Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Statism, Taxes | Tags: More Than Their Fair Share, The Top Ten Percent, Who Pays the Taxes?
The United States of America is actually more dependent on rich people to pay taxes than any other industrialized nation.
The top ten percent of income earners in the United States pay almost half (45 percent) of the country’s total taxes. So much for Obama’s constant claim that top earners in the U.S. are not paying their “fair share” in taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the United States gets 45 percent of its total taxes from the top 10 percent of tax filers, whereas the international average in industrialized nations is 32 percent.
America’s rich carry a larger share of the tax burden than the rich in Belgium (25 percent), Germany (31 percent), France (28 percent) and even Sweden (27 percent).
The statistics are from The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore’s new book Who’s the Fairest of Them All?: The Truth about Opportunity, Taxes, and Wealth in America.
Can we just get over the class war, and the “fair share” crap, and talk about jobs and reducing government spending?
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Foreign Policy, Intelligence, Middle East, National Security, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Ambassador Chris Stevens, Benghazi, It Wasn't About a Video
Filed under: Politics
In the spirit of Lara Logan’s speech below, I turn to the unrest in the streets of Tehran last week, in the wake of the collapse of the rial — as a sign that the Islamist regime was shaken by the sanctions imposed on its economy. The administration assumption is that the ayatollahs will be chastened by the hardships of their people and will soon return to the negotiating table and make the concessions needed to craft a deal that will end the standoff over their drive for nuclear capability. The ayatollahs and their terrorist auxiliaries in Lebanon have other ideas.
Runaway inflation and the collapse of the rial seemed due to government mismanagement, but the Ayatollahs have no intention of being influenced by domestic public opinion, nor of being intimidated by Western leaders who believe that diplomacy will solve the problem. On the contrary, they sent their own message in a Hezbollah drone, which the Israelis shot down over Israel. The drone is a sign that the terrorists in Lebanon can strike anywhere in Europe as well as the Middle East. It is a warning that ought to reinforce the need to stop them.
Israel believes Hezbollah, with Iranian backing is behind a string of attacks on Israeli diplomatic targets in India, Thailand, Georgia and a deadly bombing earlier this year that killed five Israeli tourists in a Bulgarian resort.
Tehran believes that they need not fear any resolve on the part of Americans, and they are free to act with impunity. A passive reaction to this provocation will only produce an emboldened Iranian government that will see no need to pay any attention to the West on the nuclear issue.
In Israel, Iran’s irrational rulers daily pledge to wipe us off the map while rapidly producing the nuclear capability to do it. When somebody pledges to wipe you off the map, you’re wise to pay attention. Iran, says Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror and if Iran gets the bomb, so, too, will terrorists.
The Obama administration, still leading from behind, seems to be sure that negotiations will fix everything as soon as we can get the Ayatollahs to the bargaining table. As Lara Logan said n her speech last week, we’re not paying attention, and we’re getting the wrong message. They. They are not interested in bargaining, they don’t think they need to. A weak and passive America is a danger to the world.
Filed under: Foreign Policy, Military, National Security, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Terrorism, The United States | Tags: Afghanistan and Pakistan, BGA Annual Luncheon, Lara Logan
In a post yesterday on Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute, I made a brief mention of CBS 60 Minutes Correspondent Lara Logan’s keynote address last week at the Better Government Association annual luncheon. The Chicago Sun Times called it “a provocative speech” to some 1.100 movers and shakers in government, politics, media and the legal and corporate arenas.
Lara Logan is a stunningly courageous correspondent, going where few reporters go, trying to get the facts where it is exceedingly dangerous to get the facts. She stepped out of the usual “objective journalist role” to tell a story that she believes Americans need to hear. Our government is lying to us, she said. They are downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan — as a rationale for getting us out of the war. We have been lured into believing that the perils are past, that there is a kinder, gentler Taliban. “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”
She told a compelling story to a rapt audience in her soft South African accent. The administration is lying and the lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban. It is not so.
As Governor Romney said in his VMI speech “If America doesn’t lead, others will.”
Watch the whole thing, then watch it again, and share it with others who care.
(h/t: Yid With A Lid)
American Elephants 