not a lot of interest in reclaiming them. As a matter of fact, most people don't see our major problems as having anything to do with morality.

Renewable Energy Scam!

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.9 Oct 2017961

The greatest scam being perpetrated against taxpayers and consumers is renewable energy, according to a new analysis published by the Australian, greater even than Ponzi, Madoff and Enron.

While sinking enormous financial resources into propping up renewable energy prospectors, national governments are providing no perceptible benefits to their citizens, writes Judith Sloan, a renowned Australian economist who has served on the Australian government’s Productivity Commission.

“With very few exceptions, governments all over the world have fallen into the trap of paying renewable energy scammers on the basis that it is necessary, at least politically, to be seen to be doing something about climate change,” Sloan writes, before providing readers with an avalanche of economic data to back up her assertion.

In Australia, more than 2 billion taxpayer dollars a year are funneled to renewable energy handlers by virtue of the operation of the renewable energy target and the associated renewable energy certificates, Sloan observes.

At the same time, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency “shovels out hundreds of millions of dollars annually to subsidise renewable energy companies, many of which are overseas-owned,” she states, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation was given $10 billion in equity by the Gillard Labor government “to lend or grant money to renewable energy companies.”

Despite this enormous taxpayer “investment,” so-called renewable energy has yet to pay any dividends or to suggest it will be economically viable for the foreseeable future.

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Sloan’s grim analysis of the state of renewable energy as a financial sinkhole in Australia is mirrored by other countries such as the United States.

According to Forbes, on a total dollar basis, wind and solar together get more from the federal government than all other energy sources combined, despite the fact that neither is anywhere close to self-supporting. Wind has received the greatest amount of federal subsidies. Solar is second.

Based on production (subsidies per kWh of electricity produced), however, solar energy “has gotten over ten times the subsidies of all other forms of energy sources combined, including wind,” writes energy expert and planetary geologist Dr. James Conca.

During the Obama years from 2010 through 2013, federal renewable energy subsidies increased by 54 percent—from $8.6 billion to $13.2 billion—despite the fact that totalfederal energy subsidies declined by 23 percent during the same period, from $38 billion to $29 billion.

In absolute terms, between 2010 and 2013 solar energy alone saw a 500 percent increase in federal subsidies from $1.1 billion to $5.3 billion.

In this same period, subsidies for fossil fuels decreased by 15 percent. from $4.0 billion to $3.4 billion, and subsidies for nuclear energy fell by 12 percent, from $1.9 billion to $1.7 billion.

One of the more pernicious side-effects of the enormous government subsidies for renewable energy, Conca found, is that they actually increase the cost of energy. This cost, however, is transferred from the energy consumer to the taxpayer, “and so goes unnoticed by most Americans,” he stated.

While during the period between 2010 and 2014 nuclear energy cost about 4¢ and 5¢ per kWh to produce, solar energy cost between 80¢ and 100¢ per kWh, or 20 times as much to produce. This despite the fact that nuclear energy is “as renewable as wind” but doesn’t enjoy the same star status among environmental activists.

Returning to the case of Australia, Sloan argues that if one were to sum up all the taxpayer-funded subsidies, grants, concessional loans, guarantees and the like the aggregate amount “dwarfs any other government industry assistance aid.”

Something similar has happened in Germany, Sloan states, where Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to shut down all the country’s nuclear power plants, to be replaced with “renewable energy.” The target for 2030 is for 50 percent of the nation’s power to come from renewables.

The ill-fated Energie­wende, the country’s program for energy transition, has hit serious hurdles, Sloan notes, not least the extraordinary cost that now totals some €650 billion.

In an odd twist of fate, late last year the wind simply didn’t blow for several days and a thick fog surrounded many parts of Germany, and thus the output from renewables fell to just 4 percent of total demand. It was Poland, “with its black coal-fired electricity plants,” that came to rescue Germany from its self-induced energy crisis.

The best approach for the future, Sloan concludes, entails “acknowledging that enough is enough when it comes to subsidising renewable energy.”

The sector has been showered with favors with little to show for it, she observes, and it is high time “it stood on its own two feet without any preferential treatment or financial assistance.”

