From our friends at Unleash Prosperity, another fantastic visual aid to rebut the predictable default…
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Image of the Day: Climate Change Causing Wildfires? No.

From our friends at Unleash Prosperity, another fantastic visual aid to rebut the predictable default rationalization that climate change, rather than incompetent leadership, underlies wildfires in California or elsewhere:

 

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="874"] Climate Change? No.[/caption]

 …[more]

January 17, 2025 • 07:50 AM

Liberty Update

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Taxes & Economy
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1 Personnel Is Policy: Hassett Brings Fiscal Responsibility to the White House

The fate of President Donald Trump's ambitious economic policy plans will be determined by the people he appoints to critical positions. With a debt of over $36 trillion (heading toward $59 trillion in 2035 by some estimates), inflation not resolved, an entitlement crisis looming and the need to extend the president's 2017 tax cuts, we'd better hope…

2 Renewing Trump Tax Cuts Crucial to America's Economic Strength

The Trump tax cuts are set to expire later this year, and that poses a real challenge for policymakers, businesses and taxpayers alike. Americans face a $4 trillion tax hike as key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunset. The stakes are too high to ignore, and it has to be done right. Failure to make most of the cuts permanent would be…

3 The Only Path Leading All the Way Out of Our Inflation Quagmire

The Federal Reserve's premature victory lap over inflation reveals a worrisome misunderstanding of the predicament we still find ourselves in. Unprecedented government spending and debt, combined with mounting fears that the debt can't (or won't) be repaid, played a misunderstood role in inflation's rise several years ago. As such, fiscal policy must…

4 Thinking Big as Trump, Congress Tackle Taxes

You can say what you want about Elon Musk, but he is able to pinpoint in a single tweet some of the most dysfunctional aspects of our federal government. For instance, he recently noted that "Simplifying the tax code will increase productivity, instead of incentivizing bizarre tax-avoidance behavior." He's correct. If President-elect Donald…

5 10 New Ideas to Make America's Economy Great Again in 2025

Here's my wish list for the incoming Trump administration to make America healthy and prosperous and great again in 2025. 1. Slash Job-Killing Regulations The regulatory state is a $2 trillion tax on the American economy. We all want worker safety, a clean environment and consumer protections, but in too many cases the costs of regulations far outweigh…

6 To Bring Joy to America: End the Weaponization of the IRS

One of the highest priorities for the incoming Trump administration should be to end the Democrats' weaponization of powerful government agencies against taxpayers and businesses they don't like. Nowhere has this mission been more pernicious than the party-line vote to fund the IRS with nearly $80 billion and hire tens of thousands of new tax snoops…

7 Bidenomics: An Ode to Central Planning and Cronyism

Bidenomics, with its obsolete preference for big-government central planning, certainly proved lucrative for its namesake Joe Biden’s cronies and political favorites.   For everyday Americans and our innovation economy, however, not so much.   To illustrate, following four years of Bidenomics the average American family…

8 IRS Data: Wealthier Americans Pay a Disproportionately High Income Tax Share

“The rich don’t pay their fair share in taxes.”   In the wake of Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter despite multiple pledges to the contrary, that slogan maintains the same validity as Biden’s frequent reference to “my word as a Biden.”  The primary distinction between them is that the public…

9 End the IRS's Worldwide Tax Grab

The new year will bring a new administration, and I'll be watching to see if President-elect Donald Trump's team finally puts an end to the worldwide taxation of individual Americans' income. Fixing this is imperative. It would not only be sound fiscal policy but could keep millions of law-abiding Americans living overseas from being treated like financial…

10 Kamala Harris Wants America to Have the World's Highest Death Tax

Here is something no one in the media is reporting as Vice President Kamala Harris continues to duck and weave like Muhammad Ali in the ring to avoid any questions about her economic plan. The American Business Defense Foundation reports that under the Harris tax plan, the number of Americans subject to the hated death tax would double or triple.…

11 The Biden-Harris Fiscal Record Is Anemic. What Happens Next?

No matter the result of next month's election, President Joe Biden will soon leave the White House. That makes it a good time for a nearly final assessment of his and Vice President Kamala Harris' first-term legacy on federal spending and debt – a tragedy of epic proportion. Unfortunately, neither Harris nor her rival on the campaign…

12 Welcome Elon Musk's Efficiency Commission (Just Don't Expect Congress To)

During his campaign, former President Donald Trump has proposed his share of bad policy ideas, such as a 20% tariff across the board. But tasking Elon Musk with heading a commission to make the government more efficient is one worth considering. In a speech to the Economic Club of New York, Trump said this commission will conduct "a complete financial…

13 Hey Kamala, Where Are Your Spending Cuts?

In 1982 the federal budget deficit rose above $100 billion for the first time (those were the good old days!), and then-President Ronald Reagan agreed to an infamous budget deal with then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Democrats would agree to $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Reagan foolishly agreed to the deal. The taxes went up. The…

14 Grapes of Wrath: Biden/Harris Punished the Joad Families Democrats Once Championed

In the history of American literature, no family personalized the hardscrabble struggles of everyday Americans more poignantly and prominently than the Joad family of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”   That novel and subsequent film classic captured the Great Depression plight of the Joads, who migrated westward…

15 Biden-Harris Have a Sixth Sense the Economy Is in Trouble – They're Probably Right

Democrats and the media are in a quandary to explain why Americans so underappreciate all that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have done for the economy. Or, should I say, TO the economy. They act as if these are the salad days for American families, with inflation falling and jobs aplenty. For now. So why are Americans so dour…

16 The Tariff Paradox: Americans Love Free Trade More Than They Realize

In the ongoing debate over America's trade policy, politicians and pundits often claim that the public supports tariffs and other protectionist measures, such as those given to us by the Trump and Biden administrations. A new Cato Institute poll, however, reveals a more complex picture: Americans might like the idea of tariffs and "Buy American…

17 Should Voters Feel Joy When Paying the Bills Is Harder Than Ever?

On Wednesday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release inflation figures for July. Whatever the numbers turn out to be, this will remain true: Prices are far higher than they were when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office.  Even as the rate of inflation has gone down from its peak in 2022, Americans have learned an unhappy lesson…

18 Don't Let Calm Seas in Uncharted Fiscal Waters Fool You

The United States is full steam ahead into uncharted fiscal waters, with rapidly growing federal debt promising a choppy economic future. Candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump have added trillions to the national debt during their recent presidential administrations, leaving America at a critical juncture that demands urgent, bipartisan action. If…

19 Deficit Soars Again Under Biden

Among his litany of other bizarre fictions, Joe Biden continues to insist that he’s some sort of deficit disciplinarian.   Biden’s deficit falsehoods, however, have become so untenable that even notoriously left-leaning pundits have started calling him out on it.   The issue was brought into new and bolder relief last…

20 The Obvious Hypocrisy of Biden’s “Strong Economy” Claim

Three years ago this month, unmistakable signs emerged that inflation was ascending out of control.   The Biden administration, however, imperiously dismissed growing concerns and even insisted that everything was heading in the “right direction.”   Consumer prices that month surged at a 5.4% annual rate, the highest…

21 Projections vs. Scenarios, and Why Politicians Should Care

Congressional Budget Office projections provide valuable insights into how a big chunk of your income is being spent and reveal the long-term consequences of our government's current fiscal policies – you may endure them, and your children most certainly will. Yet, like most other projections looking into our future, these numbers should…

22 5 Reasons to Make the Trump Tax Cut Permanent

No issue defines the diametrically opposite economic philosophies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump than their position on the Trump tax cuts. Trump wants to make those tax cuts permanent; Biden has repeatedly promised to tax America back to prosperity by repealing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But there are so many factual errors swirling around regarding…

23 Making It Easier to Make Things in America

With more tariffs on electric vehicles and an election featuring two pro-tariff presidential candidates on the way, the debate about how best to support and strengthen the U.S. manufacturing sector is back. Some argue, mistakenly, that the key to protecting American industries and manufacturing jobs is a set of tariffs on industrial imports. This approach…

24 Why No Politician Can 'Fix' Prices (and Why That's OK)

Prices are threads stitching together the fabric of our economy. They guide countless producers, here and abroad, to meet the most urgent demands of countless consumers. Prices enable the economic coordination of millions of individuals – each with his or her own unique preferences, skills and resources – with no need…

25 Why Small Businesses Hate Bidenomics

If the economy is so good, why do small business leaders feel so bad? The latest Small Business Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Business could hardly be more depressing. It finds that the men and women who run our 33 million small businesses and hire more than half of American workers are in a somber mood. The survey finds…

26 Tax Time Myths and Truths

Another Tax Day has come and gone, and most Americans believe they pay too much. One recent poll revealed that 56% say they pay more than their fair share. Unfortunately, I fear this is just the beginning considering the insane level of debt Washington policymakers have accumulated over the years. With this in mind, here are some important facts about…

27 Paying Top Dollar and Getting Bupkis

If you pay New York state taxes, you're paying top dollar and getting bupkis. Nothing in the budget deal announced in Albany on Tuesday changes that. State tax money is supposed to provide services and improve the state's economic outlook. But a report released last week shows the state's economic prospects plunging to dead last among the 50 states…

28 Joe Biden on the Economy: I Don't Feel Your Pain

In 1992, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton famously answered a voter question about how the national debt affected him personally. Clinton's response was often paraphrased as, "I feel your pain." Whether Bill was for once being sincere or not, his words resonated. Now President Joe Biden is running for reelection with the opposite…

29 IRS Numbers Shred Biden’s “Fair Share” Platitudes

Do wealthy Americans pay their “fair share” of income taxes?   If “fair” is defined as a reasonable equilibrium between someone’s share of income earned and their share of income taxes paid, then wealthier Americans actually pay more than their fair share.   That might surprise many people, but it…

30 Americans Can Tell the Difference Between Rosy Economic Data and Reality

The economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are up, and inflation is down. However, the American people remain grumpy about the state of the economy. This puzzle was just investigated by four economists. They found that people often know that something is wrong even if statistics don't reflect the problem. In this case, people are perceiving…

 
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Notable Quote   
 
"On Jan. 1, California's new anti-election integrity law went into effect, prohibiting local governments in the Golden State from requiring voters to show identification to cast ballots in elections. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the restrictive legislation into law a little more than a month before November's historic presidential election.It's certainly not the first time the far-left governor with higher…[more]
 
 
— Matt Kittle, The Federalist
 
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