“Indiana on Friday became the first state in the nation to approve abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as the Republican governor quickly signed a near-total ban on the procedure shortly after lawmakers approved it.
The ban, which takes effect Sept. 15, includes some exceptions. Abortions would be permitted in cases of rape and incest, before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. Victims of rape and incest would not be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to an attack, as had once been proposed.
Under the bill, abortions can be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. A doctor who performs an illegal abortion or fails to file required reports must also lose their medical license — wording that tightens current Indiana law that says a doctor “may” lose their license.
“I am personally most proud of each Hoosier who came forward to courageously share their views in a debate that is unlikely to cease any time soon,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said in the statement announcing that he had signed the measure. “For my part as your governor, I will continue to keep an open ear.”
His approval came after the Senate approved the ban 28-19 and the House advanced it 62-38.
Indiana was among the earliest Republican-run state legislatures to debate tighter abortion laws after the Supreme Court ruling in June that removed constitutional protections for the procedure. But it is the first state to pass a ban through both chambers, after West Virginia lawmakers on July 29 passed up the chance to be that state.
“Happy to be completed with this, one of the more challenging things that we’ve ever done as a state General Assembly, at least certainly while I’ve been here,” Senate President Pro-Tem Rodric Bray told reporters after the vote. “ I think this is a huge opportunity, and we’ll build on that as we go forward from here.”
Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, who sponsored the bill, said that she does not think “all states will come down at the same place” but that most Indiana residents support aspects of the bill.”
Crapo amendment to the Manchin bill to limit the bill's 87,000 new IRS agents to auditing comapnes and individuals with income of $400,000 or more FAILED 50-50.https://t.co/oPKr11BAYwpic.twitter.com/mH4wuMsmJ4
All Fifty Democrat Senators have voted for a massive tax hike during a recession, more subsidies during a period of runaway inflation, and siccing 87,000 new IRS agents on independent businesses at a cost of $80 billion. The November election should be interesting.
Taxes are going to go way up along with energy costs. There will be less money for people to spend and and it's all a political boondoggle with the wealthy getting richer from all the green Investments.
Sinema got her demand to not close the carried interest tax loophole which is what her hedge fund donors wanted. Democrats replaced that with a provision to tax businesses even more.
This is ironic. Democrats say the IRS will go after “the rich,” but the one provision in the Inflation Promotion Act that actually would have been bad for the rich–repeal of the carried interest treatment of income earned by hedge fund managers–is now out of the bill. A friend of mine who made a lot of money as a hedge fund manager describes the carried interest concept as “completely unjustifiable.” Yet Chuck Schumer has protected it against reform for many years, on behalf of Democratic Party donors.
Now, finally, the Democrats ostensibly were ready to turn on their hedge fund backers–Wall Street is not entirely a Democratic enclave, but almost–and what happens? Kristen Sinema rides in to save the day not only for her own hedge fund supporters, but for Schumer’s as well. Coincidence?
That was a digression. More on the IRS:
The [Washington] Post reports the IRS expects a much lower return on all those “rich” people they claim they are going to audit with those 87,000 new agents, which is an eightfold increase in their budget….
Wait! 87,000 new IRS agents? Can this possibly be right? And an eightfold increase in the IRS enforcement budget? What do you suppose the IRS will do with that massive influx of money and manpower?
Showalter and others think the Democrats’ IRS will attack small businesses in a major way. That probably is true. But, as the president of a conservative policy organization, I have another concern. We all remember how Barack Obama’s IRS went after Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations before and after the 2010 midterm wipeout. Mostly, they slow-walked the 501(c)(3) approval process. But imagine an IRS hostile to conservative principles, and emboldened by an eight-fold budget increase and 87,000 new agents. What would the IRS do in the liberals’ wildest dreams?
I think the liberals who run the IRS would sic their agents on every conservative nonprofit in the country. They would audit such organizations, looking for evidence that they somehow had violated the extremely vague regulations governing political activity. Such audits would require even squeaky-clean organizations like my own to hire lawyers to defend them. Government lawyers work for free–that is, courtesy of the taxpayers–while private lawyers have to be paid. Thus, a concerted attack by the IRS could largely disable conservative nonprofits, whose revenue would be dissipated by paying for lawyers, and whose energies would be dissipated in dealing with IRS attacks.
Call me paranoid, but I think this lies behind the Democrats’ sudden desire to drastically upsize the IRS.”
“We have not yet taken the measure of the disaster that is the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act,” perhaps the most absurdly named statute ever. One element of the law that has not gotten enough attention is its imposition of price controls on pharmaceuticals. Price controls are always, and everywhere, a terrible idea. When you apply price controls to a vital product like drugs, the results could be catastrophic.”
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“The package of price controls in the budget reconciliation bill would require Medicare to set prices for certain high-cost drugs and require drug manufacturers to pay rebates to the federal government when price increases exceed inflation. It uses the term “negotiation,” but it operates as a strict price control. That’s because excessive penalties on drug manufacturers for not negotiating make it a negotiation drug companies can’t refuse. Meanwhile, the inflation rebates impose price controls on nearly all drugs covered by Medicare Part D, as well as brand drugs and biologics covered by Medicare Part B.
Europe’s drug manufacturing industry used to be the global leader, but this leadership position eroded over the past three decades and the U.S. now stands on top. Over the most recent five-year period from 2016 to 2020, the U.S. accounted for 138 of the new chemical and biological drug entities, followed by Europe at 64. Twenty years ago, Europe was on top.
The budget reconciliation bill’s strict price controls create a serious risk that the U.S. drug industry might follow in Europe’s footsteps.
To the benefit of–who else?–China. Much more at the link, and especially in the linked report.
There is reason to think that Joe Biden is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party because of corrupt business transactions he has profited from over the years. But what about the 50 Democratic senators? Do they seriously want to devastate America’s pharmaceutical industry, and transfer international leadership in drug innovation to the Communist Chinese?
I certainly hope not. The most charitable interpretation is that most Democratic senators have no idea what is in the package that they have voted for.”
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“Drug Price Controls Will Embolden China at Your Expense”
“In late July, the Senate passed the $280 billion CHIPS Act to give the semiconductor industry funding to compete with China and protect U.S. national interests. Then, on the same day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin announced a deal to revive a budget reconciliation bill with drug price controls that, in stark contrast, would help China compete and take market share from the U.S. biopharma industry.
