Posts Tagged taxes

Thoughts for the Holiday Weekend

This is the 4th of July holiday weekend, and most of us are planning cookouts, fireworks celebrations and the like. In my house, we’ve been getting ready for a long-planned European trip–giving instructions to the graduate student who has graciously agreed to “house sit,” making sure our packing list is complete, etc. But it is [...]

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Something Old, Something New…

Reading the news lately, I was reminded of the old rhyme for brides: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” Something old? This morning’s Star had a story about the nearly three million dollars in fees being paid by the Ballard Administration for services in connection with the ill-conceived fifty year lease of Indianapolis [...]

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Tea and No Sympathy

There is an old joke that begins “Why tax the rich?” Answer: because that’s where the money is. For some reason, the current crop of Tea Party Republicans in Congress continue to look for money in all the wrong places. Their insistence on spending cuts not only ignores basic economics–the sorts of cuts they are [...]

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Good Citizens

I have been asked to address students at an Indiana High School on “Good Government Day.” My assignment was to describe to them the attributes of a good citizen. Here’s what I plan to tell them. (Constructive criticism is welcome!) Good governments require good citizens. If there is one thing that history has taught us, [...]

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Debt and Taxes

It doesn’t take long for my students to learn that “it depends” is almost always the right answer to policy questions. The world is complicated, and questions about how government should operate are rarely black or white. In an excellent column about debt and taxes, Morton Marcus makes precisely that point. Debt incurred in order [...]

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