Fast Facts about Discretionary Spending
Romina Boccia and Dominik LettThe federal government will spend $6.3 trillion in 2023, 27 percent is discretionary and 73 percent is mandatory. Discretionary spending refers to federal programs that receive funding through annual appropriations. Less than half ofdiscretionary spending is for defense. More than half isfor nondefense activitiesincludingeducation, infrastructure, scientific research, and other programs.If Congress does not pass annual appropriations bills before October 1st (the beginning of the federal fiscal year), the government undergoes a partial “shutdown” where non‐essential functions are ha...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 30, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia, Dominik Lett Source Type: blogs
The world is flat
This article also mentions the chemtrails absurdity.Climate change denial and chemtrails go back a long way, basically since right wing politics in the U.S. and Europe went batshit crazy. They obviously didn ' t like the Affordable Care Act, but the reasons they said they didn ' t like it were hallucinatory.Remember Sarah Palin and " death panels "?The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby
with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama ' s ' death panel '
so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ' level of productivity in society. 'That was a total ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 27, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
House GOP Pushes Back Against OECD
Adam N. MichelThe House Ways and Means Committee Republicans recently released legislation to retaliate against individuals and businesses based in countries that impose extraterritorial taxes on American companies. The proposal is a reaction to ongoing efforts by the OECD to coordinate a global tax increase on large multinational companies.Instead of raising taxes, Congress should stop funding the OECD and focus on making the United States the most attractive place to do business.TheRepublican proposal would have Treasury identify extraterritorial and discriminatory taxes levied by other countries on U.S. companies. In...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 26, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Adam N. Michel Source Type: blogs
The Supreme Court Strikes Down Home Equity Theft
Thomas A. Berry andIsaiah McKinneyToday, ina unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that local governments cannot take surplus home equity after liquidating delinquent taxpayers ’ property to pay their tax bill. Typically, if a property owner is behind on her property taxes, governments will take the property, liquidate it, and use the funds to pay off the tax bill and any accrued fees. Most states then return any remainder back to the property owner. However, Minnesota and 13 other states maintained a practice of greedily pocketing any surplus equity instead of returning it to the rightful property owner.That is...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 25, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas A. Berry, Isaiah McKinney Source Type: blogs
It ’s World Trade Week…and (Apparently) the Start of the “Silly Season” in Washington
Scott Lincicome and Alfredo Carrillo ObregonIt ’s a well‐known fact in the nation’s capital that politicians’ rhetoric gets progressively detached from reality as a November election approaches. During a race’s final few months, inconvenient things like “facts” and “logic” tend to get thrown out the window as candidates g et desperate for votes.On trade, at least, it seems President Biden has kicked off the 2024 “silly season” more than a year early.In particular, Biden ’s recent proclamation announcingWorld Trade Week 2023 (and implicitly justifying his tariff ‐ and subsidy‐heavy “w...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 25, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Scott Lincicome, Alfredo Carrillo Obregon Source Type: blogs
Shape of the Earth: Views Differ
A newly elected Republican district chair in Georgia wants to tell you aboutthe most pernicious and widespread conspiracy on, well, earth:
In an interview with David Weiss (AKA “Flat Earth
Dave ”) and Matt Long on her “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” podcast, Taylor
and her guests discussed biblical “evidence” that the Earth is actually
flat as a pancake. “The people that defend the globe don’t know anything
about the globe,” said Weiss. “If they knew a tenth of what Matt and I
know about the globe they would be Flat Earthers.” “All the globes, everywhere” Taylor said later in the discussion. ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 25, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
New York City, Rhode Island, and Now Minnesota Defy the “Crack House Statute”
Jeffrey A. SingerMinnesota Governor Tim Walz signedSenate File 2974, the Omnibus Human Services appropriations bill into law on Wednesday, May 24. Among the most notable features of the spending bill is that itappropriates $55.49 million in one ‐time grants in 2024 for:[O]rganizations to establish safe recovery sites that offer harm reduction services and supplies,including but not limited to safe injection spaces; sterile needle exchange; naloxone rescue kits; fentanyl and other drug testing; street outreach; educational and referral services; health, safety, and wellness services; and access to hygiene and sanitatio...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 25, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
High Earners Make Relatively Smaller Tax Errors