The short supply of microchips and need for broad access to COVID-19 vaccines plainly shows how both the semi-conductor industry and the biopharma industry are critical to U.S. national interests. Yet, there’s not enough discussion on how drug price controls would undermine those interests. This discussion is especially important now that a deal appears to be moving forward after gaining approval from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
To help jumpstart that discussion, I coauthored a new report with my colleague John Phelan at Center of the American Experiment which highlights how drug price controls would weaken the U.S. drug industry’s global leadership position and give China the opportunity to control greater market share to advance their national interests.
The package of price controls in the budget reconciliation bill would require Medicare to set prices for certain high-cost drugs and require drug manufacturers to pay rebates to the federal government when price increases exceed inflation. It uses the term “negotiation,” but it operates as a strict price control. That’s because excessive penalties on drug manufacturers for not negotiating make it a negotiation drug companies can’t refuse. Meanwhile, the inflation rebates impose price controls on nearly all drugs covered by Medicare Part D, as well as brand drugs and biologics covered by Medicare Part B.
Europe’s drug manufacturing industry used to be the global leader, but this leadership position eroded over the past three decades and the U.S. now stands on top. Over the most recent five-year period from 2016 to 2020, the U.S. accounted for 138 of the new chemical and biological drug entities, followed by Europe at 64. Twenty years ago, Europe was on top.
The budget reconciliation bill’s strict price controls create a serious risk that the U.S. drug industry might follow in Europe’s footsteps.
Price controls are regularly cited as one factor behind Europe’s decline. Research shows price controls impact where drug companies decide to locate and invest. By adopting price controls in line with other countries, the U.S. would be giving up this competitive advantage.
Without this competitive advantage, other countries will be positioned to better compete for greater market share and China is possibly best poised to take advantage for several reasons.
To start, China’s communist government has more power and drive to increase industrial policy spending to support this critical sector. When urging congressional support for the CHIPS Act, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighted how China “has already spent $150 billion on its semiconductor industry.” Likewise, as our report shows, China has prioritized a portion of its industrial policy spending to support the biopharma sector in each of its major industrial policy initiatives since the mid-2000s.
China’s growing share of the global pharmaceutical market also puts it in a stronger position. Domestic markets tend to be easier and less costly to enter, meaning this growing market share will give companies headquartered in China more opportunities to use this domestic advantage.
Finally, China’s active efforts to steal intellectual property from drug companies gives it another ongoing advantage.
As China gains a control over a greater share of new drugs, it will undoubtedly use that control for diplomatic leverage just as it did with access to COVID vaccines. Last year China pressured several countries to sever ties with Taiwan in return for vaccines and, in December, Nicaragua eventually capitulated.
In gaining successful passage of the Endless Frontier Act through the Senate last year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted, “Whoever harnesses the technologies like AI, quantum computing, and innovations yet unseen, will shape the world in their image.” He then fittingly asked, “Do we want that image to be a democratic image? Or do we want it to be an authoritarian image, like the one [Chinese] President Xi would like to impose on the world?””
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Biden made his choice, in favor of his communist overlords, of course.
“On Thursday, Democrats in the United States Senate blocked attempts to offer unanimous consent on two different bills aimed at stopping gain-of-function research funding by the federal government, as the process is now known to have played a key role in the origins and spread of COVID-19.
Just The News reports that the two bills, the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act and the SAFE Risk Research Act, were both introduced by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). The bills would cut funding to universities conducting such research, as well as foreign countries engaging in such experiments.
Gain-of-function involves research where scientists deliberately make genetic modifications to a pre-existing virus, ostensibly to search for positive genetic breakthroughs in the newly-mutated virus; however, the risk is also high that such new viruses can be even deadlier to humans than previously-known viruses.
Recent intelligence revelations have increasingly pointed to the likelihood that such research was the cause of COVID-19’s creation and subsequent spread, most likely out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China. There has been especially intense scrutiny on the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has been confirmed to have provided federal funding for such research to the WIV, despite Anthony Fauci’s prior claims that the NIH had never done so.
“It is disturbing that one of our top public health agencies directed this risky research to be offshored while encouraging the pause in that exact same research in the U.S.,” Marshall said on the Senate floor on Thursday. “Despite warnings and past lab accidents, our public health agencies like NIH continue to fund the WMD research, often in China nonetheless.”
“Shockingly, Congress has minimal insight into the amount of this research at NIH,” Marshall continued. “There is no transparency into their risk evaluation process.”
Marshall had first introduced the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act, only now having the opportunity to bring it before the Senate for possible passage by unanimous consent. But enough Senate Democrats objected that now the process of passing the bill will take much longer.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t his intent to make a pretty convincing case in favor of a second term for President Trump, but that’s more or less what New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall just did.
Obviously, no one knows if Trump really plans on a third campaign, but he undoubtedly sees the same wide opening for him that everyone in the national media can see (otherwise they wouldn’t still be talking about him). And that opening exists not just because Joe Biden and the Democrat-led Congress have turned this country into slums and made everything ghetto, but also because Trump has used his time out of office wisely, creating a political infrastructure that, if elected, would allow him to efficiently implement personnel and policy to revolutionize the federal bureaucracy that was so successful in crushing and stalling vast portions of his 2016 agenda.
“The architects of one of the most radical of Trump’s proposals have described it as ‘the constitutional option,’” wrote Edsall. “It would provide for the wholesale politicization of the elite levels of the Civil Service through the creation of a new ‘Schedule F’ classification, allowing the president to hire and fire at will thousands of government employees ‘in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.’”
Sounds good to me. Though Edsall is woefully naive (or dishonest) in asserting that such reforms would result in a “wholesale politicization” of government workers, as if they currently start each day reciting the American pledge and make every decision based on their deep well of Constitutional knowledge.
The “civil servants” who make up the various executive agencies — Transportation, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, etc. — are no different than the people you come into contact with at the DMV or Employment Office. The same is true for federal contractors. They’re lazy, obdurate, unhelpful, and — worst of all, as we saw from 2017 to 2021 — hostile to meaningful change.
And the fact that staffing those agencies and awarding government contracts comes with all kinds of affirmative action requirements and that the main pool of candidates is all Washington, D.C.-area residents (Democrat voters) compounds the problem by a thousand.
