Headlines

Trump’s secret to victory in 2020: Hispanic voters

China rushes to seal trade deal ahead of Trump’s deadline

All-male military draft ruled unconstitutional ...

Nebraska lawmaker calls American flag ‘a rag,’ compares it to a swastika

U.S.-China trade talks yield currency deal, but big differences remain

Iran’s president faces calls to resign over economic crisis

Tax refunds plunge 17% as Treasury ratchets up defense ...

Aussie: Climate change drives first mammals to extinction

Trump says Huawei charges on the table in China trade talks

Venezuela’s Guaido says ‘all options open’ after Maduro blocks aid

EU Parliament elections could upend politics across Europe ...

Former Vatican spokesman caught in serial plagiarism

Contrast

Tonight Democrat Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, in his State of the State Message, is going to push for his proposed change in his state’s income tax rate from 5.25% to 5.66% … almost an 8% increase.  Allegedly he wants to use the extra annual one billion dollars of revenue that this rate increase would generate for important transportation and educational projects (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  For more on this see: Boston Globe Story . 

Also, the stick-it-to-em voters in California (run by Democrat Governor Jerry Brown) recently voted to increase (retroactively) the income tax rate for those making $250,000+  from 9.3% to 10.3% and those earning $1,000,000+ from 10.3% to 13.3%. (I would opine that these are confiscatory rates and, as such, few of the California glitterati end-up actually paying these taxes.).  Also the low-information voters there voted in a sales tax increase from 7.25% to 7.50%.  (Surprisingly, this is a regressive tax ... proving that those assenting voters were really low-information ones.)  See: Fox News Story

Contrast with these two Democrat-pushed tax-rate increases, two Republican governors, Dave Heineman from Nebraska and Bobby Jindel from Louisiana, have both recently proposed that their states eliminate their state’s income taxes altogether … see: Reuters Story. 

And to better emphasize this political-party contrast, I suggest that you visit the following website to see how taxes are imposed on a state by state basis across our nation … Retirement Living Story.   I would love to have the time to superimpose on this data an indication of which of these states are run by Democrats versus by Republicans … but I believe that you can pretty much figure out these checkerboard results for yourselves.  Perhaps you might even be able to rationalize this disparity.

AFTERWARD:  I was wrong ... Patrick actually proposed last night to raise the state income tax to 6.25% (a full percentage point) and reduce the state sales tax from 6.25% to 4.5% ... spoken like a true tax-and-spend Democrat.