"Fair Share"

The Tax Foundation reports that between 1986 and 2008, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 5% of earners has risen to 59% from 43%. Between 1986 and 2009, the percentage of Americans who pay zero or negative federal income taxes has increased to 51% from 18.5%.

- From a column by Arthur C. Brooks in the WSJ today. Cartoon by Chip Bok.

This after Bush's "tax cuts for the very rich".

Climate Change Comes To Saturn

Those wasteful, decadent, climate change denying Saturnians really need to cut back on their carbon emissions.

http://news.yahoo.com/tempest-hell-seen-saturn-190517740.html

Cut Taxes, Raise Revenues

Oblivious as they are to the immorality and danger of saddling future generations with our excesses, Democrats aren't really interested in eliminating the deficit or reducing our debt burden. When feeling political pressure to address the problem, the solution proposed is invariably "revenue increases". In the language of President Obama and Democrats, "revenue increases" means tax hikes.
As Thomas Sowell so clearly explains in his book "Basic Economics", tax increases and revenue increases are two separate, though not necessarily unrelated, issues. This was nicely illustrated by the following factoid which appeared in a recent WSJ editorial (6/30).

After the Bush investment tax cuts of 2003, tax revenues were $786 billion higher in 2007 ($2.568 trillion) than they were in 2003 ($1.782 trillion), the biggest four-year increase in U.S. history.

(My emphasis).

Revenue began falling after 2007 as Government interference in the housing market crashed the economy. The deficit, (which was actually decreasing from 2004 to 2007), was caused by spending increases which accelerated under Bush (and the Democratic Congress) and went ballistic under Obama.

Steyn Returns

Mark Steyn recently took an extended hiatus from his column-writing duties to do...what? Well, in his absence I speculated that a) he had a serious illness, b) he was fighting yet another legal battle against Canadian authorities trying to censor him, or, c) he was writing a book. Happily, it was c). Lights Out, Steyn's look at the lawsuit brought by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Maclean's magazine for publishing excerpts from his book, America Alone, will soon appear in bookstores (both real and virtual). Can't wait. In the meantime, Steyn is in top form in three recent columns in NRO.

I particularly enjoyed the first one, a series of hilarious zingers seamlessly linked into an organic whole. Ah, to be able to write like this.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269969/libzgetreal-mark-steyn

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270460/speechworld-vs-realworld-mark-steyn

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270993/obama-s-declaration-dependence-mark-steyn?page=1

And, as we are about to get hit by the Obamacare tsunami, here also is Steyn's review of The Barbarian Invasions, the devastating portrait of Canada-style Government controlled healthcare. (Steyn broke into journalism as an arts critic).

http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/4221/28/

Don't Know Much About Economy

Articles on NRO explaining how Obama's "stimulus" package (Jonah Goldberg) and obeisance to unions (Charles Krauthammer) have significantly worsened the U.S. economy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269833/shovel-ready-punch-line-jonah-goldberg

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269840/union-owned-and-operated-charles-krauthammer

On a a related note -
Peter Kirsanow (NRO) listed five items the mainstream media considers less important than Sarah Palin's recently released e-mails. I found one of these particularly noteworthy.

An analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that if the number of people looking for work today were the same as the number when President Obama took office, the reported unemployment rate for May would be 11 percent rather than 9.1 percent.

(Cartoon appeared in the Weekly Standard).

Gandhi Was Wrong

Excellent column by Jonah Goldberg (NRO) on the importance of economic growth.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/269257/simply-madness-jonah-goldberg

You Say You Want A Revolution

Anyone who thinks that Paul Ryan's proposal to save Medicare is a radical attempt to push granny (wheelchair bound of course) off a cliff should read Andrew McCarthy's column on NRO (link below).

And for those who don't actually know what's in the Ryan plan, (most people), visit the other link below.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/268818/end-medicare-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=3

http://paulryan.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=242931