To top it off, firing any one of them for incompetence or insubordination is next to impossible. That Trump would do God’s work in dismantling the entire rancid bureaucracy to replace it with something responsive and productive (imagine!) is not an idea that’s going to scare voters. This is why Edsall consulted some Harvard professor to hysterically claim that the aim of Trump’s change is “exerting domination and using the government apparatus to reward loyalists and punish perceived opponents.”
Or maybe the point is to prevent unelected government workers from derailing the president’s policy agenda, as they did — they admitted it — time and time again during his tenure.”
“More than a dozen high-ranking members of the Biden administration previously worked as registered foreign agents, according to a new report obtained exclusively by The Federalist. The report was published by the Biden administration watchdog “Inside Biden’s Basement,” itself a project of the nonprofit Transparency Action Fund.
Titled, “Foreign Agents Lurking Inside Biden’s Basement,” the group’s new report outlines the networks of at least 13 officials under President Joe Biden who were once paid to represent foreign interests and registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Their prior clients range from Iran and Kazakhstan to Canada and Mexico.
FARA records show White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su’s law firm paid out $30,000 a month to Mercury Public Affairs on behalf of the government of Kazakhstan in 2018. Biden Special Assistant Erin Pelton was employed with Mercury in the same year and worked on behalf of both Kazakhstan and Qatar, according to public government documents.
In 2006, Biden’s U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski’s public affairs firm, McGuireWoods Consulting, was paid nearly $140,000 over a six-month period by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).
“As Americans experience one Biden-era crisis pile on top of another, the President’s Cabinet, spokesmen, and aides behind the scenes seem to put America last,” said Derrick Hollie, the communications director for Inside Biden’s Basement. “It is instructive for Americans watching their needs take a back seat to know which of those officials Inside Biden’s Basement have represented nations other than our own yet now have tremendous power over their lives.” Hollie worked previously in Trump’s Department of Transportation.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires that anyone lobbying on behalf of a foreign client disclose their business to the Department of Justice. Filings regularly demonstrate the extent of bipartisan corruption in Washington. As the Washington establishment sought to undercut former President Donald Trump, FARA enforcement kicked into high gear amid investigations into Trump officials such as Paul Manafort.
Those efforts, however, highlighted how deeply entrenched foreign interests are in Washington, D.C., also ensnaring Tony Podesta, a top Democrat lobbyist and the brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Manafort, Tony Podesta, and Rick Gates failed to disclose their lobbying efforts on behalf of interests connected to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. While the media focuses heavily on the very real problems of foreign influence among certain Trump associates, far less attention is paid to the damning connections shared by Biden officials.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, the most senior of those listed, represented five international clients including the Union Nacional de Productores de Hortalizas in Mexico; the Government of Brazil; VIASA, previously known as Venezuelan International Airways; the International Commodities Clearing House, Ltd. in the United Kingdom; and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT).
Biden adviser Anita Dunn, another senior official highlighted who returned to the West Wing in May, previously served the government of Ontario. Dunn had also voluntarily coordinated public relations strategy for disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. While not an international client, the ex-movie mogul was convicted of rape in 2020 and was sentenced to 23 years in prison at 67 following testimonies from six women against him. Dunn was also reported by the Wall Street Journal to admire former Chinese dictator Mao Zedong as a favorite political philosopher.
Other officials named in the report include U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake and U.S. Representative to the European Union Mark Gitenstein. Flake, who served a single term in the Senate from Arizona, previously represented Rossing Uranium Ltd., a Nambian mining operation with connections to the government of Iran. Gitenstein worked for the Swiss-headquartered food giant Nestle.
Six other administration officials who were registered foreign agents include Robert Bauer, the co-chair of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court; Melissa Schwartz, the communications director for the Department of the Interior; Natalie Wyeth Earnest, counselor to the Treasury secretary; Maria Fabiana Jorge, alternate executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank; Zev Karlin-Neumann, a communications adviser for the Domestic Policy Council, and Steven Ricchetti, counselor to Biden.
While the report names 13 officials who were registered foreign agents before their tenure in the administration, the report is not exhaustive. The administration is actively working to conceal the identities of presidential appointees more than 18 months into Biden’s first term.
Last month, a separate conservative legal group, America First Legal (AFL), launched a litigation blitz to unearth the names, titles, positions, resumes, salaries, ethics pledges, waivers, and agreements of all appointees under Biden.”
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Now you know where the Biden admin’s “America Last” policies are coming from.
Why did Republican senators pick $400 000 as the base level? Was it concern for the middle class or did they purposely pick an amount high enough that it would exclude almost everyone from tax increases. Only 6% of all Americans make over $250 000, only 10% make over $200 000. The knew $400 000 would completely gut the bill thereby forcing Democrats to vote against – in other words political theatre. If the Republicans were truly concerned about the average American; why not pick $67K, the median household income or 65K the average household income. The amendment might have worked at that amount and as an added bonus; it would protect people living in low income areas (with low expenses), mostly Republican, vs the higher income and higher expense Democratiic voting areas. Instead of political theatre maybe they could have succeeded in protecting their voters from tax increases.
Another interesting aspect of this bill is the claims it will fuel inflation. Standard monetarist economic theory states inflation is due to increase d supply. The cure then is to raise interest rates and freeze wages – the poor then pay for the rich to maintain the value of their assets. Here, the Democrats are lowering the money supply through taxes on the wealthier Americans. In this scenario, the rich are paying to maintain their own assets. Far fairer.
Now this is according to standard monetarist economic theory which has been guiding us since the days of Reagan. Of course, it’s wrong. Inflation has many factors – low supply, high demand, increased transportation and distribution costs, etc. However, I do find it vastly amusing that the party of Reagan thinks increased taxes cause inflation. Now we know the Republicnas have no ideas other than to protect the wealthy including themselves.
So the director of a conservative nonprofity group is afraid the IRS will audit groups like his? A little self interest then in his criticism. Why is he afraid? I’m sure his books are in order. Personally, that’s the first place I would direct IRS agents if I was in charge of the IRS. I’m sure we all agree that Washington is a cess pool of lobby groups, PACS, adminstrators, and politicians. There’s a revolving door in Congress and White House no matter the administration – in which lobbyists, politicians, military leaders, administrators, etc change their hats almost daily.
And the problem isn’t just domestic — foreign powers hire advisers and lobbyists and donate to both parties. Every lobbying firm should be audited every year – unless the amount and placement of foreign money is entirely known the US will devolve into a third world style gov’t.
Price controls work, especially in a monopoly or oligopoly situation. Pharma is essentially an oligopoly and will charge what they want in an industry in which the consumer rarely has a choice. Due to US patent laws, drugs are often a monopoly far longer than anywhere else in the world. Comparing the number of patents issued between Germany and the US is an ambiguous measuring device at best – we don’t know the quality of patents – how many are for ED and how many for cancer? The US issues patents for relatively minor changes to an existing product (usually to extend the monopoly) whereas the EU has a higher standard. Protecting Big Pharma’s exhorbation profits is the Republican aim here not innovation.
Even more amusing, right wing critics argue this will give China an opportunity to takeover the pharmaceutical industry. This completely negates their original point as the Chinese actually have price controls and massive political interference in their corporations including drug companies. If price controls (which work everywhere) will prevent US innovation then price controls and political interference should ruin the Chinese firms too. With this type of contradiction we know some writers and republicans will say anything to protect their wealthy supporters.
Who wouldn’t be afraid of an overbearing, overreaching bureaucracy with the full weight of govt and its resources targeting them and their business.
Just like Jan 6ers they will be targeted just for thinking wrong.
And as we learned from the fiasco Obama and his henchwoman Lois Lerner, even if you did nothing wrong, they’ll take you to the poor house in legal fees fighting them. So even if you win, you lose.
Only an authoritarian leftist like you wouldn’t have an issue with this.
“Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) has listed several taxes in in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” that passed the Senate on Sunday — which Democrats now hail as a “climate” bill, since the Congressional Budget Offices says it will hardly reduce inflation.
These taxes include taxes on fossil fuel, which will raise energy costs for working-class families, still struggling with high gas prices; taxes on businesses that will affect consumers and entrepreneurs; taxes on medicines; and taxes that affect pensions.
Notably, President Joe Biden promised that the bill will “bring down family energy bills by an average of $500 a year” and that he would not tax those earning less than $400,000 per year. ATR’s analysis suggests that he will violate both promises.
The full list, as published by ATR, is summarized below.
Taxes on fossil fuels: These include a $6.5 billion tax on natural gas production; a “16.4 cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products”; and a $1.2 billion coal tax. All of these would likely raise energy costs for typical households.
Taxes on corporations: The bill includes a 15% minimum tax on large corporations, which ATR argues will be passed onto consumers, and which will hit the manufacturing industry particularly hard as it is still struggling with supply chain problems.
Taxes on medium-sized businesses: ATR says the bill extends a limit on loss deductions for “passthrough” businesses — S corporations and sole proprietorships — for two years, without extending a corresponding 20% deduction on income.
Indirect tax on pensions through taxing stock buybacks: The bill taxes companies that buy their own stock back, ignoring the fact that doing so often raises the price of the stock. The tax therefore hurts 401(k) savings, and even union pension funds.
Tax on pharmaceuticals unless they accept price caps: The bill imposes a 95% excise tax on pharmaceuticals that do not accept government price controls, which could affect the ability of drug companies to develop new treatments in the future.
ATR also notes that the bill adds $80 billion, and 87,000 new staff members, to the Internal Revenue Service — and there is no guarantee that they will simply focus on wealthy tax evaders rather than auditing ordinary Americans with lower incomes.”
Ah yes, Democrats all agreeing to raise taxes on our shrinking middle class is a “massive win.” Nothing says “massive win” like hiring 87,000 IRS agents to rip apart the lives of working families. DC media exists wholly apart from the pain & hardship of struggling Americans. 1/3 https://t.co/5W4ZOZunAs
They voted for a massive middle class tax hike & they unanimously REJECTED amendments to secure the border, lower violent crime, curb inflation, reduce gas prices, reclaim energy independence & restore the definition of biological sex. This bill isn’t a win; it’s an atrocity. 3/3
It’s just AOC’s Green New Deal Scheme repackaged with lies about non-existent inflation reduction.
“Senate Passes Schumer-Manchin Middle-Class Tax Increase and Green Boondoggle Bill
“The bill raises more than $700 billion in tax revenue and spends over $400 billion. The key elements include extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, a suite of climate-related spending and tax credits, provisions on fossil fuel energy, a 15% minimum corporate tax rate and more.””
The Senate Sunday passed the Democrats’ social spending and taxation bill after a marathon “vote-a-rama” session that lasted more than 15 hours, marking a major win for the Democratic agenda just over three months before Election Day.
Vice President Harris cast a tiebreaking vote to allow the legislation to pass 51-50.
. . . . The passage of the bill is the culmination of more than a year of intra-party negotiations among Democrats trying to pass a party-line bill. They used a process called budget reconciliation, which allows them to get around the Senate filibuster, to do it.
But even avoiding the filibuster, Democrats still encountered a major hiccup toward the end of their effort to pass it. A drafting issue would have increased taxes on companies worth less than Democrats’ intended $1 billion threshold if they were subsidiaries of a firm worth more than that amount.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., introduced an amendment to deal with the issue, which cost $35 billion. But his proposal would have been paid for by extending the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap for one year. That would have complicated passage of the final bill, because many Northeast Democrats detest the SALT cap.
The Senate passed Thune’s amendment. But it changed the way to pay for it by using an amendment from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to replace the SALT cap with “a two year extension of a so-called loss limitation policy.” That amendment passed with Harris’ help, and cleared the way for final passage.”
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Like with ObamaCare, they don’t care about the damage, they just ram it thru.
🚨BREAKING:
Kamala Harris just cast the tie-breaking vote seconds ago to pass the Dem Senate bill to RAISE taxes on families and businesses while spendingTRILLIONS more on leftist elitist pet projects during a RECESSION.
AJ – you missed the sarcasm; the proverbial response from the right when people want to limit police rights was always “if you have nothing to hide?….” The same could apply here. People advocating law and order are suddenly worried when law and order are applied to them.
ATR is hardly an unbiased source of criticism. A 16.4 cents per barrel tax is a joke. Coal is mainly used for steel production and other corporate uses. To suggest these taxes will be passed through to consumers is to admit there is no competitive energy market. Currently, oil and energy companies are making record profits. They can absorb these taxes. In a competitive marketplace, at least one company will absorb the taxes forcing others to follow suit. However, if a competitive marketplace doesn’t exist and an oligarchy is price fixing perhaps its time for the Anti-Trust Act to come back.
Again, this is the same problem with arguing the 15% min corporate tax will be passed on to consumers. In a competitive market place, it should be absorbed by the corporation. Again they are making record profits (and pushing up inflation) that they can absorb the taxes unless they are engaged in price fixing. If the ATR is arguing that price fixing will allow corporations to pass through the taxes, then perhaps we have a different problem that needs to be solved.
Taxing stock buybacks is a small measure to combat a parasitical practise. There are no benefits to the general economy in a stock buyback; it temporarily increases stock prices and allows those in the inside to gain a profit and the CEO to “earn” a bonus. This sort of corrupt capitalism does not produce long term growth. Pension funds do not benefit from stock buyback as they need long term stable growth.
Stock buybacks were banned until Reagan allowed it in the 80s. Here’s a simple scenario — hedge fund manager takesover a profit making company, they sell all the capital assets (which are worth more than the company) placing the proceeds to the sale in the company ledgers, thereby inflating the share price, they sell shares, this decreases the price and they then buyback all the shares they sold at al lower price thereby creating a profit for the company — meanwhile the capital assets are sold, the company has very few employees, and most of the profit is derived from pump and dump. Not very productive and for Republicans to be against any type of stock buyback limitations demonstrates whose interests they have.
Stephen Miller is so out of touch with ordinary Americans. I’ve done the math already – most of the IRS is directed toward the richer half of America not the middle class. 400K a year is not a middle class income. Perhaps he thinks it is but thats the problem with the political class – they think they are middle class.
Wandering Views 
“Indiana becomes 1st state to approve abortion ban post Roe”
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-indianapolis-indiana-83fe300188fcf15d8a3b4a36ceee7443
“Indiana on Friday became the first state in the nation to approve abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as the Republican governor quickly signed a near-total ban on the procedure shortly after lawmakers approved it.
The ban, which takes effect Sept. 15, includes some exceptions. Abortions would be permitted in cases of rape and incest, before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. Victims of rape and incest would not be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to an attack, as had once been proposed.
Under the bill, abortions can be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. A doctor who performs an illegal abortion or fails to file required reports must also lose their medical license — wording that tightens current Indiana law that says a doctor “may” lose their license.
“I am personally most proud of each Hoosier who came forward to courageously share their views in a debate that is unlikely to cease any time soon,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said in the statement announcing that he had signed the measure. “For my part as your governor, I will continue to keep an open ear.”
His approval came after the Senate approved the ban 28-19 and the House advanced it 62-38.
Indiana was among the earliest Republican-run state legislatures to debate tighter abortion laws after the Supreme Court ruling in June that removed constitutional protections for the procedure. But it is the first state to pass a ban through both chambers, after West Virginia lawmakers on July 29 passed up the chance to be that state.
“Happy to be completed with this, one of the more challenging things that we’ve ever done as a state General Assembly, at least certainly while I’ve been here,” Senate President Pro-Tem Rodric Bray told reporters after the vote. “ I think this is a huge opportunity, and we’ll build on that as we go forward from here.”
Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, who sponsored the bill, said that she does not think “all states will come down at the same place” but that most Indiana residents support aspects of the bill.”
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Not for the commoners they say….
But they lie about everything. And if it’s not, why not allow the amendment to pass?
Who killed it? Democrats, who keep telling you it’s not for the commoners, while not protecting the commoners from it….
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Defund the IRS will be a thing come January.
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Enjoy!
And remember, Joe and Democrats built this.
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Truth never enters their narrative….
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Nor does common sense….
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When the IRS begins targeting conservatives again, this is the avenue they’ll use.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/whats-behind-the-democrats-irs-expansion.php
“$300 billion to the IRS? Seriously?
Sinema got her demand to not close the carried interest tax loophole which is what her hedge fund donors wanted. Democrats replaced that with a provision to tax businesses even more.
This is ironic. Democrats say the IRS will go after “the rich,” but the one provision in the Inflation Promotion Act that actually would have been bad for the rich–repeal of the carried interest treatment of income earned by hedge fund managers–is now out of the bill. A friend of mine who made a lot of money as a hedge fund manager describes the carried interest concept as “completely unjustifiable.” Yet Chuck Schumer has protected it against reform for many years, on behalf of Democratic Party donors.
Now, finally, the Democrats ostensibly were ready to turn on their hedge fund backers–Wall Street is not entirely a Democratic enclave, but almost–and what happens? Kristen Sinema rides in to save the day not only for her own hedge fund supporters, but for Schumer’s as well. Coincidence?
That was a digression. More on the IRS:
The [Washington] Post reports the IRS expects a much lower return on all those “rich” people they claim they are going to audit with those 87,000 new agents, which is an eightfold increase in their budget….
Wait! 87,000 new IRS agents? Can this possibly be right? And an eightfold increase in the IRS enforcement budget? What do you suppose the IRS will do with that massive influx of money and manpower?
Showalter and others think the Democrats’ IRS will attack small businesses in a major way. That probably is true. But, as the president of a conservative policy organization, I have another concern. We all remember how Barack Obama’s IRS went after Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations before and after the 2010 midterm wipeout. Mostly, they slow-walked the 501(c)(3) approval process. But imagine an IRS hostile to conservative principles, and emboldened by an eight-fold budget increase and 87,000 new agents. What would the IRS do in the liberals’ wildest dreams?
I think the liberals who run the IRS would sic their agents on every conservative nonprofit in the country. They would audit such organizations, looking for evidence that they somehow had violated the extremely vague regulations governing political activity. Such audits would require even squeaky-clean organizations like my own to hire lawyers to defend them. Government lawyers work for free–that is, courtesy of the taxpayers–while private lawyers have to be paid. Thus, a concerted attack by the IRS could largely disable conservative nonprofits, whose revenue would be dissipated by paying for lawyers, and whose energies would be dissipated in dealing with IRS attacks.
Call me paranoid, but I think this lies behind the Democrats’ sudden desire to drastically upsize the IRS.”