NFL and Free Speech

Here are some “fun” NFL facts

In 2012 the NFL had an issue with Tim Tebow kneeling for each game to pray, they also had an issue with Tebow wearing John 3:16as part of his blackout to avoid glare and made him take it off.

In 2013 the NFL fined Brandon Marshall for wearing green cleats to raise awareness for people with mental health disorders.

In 2014 Robert Griffin III (RG3) entered a post-game press conference wearing a shirt that said "Know Jesus Know Peace" but was forced to turn it inside out by an NFL uniform inspector before speaking at the podium.

In 2015 DeAngelo Williams was fined for wearing "Find the Cure" eye black for breast cancer awareness.

In 2015 William Gay was fined for wearing purple cleats to raise awareness for domestic violence. (not that the NFL has a domestic violence problem...)

In 2016 the NFL prevented the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a decal on their helmet in honor of 5 Dallas Police officers killed in the line of duty.

In 2016 the NFL threatened to fine players who wanted to wear cleats to commemorate the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

So tell me again how the NFL supports free speech and expression all of a sudden....

Blacks vs. Police, from NewsBusters

By Walter E. Williams | October 5, 2017 12:06 AM EDT

Let's throw out a few numbers so we can put in perspective the NFL players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. Many say they are protesting against police treatment of blacks and racial discrimination. We might ask just how much sense their protest makes.

According to The Washington Post, 737 people have been shot and killed by police this year in the United States. Of that number, there were 329 whites, 165 blacks, 112 Hispanics, 24 members of other races and 107 people whose race was unknown. In Illinois, home to one of our most dangerous cities -- Chicago -- 18 people have been shot and killed by police this year. In the city itself, police have shot and killed ten people and shot and wounded ten others. Somebody should ask the kneeling black NFL players why they are protesting this kind of killing in the Windy City and ignoring other sources of black death.
Here are the Chicago numbers for the ignored deaths. So far in 2017, there have been 533 murders and 2,880 shootings. On average, a person is shot every two hours and 17 minutes and murdered every 12 1/2 hours. In 2016, when Colin Kaepernick started taking a knee, Chicago witnessed 806 murders and 4,379 shootings. It turns out that most of the murder victims are black. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that Chicago has a 12.7 percent murder clearance rate. That means that when a black person is murdered, his perpetrator is found and charged with his murder less than 13 percent of the time.
Similar statistics regarding police killing blacks versus blacks killing blacks apply to many of our predominantly black urban centers, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, St. Louis and Oakland. Many Americans, including me, see the black NFL player protest of police brutality as pathetic, useless showboating. Seeing as these players have made no open protest against the thousands of blacks being murdered and maimed by blacks, they must view it as trivial in comparison with the police killings. Most of the police killings fit into the category of justified homicide.
NFL players are not by themselves. How much condemnation do black politicians, civil rights leaders, and liberal whites give to the wanton black homicides in our cities? When have you heard them condemning the very low clearance rate, whereby most black murderers get away with murder? Do you believe they would be just as silent if it were the Ku Klux Klan committing the murders?

What's to blame for this mayhem? If you ask an intellectual, a leftist or an academic in a sociology or psychology department, he will tell you that it is caused by poverty, discrimination and a lack of opportunities. But the black murder rate and other crime statistics in the 1940s and '50s were not nearly so high as they are now. I wonder whether your intellectual, leftist or academic would explain that we had less black poverty, less racial discrimination and far greater opportunities for blacks during earlier periods than we do today. He'd have to be an unrepentant idiot to make such an utterance.
So what can be done? Black people need to find new heroes. Right now, at least in terms of the support given, their heroes are criminals such as Baltimore's Freddie Gray, Ferguson's Michael Brown and Florida's Trayvon Martin. Black support tends to go toward the criminals in the community rather than to the overwhelming number of people in the community who are law-abiding. That needs to end. What also needs to end is the lack of respect for and cooperation with police officers. Some police are crooked, but black people are likelier to be victims of violent confrontations with police officers than whites simply because blacks commit more violent crimes than whites per capita.
For a race of people, these crime statistics are by no means flattering, but if something good is to be done about it, we cannot fall prey to the blame games that black politicians, black NFL players, civil rights leaders and white liberals want to play. If their vision is accepted, we can expect little improvement of the status quo.

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