Obama’s ready to cut military pensions. But recall which benefits he wants to expand…

Fake penny-pinchers.

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

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Liberty 101: Ten things government can’t do without an income tax

1.  Think your income is too big and another person’s is too small.

2.  Propose to “redistribute income” using government policies.

3.  Plan government activities based on the expected size of your income.

4.  Treat you unequally under the law based on the size of your income.

5.  Make it illegal for you to earn income without reporting it to the government.

Liberty 101: Working for The Man

If Americans want to reclaim liberty in this age of governmental whole-life management, one thing we must do is take the trouble to understand how government makes us work for its priorities and programs.  The price of having a job today is working for the government, just as the price of doing business, for an entrepreneur, is giving the first portion of his earnings to the government.

Many readers will be familiar with the point that we Americans work, on average, until sometime in April each year to pay our taxes at the federal, state, and local levels.  In this formulation, it is only after “Tax Freedom Day” that we start working for ourselves, and not for the government.  Tax Freedom Day delineates

Obama threatens vets’ pensions, Social Security checks

In his quest to get the debt ceiling raised, President Obama issued a threat in his Wednesday press conference that troops won’t get paid and veterans’ pension payments will be delayed.  He warned of delays in Social Security payments as well.

It’s important to understand that these comments constitute a threat (which may or may not be a hollow one).  Obama is not stating some inescapable reality, to which he along with the rest of us is subject.  If retirees and vets see a delay in their payments, it will be because Obama himself decides to hold the payments up.  Moreover, Obama is not caught in a trap when it comes to paying the troops; he can make sure they get paid, if it’s his priority to do so.

The payments to retirees are going to go out unless Obama stops them.  The debt ceiling doesn’t prevent those payments from being made.  It requires that other types of federal expenditures

Tax arguments: You CAN have it both ways – If you’re talking about different things

Jazz Shaw and Ed Morrissey have a debate going at Hot Air over what would be a consistent political position for Republican lawmakers, as they consider (a) the payroll tax holiday set to expire on 1 January 2012, and (b) the income tax rates scheduled to increase on 1 January 2013.

Jazz argues that it’s inconsistent to make the economic impact of a tax hike the overriding concern when it comes to income tax rates, but dismiss the economic impact of an increased tax load when the subject is ending the payroll tax holiday.  He points out that the Bush tax rates were passed with an expiration date, and therefore were temporary in a sense similar to the scheduled expiration of the payroll tax holiday.

There is an extent to which this argument is valid, but it’s a very limited one.  The reason is quite simple: