Tax Mitt Romney. Defund ICE?

Tax Mitt Romney. Defund ICE?

Tax Mitt Romney!

Can we tax our way out of our national debt crisis? In a word, no although many on the left – and Mitt Romney – think that raising the taxes on the rich might help. Already the top 1 percent pay 40 percent of income-tax revenues while the top 10 percent pay two-thirds. So the question is whether there is enough taxable income amongst the rich to get rid of the deficit. Again in a word no. The Manhattan Institute has done an extensive study and says at most a maximum tax would yield only about 2 percent of GDP and that the oppressive 90 percent tax rates of the 1960s produced “miniscule increases in additional revenues.” Of course such tax rates led to avoidance and encountered the famous Laffer curve where increases in taxes yield lower revenues to the government. 

Mamdani says he wants to get rid of billionaires. Of course he can do that if he gets the state to confiscate further their wealth. They will all leave – see what is happening in California in response to the proposed 5% levy on billionaires. There are 924 billionaires in America with a total wealth of $8.2 trillion. So if you confiscated 100 percent of that you would fall about $30 trillion bit short of the $38 trillion outstanding in national debt. I have always said that if rich folk like Mitt Romney feel guilty about their wealth they can always unilaterally make a donation to the Treasury. But poor Mitt’s net worth is only $300 million so maybe he is talking about taxing the real billionaires.

https://manhattan.institute/article/the-limits-of-taxing-the-rich

Of course, one way to reduce the deficit is to reduce federal spending. Wasn’t that the purpose of Elon Musk and DOGE? Well it didn’t work. Federal spending continues unabated and actually rose this fiscal year along with the deficit. Maybe that is why Trump seems to have shifted from cutting costs to raising revenues (tariffs anyone?). Are we going to get additional revenues from the sale of Venezuelan oil, from Nvidia and Intel chip sales, from Trump’s gold card visa, from the increase in H1-B visa, from the agreements from tariff negotiations, from the fees paid by universities to settle DEI inquiries and all the rest? Well all of those won’t offset the additional $2 trillion that Trump added to the deficit last year. Again, since total income tax receipts are equal to nondiscretionary spending, it is impossible to ever decrease the deficit.

Defund ICE?

Our regular funding crisis is about to reappear. It is the periodic kabuki dance performed by the congress for our entertainment. Last time the red line was the “temporary” Obamacare subsidies. This time it may well be the funding for ICE as Homeland Security comes up for funding. With democrats like California’s Pete Aguilar referring to ICE as the gestapo and Bernie Sanders calling ICE a domestic army for Donald Trump, there is little appetite on the left for supporting any funding of ICE in the bill for Homeland Security. I doubt if that bill will get a single democrat vote and would not be surprised if there were not major defections from the republican ranks as well. The House actually passed a bill on January 14 funding national security and the State Department but only after funding for Homeland Security and ICE were removed from the bill.

On the Senate side, there is no way that an ICE funding bill would get 60 votes. Every democrat except Pennsylvania’s Fetterman are openly hostile to it. Fetterman said “I reject the calls to defund or abolish ICE. I strongly disagree with many strategies and practices ICE deployed in Minneapolis, and believe that must change.” He added “The operation in Minneapolis should stand down and immediately end. It has become an ungovernable and dangerous urban theatre for civilians and law enforcement that is incompatible with the American spirit.” 

Chris Murphy of Connecticut said “I think it is reasonable for Democrats speaking on behalf of the majority of the American public who don’t approve of what ICE is doing to say, ‘If you want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, I want to fund a Department of Homeland Security that is operating in a safe and legal manner.’” Chuck Schumer has asked that the Homeland Security appropriations bill be dropped from the funding package entirely saying “People should be safe from abuse by their own government.” By the way although Minneapolis has galvanized the opposition to ICE and its tactics, Angus King (I-ME) noted ICE’s operation in Maine saying I can’t vote for a bill that includes ICE funding under these circumstances.” He added The people that are being terrorized in Maine, are being terrorized by ICE. Here’s what’s happening in Portland. People are afraid to send their kids to school, people are afraid to go to work, businesses are suffering because their workers can’t come in.”

Translation: ICE will be left out in the cold.