Ben Stein may be known best by my generation knows as the best as the economics teacher in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (”Bueller…. Bueller….?). But he is also an attorney, former presidential speechwriter (for Nixon and Ford) and regular newspaper columnist for the New York Times.
Stein’s political beliefs generally tilt towards the right, pictured above at the 2000 Republican National Convention. He is notoriously anti-evolution, pro-life and fiscally conservative.
That’s why this article from Sunday’s New York Times (though published on the web on Saturday, free registration required) fascinated me. Stein came out in swinging against McCain’s economic and tax platform.
Stein begins by quoting McCain as saying that he won’t raise taxes. That, Stein says, more or less, sounds nice. And then he inserts the big BUT:
But the unhappy fact is that it’s necessary to raise my taxes and the taxes of all upper-income Americans. (I do wish, however, that “upper income” started just a dollar above me.)
The sad truth of the last two two-term Republican presidents is that their economic premise, the key part of their economic game plan, simply has not done what it’s supposed to do.
That is, cutting taxes, especially on upper-income Americans, does not generate so much economic activity that it replaces all the lost I.R.S. take and then some. At least those have been the results so far.
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Among pressure to prove that there was nothing to hide, Senator John McCain and his wife, Cindy, announced last week that, despite earlier comments that they would not release Ms. McCain’s tax info, they would do so. The information was made public and is available on McCain’s web site.
Senator McCain had previously released his personal tax information. The Senator and his wife filed separately in 2007, as they had done for the past 27 years.
The McCains did not release the entire tax return – only a two page summary. The summary revealed that Ms. McCain received a salary of $299,418 and interest of $40,488. She reported taxable gains of $743,476. The lion’s share of her income, $4,551,901, was reported on Schedule E. Schedule E includes income from rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, corporations or trusts. The information which was released to the public did not include a Schedule E nor explain the source of that income.
The tax information is only for the tax year 2006. Ms. McCain (like me) had requested an extension for 2007.
In response to the release, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee said, “It is laughable for the campaign to release so little information and say they are being transparent.” The Republican National Committee noted that Ms. McCain had released more information than her predecessor, Teresa Heinz Kerry, in 2004. Both had similarly claimed that such information should be private… should it?
(Image: johnmccain.com)
It’s 2004 all over again. A presidential candidate has released his own tax returns – but not that of his spouse. The GOP cries… ok?
Yep. This week, Sen. John McCain and Republican presidential candidate released his 2007 tax returns – without information about his wife. Cindy McCain filed separately, something that they have continued to do since they were married 27 years ago.
On paper, McCain looks almost modest compared to the other candidates: his total income was a mere $405,409 including about $23,000 in Social Security income, while the Clintons and Obamas reported joint income in the millions. McCain’s income does not include income attributable to his wife, Cindy, heiress to a fortune from her father’s beer distribution company, Hensley and Company where she serves as Chairperson. The web site claims that Hensley is “the third largest Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in the nation (out of nearly 800) with sales that in 2007 exceeded 23 million cases of A-B beers sold and nearly a 60 percent market share.”
McCain is reportedly the 9th most wealthy Senator in Congress; the McCains have assets of at least $36.5 million. This does not include the more than $100 million in assets reportedly owned by Cindy McCain individually.
McCain donated 26% of his income to charity compared to the Clintons’ 15% and the Obamas’ 6%. It is worth making two important notes to this statistic: 1, if all of the McCains’ charitable contributions were donated out of John McCain’s income (we don’t know this to be true), this number would be artificially compressed; and 2, almost all of the charitable donations were made to the John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation.
You’ll recall that John Kerry was heavily criticized in 2004 when his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, refused to release her tax return and the information related to her children. One wonders if there will be a similar backlash for McCain.
You can read more about the candidates’ tax returns here.
Not right now. But there’s a chance that you might in the future: the moratorium on an internet tax expires November 1. The moratorium is sometimes referred to as the Internet Tax Freedom Act, or ITFA.
ITFA has been extended twice since 1998. It bans taxes on certain internet transactions at the federal level, but also prohibits state and local governments from passing similar taxes with the exception of nine states which were allowed to keep existing internet taxes. The internet transactions are: internet access (including dial-up, DSL, cable modem and wi-fi); “double tax” for products or services bought over the internet; and discriminatory taxes that treat internet purchases differently from other types of sales. Those nine states which are current exempt from the ban are Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin; not surprisingly, most of the governors of these states appear to oppose making the ban permanent since the exemptions will not be included in a permanent bill.
Nonetheless, a handful of Senators, including John McCain (R-AZ), Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Sununu (R-NH) have suggested a permanent internet tax ban. Not surprisingly, fearing both loss of revenue and potential for abuse, there is opposition to a permanent ban on both sides of the political spectrum who have offered a number of alternatives. One suggestion is to limit the length of the moratorium rather than make the ban permanent – but so far, that isn’t getting much support.
What do you think? You pay tax on your phone connections, why not the internet? That is the loudest argument, after all, against the permanent repeal – the fact that cell phone service is taxed and is at an all time high. So, the thinking goes, how bad can it be? Well?
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