Chris EdwardsSenate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D ‑OR) held a hearing last week to counter the House Republican plan to cut the recent IRS enforcement boost. Sen. Wydensaid, “If you’re looking for the big winners of the McCarthy IRS defunding plan, it’s billionaires and corporations who cheat on their taxes … Repealing that funding is a $191 billion giveaway to wealthy tax cheats.”Ioffered a different view at the hearing. I noted that tax enforcement imposes collateral damage, that the tax gap has been stable for decades, and that the U.S. tax gap appears to be smaller than Europe ’s. The “tax ga...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
The Libertarian behind the World ’s First Freedom of the Press Act
Johan NorbergUNESCO has just designated the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 a“Memory of the World.” It ’s a well‐deserved honor. This more than 250‐year old document, enacted during a period of strong parliamentary power in Sweden, is the world’s first freedom of the press act, signed into law ten years before the United States of America even existed.In defense of “unrestricted mutual enlightenment,” the1766 act created a constitutional right to publish one’s thoughts and ideas, abolished censorship (in everything but theological texts) and introduced the principle of public access to ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Johan Norberg Source Type: blogs
California Tries Charging for Electricity Based on Income
Marc JoffeIn California, private sector innovation is giving way to public sector experimentation. From the state that pioneered special gasoline formulations, cap ‐and‐trade, and natural gas bans, we now have income‐based electricity billing. While this idea may seem like a reasonable response to the problem of moderate‐income families being priced out of the state, a better approach would be to tackle the underlying causes of high energ y prices.A2022 state law instructed the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) to replace a flat monthly charge for the fixed costs of providing electricity w...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Marc Joffe Source Type: blogs
Collateral Damage of IRS Audits
Chris EdwardsThe Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 boosted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget over the coming decade by $79 billion, most of which is for increased enforcement. President Biden ’s March budget includes the new spending and would more than triple enforcement outlays by 2031. House Republicans have proposed cutting the new IRS funding as part of the debt deal being negotiated.At a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week,I argued that jacking up enforcement and auditing would cause collateral damage to the private sector. There are better ways to reduce taxpayer errors, including simplifying the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
La Sombrita, or, How to Fail at Infrastructure
Paul MatzkoLos Angeles spent $200,000 on La Sombrita ( ‘“in the shade”), a bus stop shade/light structure that provides littleshade or light. It has been almost too easy to criticize its design, the token DEI framing given to the project, how most of the funds went to a global junket for the designers, or the fact that city officials held a tone deaf celebratory press conference for its unveiling. Would this “make waiting for the bus at night [feel]safer” to you?But La Sombrita isn ’t really the problem. Rather, its failures are symptoms of its designers trying to work around deeper, structural problems ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 22, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Paul Matzko Source Type: blogs
Diversion
To be clear, we are not talking about people who have committed serious felonies. That is another discussion. But the large majority of people who are involved with the criminal justice system are charged with fairly minor offenses -- what may be labeled disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, shoplifting or other petty theft, maybe getting in a fight or vandalizing property of someone they ' re mad at. As we have seen, a lot of these people have diagnosable mental and/or substance use disorder, limited education and job skills. As we have also seen, if they are convicted (or more realisti...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 20, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Hearing Remarks: Protecting American Families from Higher Taxes
Adam N. MichelI recently testified for the Senate Budget Committee on the topic of taxes, economic growth, and budget deficits.You can read my full written testimonyhere, and watch the hearinghere. Below is a lightly edited version of the three main points I emphasized in my oral remarks.First, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was a success. Second, tax cuts did not cause the federal deficit. And third, the topic of this hearing is really about the appropriate size and scope of government—a topic on which reasonable people can disagree. However, if Congress decides that the current trajectory of federal spending does ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 18, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Adam N. Michel Source Type: blogs
High Court Approves California ’s Pork Production Standards
Walter OlsonThe Supreme Court has ruled that California may prohibit the in ‐state sale of pork raised out of state by methods it deems inhumane, rejecting a constitutional challenge raised by pork producers who had argued that the law would badly disrupt the economies of other states. In so doing the Court appears to have significantly whittled down the scope of the so‐called Dormant Commerce Clause, a clause that has been drawn skepticism from Justices including the late Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. While the new decision is a complex one with multiple opinions, it appears to give the g...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 12, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