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“ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE DEM DISASTER: DRUG PRICE CONTROLS”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/08/another-aspect-of-the-dem-disaster-drug-price-controls.php
“We have not yet taken the measure of the disaster that is the Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act,” perhaps the most absurdly named statute ever. One element of the law that has not gotten enough attention is its imposition of price controls on pharmaceuticals. Price controls are always, and everywhere, a terrible idea. When you apply price controls to a vital product like drugs, the results could be catastrophic.”
———
“The package of price controls in the budget reconciliation bill would require Medicare to set prices for certain high-cost drugs and require drug manufacturers to pay rebates to the federal government when price increases exceed inflation. It uses the term “negotiation,” but it operates as a strict price control. That’s because excessive penalties on drug manufacturers for not negotiating make it a negotiation drug companies can’t refuse. Meanwhile, the inflation rebates impose price controls on nearly all drugs covered by Medicare Part D, as well as brand drugs and biologics covered by Medicare Part B.
Europe’s drug manufacturing industry used to be the global leader, but this leadership position eroded over the past three decades and the U.S. now stands on top. Over the most recent five-year period from 2016 to 2020, the U.S. accounted for 138 of the new chemical and biological drug entities, followed by Europe at 64. Twenty years ago, Europe was on top.
The budget reconciliation bill’s strict price controls create a serious risk that the U.S. drug industry might follow in Europe’s footsteps.
To the benefit of–who else?–China. Much more at the link, and especially in the linked report.
There is reason to think that Joe Biden is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party because of corrupt business transactions he has profited from over the years. But what about the 50 Democratic senators? Do they seriously want to devastate America’s pharmaceutical industry, and transfer international leadership in drug innovation to the Communist Chinese?
I certainly hope not. The most charitable interpretation is that most Democratic senators have no idea what is in the package that they have voted for.”
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“Drug Price Controls Will Embolden China at Your Expense”
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/08/05/drug_price_controls_will_embolden_china_at_your_expense_846562.html
“In late July, the Senate passed the $280 billion CHIPS Act to give the semiconductor industry funding to compete with China and protect U.S. national interests. Then, on the same day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin announced a deal to revive a budget reconciliation bill with drug price controls that, in stark contrast, would help China compete and take market share from the U.S. biopharma industry.
The short supply of microchips and need for broad access to COVID-19 vaccines plainly shows how both the semi-conductor industry and the biopharma industry are critical to U.S. national interests. Yet, there’s not enough discussion on how drug price controls would undermine those interests. This discussion is especially important now that a deal appears to be moving forward after gaining approval from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
To help jumpstart that discussion, I coauthored a new report with my colleague John Phelan at Center of the American Experiment which highlights how drug price controls would weaken the U.S. drug industry’s global leadership position and give China the opportunity to control greater market share to advance their national interests.
The package of price controls in the budget reconciliation bill would require Medicare to set prices for certain high-cost drugs and require drug manufacturers to pay rebates to the federal government when price increases exceed inflation. It uses the term “negotiation,” but it operates as a strict price control. That’s because excessive penalties on drug manufacturers for not negotiating make it a negotiation drug companies can’t refuse. Meanwhile, the inflation rebates impose price controls on nearly all drugs covered by Medicare Part D, as well as brand drugs and biologics covered by Medicare Part B.
Europe’s drug manufacturing industry used to be the global leader, but this leadership position eroded over the past three decades and the U.S. now stands on top. Over the most recent five-year period from 2016 to 2020, the U.S. accounted for 138 of the new chemical and biological drug entities, followed by Europe at 64. Twenty years ago, Europe was on top.
The budget reconciliation bill’s strict price controls create a serious risk that the U.S. drug industry might follow in Europe’s footsteps.
Price controls are regularly cited as one factor behind Europe’s decline. Research shows price controls impact where drug companies decide to locate and invest. By adopting price controls in line with other countries, the U.S. would be giving up this competitive advantage.
Without this competitive advantage, other countries will be positioned to better compete for greater market share and China is possibly best poised to take advantage for several reasons.
To start, China’s communist government has more power and drive to increase industrial policy spending to support this critical sector. When urging congressional support for the CHIPS Act, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighted how China “has already spent $150 billion on its semiconductor industry.” Likewise, as our report shows, China has prioritized a portion of its industrial policy spending to support the biopharma sector in each of its major industrial policy initiatives since the mid-2000s.
China’s growing share of the global pharmaceutical market also puts it in a stronger position. Domestic markets tend to be easier and less costly to enter, meaning this growing market share will give companies headquartered in China more opportunities to use this domestic advantage.
Finally, China’s active efforts to steal intellectual property from drug companies gives it another ongoing advantage.
As China gains a control over a greater share of new drugs, it will undoubtedly use that control for diplomatic leverage just as it did with access to COVID vaccines. Last year China pressured several countries to sever ties with Taiwan in return for vaccines and, in December, Nicaragua eventually capitulated.
In gaining successful passage of the Endless Frontier Act through the Senate last year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer noted, “Whoever harnesses the technologies like AI, quantum computing, and innovations yet unseen, will shape the world in their image.” He then fittingly asked, “Do we want that image to be a democratic image? Or do we want it to be an authoritarian image, like the one [Chinese] President Xi would like to impose on the world?””
——
Biden made his choice, in favor of his communist overlords, of course.
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When the next man made pandemic hits, remember it was Democrats that enabled it.
“Senate Democrats Block Bills to Halt Gain-of-Function Research”
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/05/senate-democrats-block-bills-to-halt-gain-of-function-research/
“On Thursday, Democrats in the United States Senate blocked attempts to offer unanimous consent on two different bills aimed at stopping gain-of-function research funding by the federal government, as the process is now known to have played a key role in the origins and spread of COVID-19.
Just The News reports that the two bills, the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act and the SAFE Risk Research Act, were both introduced by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). The bills would cut funding to universities conducting such research, as well as foreign countries engaging in such experiments.
Gain-of-function involves research where scientists deliberately make genetic modifications to a pre-existing virus, ostensibly to search for positive genetic breakthroughs in the newly-mutated virus; however, the risk is also high that such new viruses can be even deadlier to humans than previously-known viruses.
