5-12-2009

TigerHawk on NEW TAXES: The short version is that President Obama is pushing absolutely staggering increases through the corporate and business tax systems. Direct taxes on business are, in general, inefficient and economically disruptive, but they are also peerless in their complexity, which means that few voters and essentially no reporters will make the effort to understand what is being done to them. Trust me on this: something awful is being done to you.

Jules Crittenden on NEW COMMANDER FOR AF/PAC WAR: McKiernan’s out, McChrystal’s in command in Afghanistan. Small Wars Journal rounds up the news, which touches on the themes that conventional is out, spec ops in, McKiernan is scapegoated, McKiernan was “overly cautious,” and “fresh eyes” are needed, Zarqawi kill team leader is the guy, all without much in the way of telling detail. Some observations follow

Escort81 on NEW ENTITLEMENTS: An industry group of hospitals, doctors, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies has made a proposal to the White House, offering to cut costs an average of $200 billion per year over the next 10 years, as part of the effort to expand health care coverage to the estimated 50 million Americans who are currently uninsured.

Heritage Foundation: Every American has a right, no, an obligation, to be deeply suspicious of this promise of $2 trillion in savings, and what this means for impending health care legislation.

NRA says FL grabbing gun money: In a last minute sneak attack on gun owners, the Florida Legislature raided the concealed weapons and firearms licensing trust fund…Money in the concealed weapons trust fund came from gun owners. No money to administer and run the concealed weapons and firearms licensing program has ever come from general revenue, or any other state fund or revenue source.  The taking of these gun owner user fees is an unauthorized tax on the exercise of the Second Amendment.

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