Another Mark of Brilliance!

"... Raising taxes at any time risks economic damage, but never more so than during recessions. Higher taxes shrink the return that investors and workers receive in exchange for their risk-taking, creativity, and productive efforts. So the inevitable consequence of higher taxes is less investment, entrepreneurship, and work.

During normal or booming economic times, growing demand from consumers -- and investors' eagerness to invest -- means that higher taxes are more easily endured. It's not that raising taxes even during boom times doesn't discourage some risk-taking and entrepreneurship; it does. But the general good health of the economy is often sufficient to swamp the ill consequences of higher taxes.

In bad economic times matters are very different. Businesses are losing customers and investors are sitting on the sidelines. Higher taxes, by cutting even further into businesses' falling profits, only fuel more economic pessimism. During recessions, there's no general economic vibrancy to balance out the profits lost to higher taxes. So raising taxes only amplifies entrepreneurs' and investors' pessimism.

Indeed, raising taxes during a recession likely does more than amplify producers' pessimism only for the duration of the downturn. By signaling to entrepreneurs and investors that the government is economically tone-deaf -- by revealing the government to be desperate to maintain its revenue stream even when many of the rest of us must struggle with reduced incomes -- raising taxes during a recession tells the world that the tax-addicted government is especially unfriendly to markets...

As the late Nobel economist Milton Friedman pointed out, 'No one spends someone else's money as carefully as he spends his own.'"

This sheer brilliance came from Donald Boudreaux in the Richmond Times Dispatch. I certainly can't say it better so I'll offer a brilliant wine pairing: a cool, crisp New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, brilliant yellow straw color, perhaps with some lime green tints, and a refreshing taste of citrus, grapefruit and perhaps white flowers!

Want to Stimulate Job Growth?

THEN CUT CORPORATE TAXES! Who reading knows what the U.S. corporate tax rate is these days? Are you guessing 25%? maybe 30%? Wrong.

Next question: how high is our rate relative to other similar competitive and developed countries? Think it's comparable? Guess again.

Out of countries belonging to the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate at 39.1% after Japan's 39.54%! Nearly 40% in taxes just to create jobs, goods and services!

Lots of talk these days about "stimulating the economy", but mostly action that is doing just the opposite. Keeping corporate taxes high, or disincentivizing job creation, for one. Interestingly, most OPEC countries, even the most socialist leaning, have been cutting their corporate tax rates. That, along with allowing ours to creep up, is how the U.S. ended up on the wrong side of the spectrum.

Further, there's lots of talk in our country right now about NEW taxes, and not so much about lowering taxes. Most often, the debate is about which sized "man" to tax -- the "big man", the "middle class man" or the "least advantaged man". Who's looking out for the very large companies that are paying the bulk of the taxes in the country (i.e., much more than individuals relatively)?!!

How can you continue to raise taxes on the very people creating jobs and ask them to create more? In the great words of Will Ferrell, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

Wine Pairing: Grab a Gruner (i.e., Gruner Veltliner) -- these crisp, citrus prominent Austrian white beauties are not only delicious, but support a country with a much lower corporate tax rate of 25%!