Late last week a seldom heard voice echoed throughout the regulatory reform debate forum when the U.S. Department of State openly stood behind the controversial Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ‘Resource Extraction Rule.’ This rule, developed as part of the continuing cavalcade of Dodd-Frank initiatives, went into effect last August with the goal of requiring … Continue reading
The attention surrounding the Fiscal Cliff has escalated it from an issue of domestic panic to international concern. While the direct impact of the event involves strictly domestic policies, the resulting uncertain economic forecast stateside has created detrimental consequences for European markets that are reliant on the United States for trade. The suggested calamity results … Continue reading
In the first part of this series on the history of the national debt, we looked at what factors caused the national debt to grow or shrink in the short-term. This week, we will take a step back and focus on how successive presidential administrations have affected the national debt over time. As we discovered … Continue reading
Our elections may be over, but our growing national debt remains. It is also approaching unprecedented levels—last year, it exceeded 100% of GDP for only the fourth time in history. The other three times were during World War II, when we were fighting a war on all seven continents. Yet the economy is recovering from … Continue reading
The “Fiscal Cliff” seems to the be the buzz-word of the month. Why shouldn’t it be? The numbers are scary. An almost 600 billion dollar combination of tax increases and across the board spending cuts that go into effect on January 2, 2013. Broken down the majority of the cost comes from 440 billion dollars … Continue reading
On September 13, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke announced a third round of quantitative easing that the Fed would enact to further jumpstart the sluggishly recovering U.S. economy. QE 3, as it is known, has the Fed buy 40 billion dollars worth of mortgage backed securities per month to make it cheaper for … Continue reading
One of the most contentious points in the two presidential debates, and really the focal point of this campaign, has been Mitt Romney’s tax proposal. Governor Romney’s proposal, a summary of which you can read here, is essentially to reduce income taxes for all Americans by 20%, eliminate interest, dividends, and capital gains taxes for … Continue reading
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” – Albert Einstein Mitt Romney has a tax plan. He wants to lower tax rates for everyone and get rid of some tax deductions. The details of the plan and who will be benefit are hotly debated topics and seemingly an entire industry has … Continue reading
In January 2009, then president-elect, Barack Obama, rode into Washington, DC on an Amtrak train. His, pre-inaugural, one-day trip was a symbolic nod to Lincoln’s similar journey, some years ago. Exactly one month later, now, President Obama signed in-to-law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The ARRA, among other things, provided $8 billion towards … Continue reading
Attributed to Mitt Romney, this is a common attack by Democrats – Mitt Romney said “let Detroit go bankrupt.” It was repeated last night by Vice President Biden who portrays Barack Obama as the valiant defender of the auto industry and the millions of jobs that go along with it. But, as with much that … Continue reading
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