Politics

If the federal tax cuts expire, we will have to work an extra week for the government.

The correct rate for the capital gains tax is zero, zip, nada. Perhaps it is even negative!

Without taxes, you could leave work at 2:25pm.

Investing isn’t about finding a four-leaf clover or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Australia’s five-year annualized return was 24.10% compared to 14.98% for the MSCI EAFE and 6.19% for the S&P 500.

Even though 77% of Americans disagree with 62% of economists, let me assure you the economists are right.

An increase in the minimum wage often means a decrease in the pre-tax benefits that employees value more.

More businesses migrate across state borders than national borders.

“A wise and frugal government shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” – Jefferson

Due to our progressive tax system, your taxes increase even if your buying power does not.

French labor laws have made doing business in France with French employees very unattractive.

Although the French gave us the word ‘entrepreneur,’ it’s a wonder the term isn’t obsolete in French.

While it’s hard to muster pity for diminished drug company profits, negligible earnings jeopardized production and supply.

Reunification of the country has put a drag on economic growth.

The value of salt in ancient time was enormous.

Hayek wrote, “More harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.”

Italy reminds us that governmental solutions can be worse than private sector problems.

Hard work can’t always overcome Italian bureaucracy.

“April is the month,” one wit noted, “when the green returns to the lawn, the trees and the Internal Revenue Service.”

Two hours and twenty minutes of every eight hour day go to pay taxes. Three minutes go toward personal savings.

On your way to becoming a billionaire, the million markers become commonplace.

The argument that workers might make mistakes is strange in light of the gross errors made by the government itself.

It is a tragic irony that the goals of collectivism are best achieved by respecting individual liberties.

The incentives that produce wealth also produce inequity. Valuing equality above all else destroys the real wealth they are trying to redistribute.

The wealth gap between blacks and whites widens each generation as a direct result of Social Security.

We are living too long and we don’t have as many children as we used to.

Our children and grandchildren deserve better!

The media is making the job more dangerous.

If Canada paid their fair share for pharmaceuticals prices would fall.

We guarantee you will agree it makes sense to entrust leadership to this last nominee.

The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away. This is true even when running a federal deficit.

In the corporate world, mismanagement can only be covered up so long. In time, those responsible are held accountable. Companies fold. Executives are taken away in handcuffs. Only in the federal government can poorly manage bad ideas and still plead they are underfunded.

Encourage the rich to be rich or else suffer the consequences of striving toward making us all equally destitute.

Voting for government entitlement programs is like being generous with your neighbor’s credit card.

Let the free market work its magic. Markets are brilliant in their ability to determine the optimal value and use of limited resources.

If a Democrat proposed a flat tax, they would take away the Republican’s major platform and be easily elected.

We would be wiser and stronger to take the advice of Thomas Jefferson, the second Governor of Virginia who said, “A wise and frugal Government, shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Many people wish to prevent the rich from earning more money, even if that results in smaller tax revenues and a less productive economy.

At least 40% of the federal gasoline taxes are wasted on non-highway items of dubious general welfare. And 2.86 cents of the revenue is used to subsidize mass transit unused by all but a few large cities.
As an additional inequity, Virginia is a donor state. That means that Virginia, like most southern states, sends the government more in gasoline taxes than it receives in federal pork. We don’t even get to waste our own money! Most of the pork is sent to the Northeast and to states with more influential senators.

If market forces drive up the price of gasoline, any efforts to reduce it aside from supply and demand punishes the exercise of economic freedom and personal responsibility. If you find the moral argument of freedom unconvincing, free markets can still win the pragmatic debate.

We act as if being a business owner is trivial enough to burden them with the responsibility of funding, implementing, and enforcing whatever social programs are in vogue. Then we exempt ourselves from taking the risk.

The amount of money involved in foreign aid is often large enough to politicize the economic life of a small country and lead to massive graft, corruption, and waste.

Here is a rule for building stable economic systems: Who pays for a service and who is empowered to decide if a service should be given and who actually benefits from the service should all be the same person.

We can have our benefits and lower taxes if we are willing to admit that socializing retirement benefits was a mistake and we return to trusting once again, the in power of free markets.

Despite your political persuasion, Governor Gray Davis shows how even the golden goose can be cooked. His mistakes rightly deserve the ridicule he has received.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

If you add the costs of complying with government regulations, the cost to society is over 50%. Imagine the economic boom if the other half of workers’ labor were set free to boost productivity!

The current distorted tax system has resulted in a steady decline of dividend payouts over the past two decades and was a major contributing factor in the stock market bubble of 1999 and recent three-year bust.

In the US we allow companies to go bankrupt when they cannot succeed in business.

I say, “Let the rich be rich!”