Taxes & Spending

$5.2 Trillion Of Government Pension Debt Threatens To Overwhelm State Budgets, Taxpayers

Pension Tracker, a project of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research led by former California State Assemblyman Joe Nation, Ph.D., is out with its updated assessment of the nation’s unfunded state and local government pension fund liabilities. It’s not a pretty picture—especially if you live in Alaska, California, Connecticut or Illinois where your per...

May 31, 2019

Taxes & Spending

Low-Tax States Are Adding Jobs 80% Faster Than High-Tax States Due To Trump’s Tax Cut & SALT Cap

Job growth has been running 80% stronger in low-tax states than in high-tax states since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 in December 2017. Understanding why holds important lessons for policy, economics, and politics. The new tax law scaled back the federal subsidy for high state and local taxes. Prior...

May 24, 2019

Economy

California (Poverty And Taxes) And Texas (Jobs And Freedom): A Few Key Comparisons

One in every five Americans calls California or Texas home. Comparisons between the two most-populous states are useful because both states have diverse populations and economies, but vastly different politics. That, in turn, leads to divergent public policies in taxation and regulation—with very different outcomes. Demographically, California and Texas both feature minority-majority populations, with the...

May 21, 2019

Taxes & Spending

The Campaign For President Starts With $10 Trillion In Proposed Tax Hikes

Trying to stand out in a crowded field, Democratic candidates for president have so far proposed nine separate tax increase ideas totaling more than $10 trillion. We can break them down into three basic groups. First are tax hikes that hit banks or Wall Street—two interests without a lot of friends. The problem with these is...

May 14, 2019

Energy & Environment

Logic Doesn’t Care About Your Virtue-Signaling

TPPF’s Chuck DeVore addressed the Independent Power Producers of New York and spoke about the difference between logic and virtue-signaling. Logic, he said, is about the facts. Virtue-signaling isn’t. Take Georgetown, Texas—the Austin suburb that has pledged to use 100 percent renewable electricity. Its promise achieves all the right political goals, but when the facts...

May 10, 2019

Energy & Environment

Garcetti’s Green New Deal will make L.A. less affordable and backfire on pollution goals

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal — an update to the “Sustainable City Plan” released in April — sets out three broad goal categories: increase the quality of life; reduce pollution that harms people; and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. L.A.’s quality of life challenges are nothing new to any person familiar with the...

May 7, 2019

Energy & Environment

New York’s Natural Gas Pipeline Ban: Unconstitutional, Bad For The Environment, Economy & Consumers

When the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1787, foremost among their concerns was addressing the growing tendency among states to tax or inhibit their neighbors’ commercial trade. New York was an especially nettlesome practitioner of economic warfare on adjacent states, placing import duties on New Jersey cabbage and Connecticut firewood...

May 6, 2019

Economy

263,000 New Jobs Added in April, More Than Expected, Wages Up 3.2% From A Year Ago

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its April employment report this morning, showing continued robust growth in the job market with 263,000 jobs added in April. The official unemployment rate is now 3.6%, the lowest it has been since 1969. Notably, wages were up 3.2% from a year ago. With inflation remaining tame, real buying power...

May 3, 2019

Economy

Make America’s Economy Great Again: Q1 GDP Up 3.2%

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Analysts expected a far slower growth rate of 2.3%. President Trump has consistently said that his pro-growth policies—tax cuts and regulatory reform—would shift the economy into higher growth than was experienced under his predecessor, President Obama. The economy...

April 26, 2019

Energy & Environment

Biomass Follies — Austin, Texas Is The Latest City To Find It Isn’t Easy Being Green

Last week, Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin, Texas, announced that city taxpayers would be paying $460 million for a biomass power plant they’d previously paid $128 million to help build on top of a yearly payment of $54 million for six years—that generated electricity for all of two months. The Nacogdoches Generating Facility in East Texas...

April 24, 2019

Taxes & Spending

Taxes And Psychology: Americans Got A Tax Cut, Even If They Don’t Believe It

Polls show that the majority of Americans don’t think their taxes were cut with the landmark tax cut and reform bill signed into law by President Donald Trump in December 2017. But just in time for tax day, the New York Times published a well-written and counter-intuitive analysis by two of their economics reporters, Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley....

April 15, 2019

Taxes & Spending

California Dems want tax cut on weed – but hikes on everything from guns to water

The 2018 mid-term elections delivered California Democrats a firm supermajority in both legislative houses after years of steady, incremental gains. Now, as the 2019 legislative session begins there in earnest, it’s clear that the ascendant progressives who control both chambers are intent on increasing taxes. There’s a Democratic drive to hike taxes of every imaginable type – attorneys, car...

April 11, 2019