Saturday, October 8, 2011

New health care regulations seemed destined to force many off of private health insurance

Almost everyone would like a Porsche or a Volvo, but the question is are we willing to pay the price. For the vast majority, the answer is obviously "no." No matter how much it would nice to own such a car, the cost simply outweighs the benefit. Not everyone wants to buy even a mid level car. Sure it would be nice for many people to own a somewhat nicer car, but the costs aren't worth it either. Notice this news article at Fox News reporting:

The advisers recommended that the package be built on mid-tier health plans currently offered by small employers, expanded to include certain services such as mental health, and squeezed into a real-world budget. . . .

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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

New Fox News piece: Obama Gets the Numbers Wrong In His Tax Plan!



My newest piece at Fox News starts this way:

The justification for President Obama's new proposed tax on the wealthy is wrong on the numbers. Despite the president's claims, millionaires don't pay lower tax rates than middle class workers. His proposed surcharge on capital gains and dividend taxes will raise already high tax rates on high income individuals and force even more investment outside the United States. The so-called "Buffett rule" is based on Warren Buffett's claim:
"The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

It is true that the 15 percent capital gains and dividend tax rates are lower than the marginal income tax rate paid by a lot of workers. Of course, this ignores that because of deductions the average tax rate for the middle class is much lower than the marginal rate. . . .


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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Newest Fox News piece: Liberals and the Texas Unemployment Miracle

If this is the best that the Democrats can do to attack Rick Perry's Texas, the election might already be over. Democrats feel that they have to attack Texas because they don't have any way to defend Obama's policies. This is how my newest Fox News piece starts:

With Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry officially entering the presidential race last week, liberals have started attacking Texas' economic record.
Paul Krugman in the New York Times went first last Sunday. "So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment," Krugman claimed.
With the latest Gallup poll showing that just 26 percent of Americans approve of President Obama's performance on the economy, liberals have little choice but to try to distort what is happening in Texas.
"In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. . . ."

The Texas unemployment rate is about one percentage point lower than the national average, and it is true that other states such as New York and Massachusetts also have very similar rates (see the diagram here). . . . .


Please leave comments and link to this piece. Thank you.

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