Recent intelligence revelations have increasingly pointed to the likelihood that such research was the cause of COVID-19’s creation and subsequent spread, most likely out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Wuhan, China. There has been especially intense scrutiny on the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has been confirmed to have provided federal funding for such research to the WIV, despite Anthony Fauci’s prior claims that the NIH had never done so.
“It is disturbing that one of our top public health agencies directed this risky research to be offshored while encouraging the pause in that exact same research in the U.S.,” Marshall said on the Senate floor on Thursday. “Despite warnings and past lab accidents, our public health agencies like NIH continue to fund the WMD research, often in China nonetheless.”
“Shockingly, Congress has minimal insight into the amount of this research at NIH,” Marshall continued. “There is no transparency into their risk evaluation process.”
Marshall had first introduced the Viral Gain of Function Research Moratorium Act, only now having the opportunity to bring it before the Senate for possible passage by unanimous consent. But enough Senate Democrats objected that now the process of passing the bill will take much longer.”
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Just watching the media and Democrats (I know, I repeat myself) lose their minds would make it worth it. 🙂
So would this.
“A Bureaucratic Swamp Shakedown Is Trump’s Strongest Case For A Second Term”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/05/a-bureaucratic-swamp-shakedown-is-trumps-strongest-case-for-a-second-term/
“I’m sure it wasn’t his intent to make a pretty convincing case in favor of a second term for President Trump, but that’s more or less what New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall just did.
Obviously, no one knows if Trump really plans on a third campaign, but he undoubtedly sees the same wide opening for him that everyone in the national media can see (otherwise they wouldn’t still be talking about him). And that opening exists not just because Joe Biden and the Democrat-led Congress have turned this country into slums and made everything ghetto, but also because Trump has used his time out of office wisely, creating a political infrastructure that, if elected, would allow him to efficiently implement personnel and policy to revolutionize the federal bureaucracy that was so successful in crushing and stalling vast portions of his 2016 agenda.
“The architects of one of the most radical of Trump’s proposals have described it as ‘the constitutional option,’” wrote Edsall. “It would provide for the wholesale politicization of the elite levels of the Civil Service through the creation of a new ‘Schedule F’ classification, allowing the president to hire and fire at will thousands of government employees ‘in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.’”
Sounds good to me. Though Edsall is woefully naive (or dishonest) in asserting that such reforms would result in a “wholesale politicization” of government workers, as if they currently start each day reciting the American pledge and make every decision based on their deep well of Constitutional knowledge.
The “civil servants” who make up the various executive agencies — Transportation, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, etc. — are no different than the people you come into contact with at the DMV or Employment Office. The same is true for federal contractors. They’re lazy, obdurate, unhelpful, and — worst of all, as we saw from 2017 to 2021 — hostile to meaningful change.
And the fact that staffing those agencies and awarding government contracts comes with all kinds of affirmative action requirements and that the main pool of candidates is all Washington, D.C.-area residents (Democrat voters) compounds the problem by a thousand.
To top it off, firing any one of them for incompetence or insubordination is next to impossible. That Trump would do God’s work in dismantling the entire rancid bureaucracy to replace it with something responsive and productive (imagine!) is not an idea that’s going to scare voters. This is why Edsall consulted some Harvard professor to hysterically claim that the aim of Trump’s change is “exerting domination and using the government apparatus to reward loyalists and punish perceived opponents.”
Or maybe the point is to prevent unelected government workers from derailing the president’s policy agenda, as they did — they admitted it — time and time again during his tenure.”
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“EXCLUSIVE: Report Shows Biden Admin Run By Former Registered Foreign Agents”
“More than a dozen high-ranking members of the Biden administration were previously registered foreign agents.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/05/exclusive-report-shows-biden-admin-run-by-former-registered-foreign-agents/
“More than a dozen high-ranking members of the Biden administration previously worked as registered foreign agents, according to a new report obtained exclusively by The Federalist. The report was published by the Biden administration watchdog “Inside Biden’s Basement,” itself a project of the nonprofit Transparency Action Fund.
Titled, “Foreign Agents Lurking Inside Biden’s Basement,” the group’s new report outlines the networks of at least 13 officials under President Joe Biden who were once paid to represent foreign interests and registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Their prior clients range from Iran and Kazakhstan to Canada and Mexico.
FARA records show White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su’s law firm paid out $30,000 a month to Mercury Public Affairs on behalf of the government of Kazakhstan in 2018. Biden Special Assistant Erin Pelton was employed with Mercury in the same year and worked on behalf of both Kazakhstan and Qatar, according to public government documents.
In 2006, Biden’s U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski’s public affairs firm, McGuireWoods Consulting, was paid nearly $140,000 over a six-month period by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).
“As Americans experience one Biden-era crisis pile on top of another, the President’s Cabinet, spokesmen, and aides behind the scenes seem to put America last,” said Derrick Hollie, the communications director for Inside Biden’s Basement. “It is instructive for Americans watching their needs take a back seat to know which of those officials Inside Biden’s Basement have represented nations other than our own yet now have tremendous power over their lives.” Hollie worked previously in Trump’s Department of Transportation.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires that anyone lobbying on behalf of a foreign client disclose their business to the Department of Justice. Filings regularly demonstrate the extent of bipartisan corruption in Washington. As the Washington establishment sought to undercut former President Donald Trump, FARA enforcement kicked into high gear amid investigations into Trump officials such as Paul Manafort.
Those efforts, however, highlighted how deeply entrenched foreign interests are in Washington, D.C., also ensnaring Tony Podesta, a top Democrat lobbyist and the brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Manafort, Tony Podesta, and Rick Gates failed to disclose their lobbying efforts on behalf of interests connected to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. While the media focuses heavily on the very real problems of foreign influence among certain Trump associates, far less attention is paid to the damning connections shared by Biden officials.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, the most senior of those listed, represented five international clients including the Union Nacional de Productores de Hortalizas in Mexico; the Government of Brazil; VIASA, previously known as Venezuelan International Airways; the International Commodities Clearing House, Ltd. in the United Kingdom; and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT).
Biden adviser Anita Dunn, another senior official highlighted who returned to the West Wing in May, previously served the government of Ontario. Dunn had also voluntarily coordinated public relations strategy for disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. While not an international client, the ex-movie mogul was convicted of rape in 2020 and was sentenced to 23 years in prison at 67 following testimonies from six women against him. Dunn was also reported by the Wall Street Journal to admire former Chinese dictator Mao Zedong as a favorite political philosopher.
