UNPOPULAR POLS: Gov. Beverly Perdue's approval rating has slipped to a new low: 30 percent in one poll. Her solution: barnstorm the state calling for higher taxes for everyone. The good news for her is that she'd have a long way to fall before matching the unpopularity of former Gov. Mike Easley, who is apparently the target of a wide-ranging federal investigation. Meanwhile, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards declared to the Washington Post this week that he isn't paying attention to his reputation. We noticed.
COMMANDMENT 11: Now that the candidates to lead the state Republican party are finished beating the stuffing out of each other, the new chairman, Tom Fetzer, turned his attention to the real enemy — Democrats. Fetzer launched a broadside against a fundraising reception for Democratic lawmakers calling the event inappropriate. Democrats mostly ignored the attack, but it probably felt good for the GOP to go after the other guys for a change.
BUDGET: After a lengthy, public and at times painful budget debate in the House last week, the actual budget can now be written by the select few in the conference committee. Big changes, particularly to the House's proposed taxes, are in store.
IN OTHER NEWS: former state Rep. Cary Allred, wearing his pajamas, was stopped for reckless driving with the smell of alcohol on his breath six days after he quit the legislature. The state Revenue Department held up tax refunds for big families because it wants proof. Newly graduated teachers and lawyers are both having a hard time finding jobs.




Re: Dome Memo: Polls, attacks and taxes
Actually sir, The cause of the Great Depression…. Hoover signed the Revenue Act – largest tax increase in peacetime history – doubling the income tax. The top bracket went from 24 to 63 percent. Then congress passed the Smoot Hawley tariff act of 1930. In addition to this, the discount rate to banks was increased four times, 3.5 percent to 6 percent from 1928-30/slashing the money supply by 30%. 1932 FDR ran on platform of radically cutting taxes, but did no such thing. FDR raised the corporate tax rate from 79 to 90 percent and instituted National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which forced manufacturing industries into government mandated cartels and empowered massive Federal bureaucracy to dictate pricing standards.
Entrepreneurs are among America's greatest resources. These individuals try to change the status quo because they expect to use resources to create higher value than those resources are currently pro¬ducing. This takes investments, and investments are risky. The return to these investments is the economic growth that they create, which is profit.
Corporations are often per¬sonified and demonized, but a corporation is a legal entity, not an actual person. Because a corporation is made up of a group of individuals but is not actually an individual, corporate taxes are really taxes on the stakeholders in the corporation. In a U.S. Treasury report, William Gentry pointed out that empirical studies show that employees and consumers really bear the cost of corporate and investment taxes.
Eliminating the corporate tax would also encour¬age owners to hire and train people and to invest in their workforces because a more competitive tax structure would give corporations a greater incen¬tive to domicile in the U.S. Further, higher levels of investment would require new skills of employees. As these investments paid off, economic growth would occur.
Employees bear much of the tax burden through lower wages. Tax¬ing something will reduce the supply of that item or activity. Taxing businesses reduces business opera¬tions, which means that businesses pay less in wages to employees or hire fewer employees. Con¬versely, eliminating the corporate income tax would encourage more businesses to form, which would increase competition for labor and apply upward pressure on wages, as the simulation results show.
The modern conveniences of the American stan¬dard of living required business investments in the past. The jobs that people hold today were created through past successful investments by entrepre¬neurs. Conversely, most people do not realize that they perhaps lost job opportunities because the U.S. corporate tax is higher than the corporate tax rates of almost all other developed countries.[17]
Repealing the corporate income tax is a relatively low-cost way to implement the President's stated goals. At a time when U.S. employees are seeing jobs leave the country, a tax plan that increases the competitiveness of the U.S. business environment and encourages saving and investment by individu¬als would allow entrepreneurs to implement their ideas for dealing with the challenges of the 21st cen¬tury. It would also encourage job-creating busi¬nesses to locate in the U.S. It is important that this country's leaders signal that the United States is still the land of opportunity.