|
|
|
Taxes - The Heritage FoundationTaxes - The Heritage Foundation Proponents of raising taxes have offered many straw man arguments and myths to support their case. View Article - Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:00:00 -0400 As we celebrate Labor Day, let’s remember what makes this holiday possible in the first place: American workers. For the most part that means small business. View Article - Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 The CEO of Intel has joined the ranks of those labeling big government as the cause of our economic slump, not the solution. View Article - Sat, 28 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 President Obama has called for a huge tax increase to take effect on January 1, 2011. Instead of reducing spending, he proposes to raise taxes on a wide swath of taxpayers—including small businesses—despite the weak economic recovery. Congressional Democrats stand poised (immediately following the November elections) to endorse the President’s request and threaten to go much further. Proponents of letting the tax cuts expire—which would indeed be a tax hike—have offered a wide array of justifications for this wrongheaded policy. Heritage Foundation fiscal policy expert J. D. Foster wades through the myths and straw arguments to set the record straight. View Article - Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:29:00 -0400 Curtis Dubay discusses the merits of extending the Bush tax cuts, including cuts for the middle class. View Article - Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 Bill Beach discusses whether a national tax holiday would encourage more lending. View Article - Mon, 23 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 The Economic Freedom Act, proposed by Representative Jim Jordan, would terminate the ineffective Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), and substitute a proven way to stimulate the economy: tax relief—from permanent repeal of the capital gains and death taxes to significant reductions in payroll taxes and the top corporate tax rate. Analysts at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis (CDA) conducted static and dynamic analyses of the act (H.R. 5029), finding that over the long term, dynamic economic effects would offset much of the cost of the tax relief. In the short term, the act would increase the deficit if it was not coupled with reductions in spending. This means a specific plan for spending cuts is imperative. The CDA analysts detail the economic and fiscal effects of the Economic Freedom Act’s spending and tax cuts. View Article - Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:30:00 -0400 Bill Beach discusses the possible outcomes of a flat tax. View Article - Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 J D Foster discusses the possibility of an American VAT. View Article - Wed, 11 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 Imagine you are one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top political strategists. The polls show your party needs a game-changer, something that will transform what looks like a losing political hand into a winner. “I know,” you shout, “let’s push for a large tax increase on the ‘fortunate few’ — the 2 or 3 percent of the population with so much money they won’t even miss a few thousand bucks. The other 97 or 98 percent will feel no pain, and we’ll be able to call ourselves deficit hawks when all those billions start rolling in.” View Article - Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 President Obama wants to drastically raise taxes in January View Article - Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:00 -0400 The CBPP's critique is based on faulty economic analysis and fundamental misrepresentations. View Article - Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:00:00 -0400 Liberals in Congress have a plan to raise your taxes after the elections this fall, something they must do to continue feeding the Obama Administration’s spending addiction. Watch for them to act after the midterm elections under the cover of the report from the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. View Article - Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 Curtis Dubay returns to The Ed Show to discuss jobs and extending the Bush tax cuts. View Article - Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:00:00 -0400 Curtis Dubay discusses renewing the Bush tax cuts to support economic growth. View Article - Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:00:00 -0400 The death tax: What does it kill? Who does it affect? It affects hundreds of thousands of small-business owners across the country—as well as their employees and community residents who benefit from the senior and day care centers, playgrounds, charities, and learning centers that are built or supported by small-business owners. Like water and sunlight in an ecosystem, small businesses provide sustenance essential to building and preserving communities. So high is the death tax that a large portion of heirs to small companies cannot afford to pay it after the business founder dies, and see themselves forced to sell to giant corporations—which have no personal ties to the communities of their new acquisitions, and thus no incentive to commit to local institutions. What does the death tax kill? The best of American life and civil society itself. The death tax is simply antithetical to the core of the American dream. View Article - Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:53:00 -0400 Millions of Americans face potential financial ruin because they bought homes they couldn't afford. Often, these homeowners were lured by initially low interest rates that provided the illusion of affordability. After a few years, these "teaser" rates reset upward, creating unaffordably high mortgage payments. View Article - Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:00:00 -0400 Senator Jim DeMint cites Heritage research in his speech on preventing the renewal of the death tax. View Article - Wed, 21 Jul 2010 01:00:00 -0400 2010 is the only year since 1916 in which heirs to an estate will not have to pay the dreaded death tax. Victory for small businesses? Not yet—due to a legal quirk, the death tax is scheduled to come back to life in 2011. Studies, statistics, and real life have shown again and again that the businesses and families burdened with the death tax often see themselves forced to cut back on benefits, investments, and employees. The death tax keeps new jobs from being created, hurting not just the affected businesses, but the economy as a whole. Because it is a tax on capital, the death tax destroys as many as 1.5 million jobs that the economy needs as it struggles to recover. Heritage Foundation tax policy expert Curtis Dubay details a replacement for the death tax, and explains why Congress must kill the death tax—now. View Article - Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:09:00 -0400 The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act would likely lead to the same conditions that caused the housing bubble of a few years ago. View Article - Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:00:00 -0400
|
|
|
Looking for more great sites?
|
|
May I suggest the following....
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Gulf Oil Spill by the Numbers
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
www.meatandpotatoes.org
By: Brian Miller
|
|
|
 For weeks now the lead story in virtually every news outlet has been the Gulf Oil Spill. If you only look at the pictures on the screen, you would think that the entire Gulf and its shorelines were completely covered in oil. Ask any of the millions of people in the region, who are dealing with completely ruined tourism, that this is far from the truth.
My heart goes out to all of those local fishermen who are facing the unemployment lines while knowing that only a fraction of the waters they fish have or will be affected. The liberal news media working with the environmentalists have spun this thing so far out of proportion and even conservative outlets like Fox News have reported the disaster effectively putting far more people out of work than what is justified. About the only people we have not heard from is the usual crowd of disaster relief organizers in Hollywood who have not held a single fund raiser to help.
 I could write ten articles on this subject, but for now I want to focus on something few people are…the actual numbers. They tell the story in cold reality, and help put into perspective the actual size of this spill. Thanks to the big spenders in Washington DC I have become accustomed to working with big numbers.
| By the Numbers: |
|
| Figures |
Source |
|
|
| 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil spilled per day |
www.nytimes.com |
|
|
| 600,000 square miles of surface area in the Gulf of Mexico |
www.epa.gov |
|
|
| 643 QUADRILLION gallons of water in the Gulf of Mexico or 634,000,000,000,000,000 gallons |
www.epa.gov |
|
|
| 1 Gallon = 231 Cubic Inches |
|
|
|
| 1 Square Mile = 4,014,489,600 Square Inches |
|
|
|
| 1 Inch = 25.4 Millimeters |
|
|
|
| 1 Mile = 5,280 Feet |
|
|
|
1,631 Miles of US coastline in the Gulf of Mexico
if bays and other waters are included the total shoreline increases to over 16,000 miles |
www.epa.gov |
|
 Before we get started, one more fact: How many gallons of oil are in a barrel? We’ve all seen those 55 gallon drums right? Actually a barrel of oil as an industry measurement is only 42 gallons. So right out of the gate you have to lower the amount of oil you thought was flowing by 24%.
Please note, just to be completely fair, I have taken the high end of the estimate from the New York Times of 19,000 barrels per day when calculating the below figures.
What is the Oil Spill as a Percentage of the Volume of the Gulf?
(19,000 barrels/day) x (42 gallons/barrel) x (50 days) = 39,900,000 gallons of oil since spill inception
39,900,000 gallons / 643,000,000,000,000,000 (643 quadrillion) = 0.000000000062
In written form this is six trillionth of one percent
What does the Oil Equate to as a Percentage of the Surface Area of the Gulf?
39,900,000 gallons since spill started x 231 cubic inches per gallon = 9,216,900,000 cubic inches
9,216,900,000 Cubic Inches / 4,014,489,600 Square Inches = 2.2959 Square Miles by 1 Inch depth
2.2959 Square Miles / 600,000 Square Miles Surface Area of the Gulf = 0.0000038265
In written form this is three point eight ten-thousands of one percent
Ok, let’s say that the depth is only 1 millimeter...
2.2959 Square Miles by 1 Inch depth x 25.4 Millimeters = 58.31586 Square Miles by 1 Millimeter depth
58.31586 Square Miles / 600,000 Square Miles Surface Area of the Gulf = 0.0000971931
In written form this is nine point seven thousandths of one percent
Reality Check
As a tea Party guy I tend to look at everything through the lense of the mess in Washington, and like many people I am a lot more frightened over our national debt than the Oil Spill. The other day our national debt cleared the $13 TRILLION mark. If I pull out 78¢ from my pocket and apply it to the national debt, I will have paid it down by the same percentage in the first figure 0.00000000006.
The damage from the oil spill may take years to disapate and return to normal, however unless the debt starts going down, there will be no country left to enjoy the recovered Gulf Coast!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 1 - There is no liberal bias in the media |
|
| 2 - Separation of Church and State |
|
| 3 - Banning partial birth abortions is an assault on a woman's right to choose |
|
| 4 - The Outsourcing of American Jobs |
|
| 5 - The Creation of Green Jobs |
|
| 6 - Same Sex Marriage |
|
| 7 - Rasing Taxes Equals more government funds |
|
| 8 - The Supreme Court should keep International Courts in mind |
|
| 9 - America must be humble to the international community |
|
| 10 - Government Knows Best |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
My Top Blog Picks:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
We are an independent group of thinkers, who are neither Democrats nor Republicans, but believe in right and wrong. It’s time to clear all the crazy stuff from our lives, and get down to just the Meat and Potatoes of today’s issues. Join us, and invite your friends to sit down at your table and discuss with us. Site Map | |
| |
|