Other officials named in the report include U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake and U.S. Representative to the European Union Mark Gitenstein. Flake, who served a single term in the Senate from Arizona, previously represented Rossing Uranium Ltd., a Nambian mining operation with connections to the government of Iran. Gitenstein worked for the Swiss-headquartered food giant Nestle.
Six other administration officials who were registered foreign agents include Robert Bauer, the co-chair of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court; Melissa Schwartz, the communications director for the Department of the Interior; Natalie Wyeth Earnest, counselor to the Treasury secretary; Maria Fabiana Jorge, alternate executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank; Zev Karlin-Neumann, a communications adviser for the Domestic Policy Council, and Steven Ricchetti, counselor to Biden.
While the report names 13 officials who were registered foreign agents before their tenure in the administration, the report is not exhaustive. The administration is actively working to conceal the identities of presidential appointees more than 18 months into Biden’s first term.
Last month, a separate conservative legal group, America First Legal (AFL), launched a litigation blitz to unearth the names, titles, positions, resumes, salaries, ethics pledges, waivers, and agreements of all appointees under Biden.”
——–
Now you know where the Biden admin’s “America Last” policies are coming from.
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Why did Republican senators pick $400 000 as the base level? Was it concern for the middle class or did they purposely pick an amount high enough that it would exclude almost everyone from tax increases. Only 6% of all Americans make over $250 000, only 10% make over $200 000. The knew $400 000 would completely gut the bill thereby forcing Democrats to vote against – in other words political theatre. If the Republicans were truly concerned about the average American; why not pick $67K, the median household income or 65K the average household income. The amendment might have worked at that amount and as an added bonus; it would protect people living in low income areas (with low expenses), mostly Republican, vs the higher income and higher expense Democratiic voting areas. Instead of political theatre maybe they could have succeeded in protecting their voters from tax increases.
Another interesting aspect of this bill is the claims it will fuel inflation. Standard monetarist economic theory states inflation is due to increase d supply. The cure then is to raise interest rates and freeze wages – the poor then pay for the rich to maintain the value of their assets. Here, the Democrats are lowering the money supply through taxes on the wealthier Americans. In this scenario, the rich are paying to maintain their own assets. Far fairer.
Now this is according to standard monetarist economic theory which has been guiding us since the days of Reagan. Of course, it’s wrong. Inflation has many factors – low supply, high demand, increased transportation and distribution costs, etc. However, I do find it vastly amusing that the party of Reagan thinks increased taxes cause inflation. Now we know the Republicnas have no ideas other than to protect the wealthy including themselves.
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So the director of a conservative nonprofity group is afraid the IRS will audit groups like his? A little self interest then in his criticism. Why is he afraid? I’m sure his books are in order. Personally, that’s the first place I would direct IRS agents if I was in charge of the IRS. I’m sure we all agree that Washington is a cess pool of lobby groups, PACS, adminstrators, and politicians. There’s a revolving door in Congress and White House no matter the administration – in which lobbyists, politicians, military leaders, administrators, etc change their hats almost daily.
And the problem isn’t just domestic — foreign powers hire advisers and lobbyists and donate to both parties. Every lobbying firm should be audited every year – unless the amount and placement of foreign money is entirely known the US will devolve into a third world style gov’t.
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Price controls work, especially in a monopoly or oligopoly situation. Pharma is essentially an oligopoly and will charge what they want in an industry in which the consumer rarely has a choice. Due to US patent laws, drugs are often a monopoly far longer than anywhere else in the world. Comparing the number of patents issued between Germany and the US is an ambiguous measuring device at best – we don’t know the quality of patents – how many are for ED and how many for cancer? The US issues patents for relatively minor changes to an existing product (usually to extend the monopoly) whereas the EU has a higher standard. Protecting Big Pharma’s exhorbation profits is the Republican aim here not innovation.
Even more amusing, right wing critics argue this will give China an opportunity to takeover the pharmaceutical industry. This completely negates their original point as the Chinese actually have price controls and massive political interference in their corporations including drug companies. If price controls (which work everywhere) will prevent US innovation then price controls and political interference should ruin the Chinese firms too. With this type of contradiction we know some writers and republicans will say anything to protect their wealthy supporters.
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“Why is he afraid? ”
Who wouldn’t be afraid of an overbearing, overreaching bureaucracy with the full weight of govt and its resources targeting them and their business.
Just like Jan 6ers they will be targeted just for thinking wrong.
And as we learned from the fiasco Obama and his henchwoman Lois Lerner, even if you did nothing wrong, they’ll take you to the poor house in legal fees fighting them. So even if you win, you lose.
Only an authoritarian leftist like you wouldn’t have an issue with this.
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The ruining of America continues, to the applause of Democrats.
“ATR: Taxes on Fuel, Business, Medicines, and More in ‘Inflation Reduction Act’”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/08/atr-taxes-on-fuel-business-medicines-and-more-in-inflation-reduction-act/
“Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) has listed several taxes in in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” that passed the Senate on Sunday — which Democrats now hail as a “climate” bill, since the Congressional Budget Offices says it will hardly reduce inflation.
These taxes include taxes on fossil fuel, which will raise energy costs for working-class families, still struggling with high gas prices; taxes on businesses that will affect consumers and entrepreneurs; taxes on medicines; and taxes that affect pensions.
Notably, President Joe Biden promised that the bill will “bring down family energy bills by an average of $500 a year” and that he would not tax those earning less than $400,000 per year. ATR’s analysis suggests that he will violate both promises.
The full list, as published by ATR, is summarized below.
Taxes on fossil fuels: These include a $6.5 billion tax on natural gas production; a “16.4 cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products”; and a $1.2 billion coal tax. All of these would likely raise energy costs for typical households.
Taxes on corporations: The bill includes a 15% minimum tax on large corporations, which ATR argues will be passed onto consumers, and which will hit the manufacturing industry particularly hard as it is still struggling with supply chain problems.
Taxes on medium-sized businesses: ATR says the bill extends a limit on loss deductions for “passthrough” businesses — S corporations and sole proprietorships — for two years, without extending a corresponding 20% deduction on income.
Indirect tax on pensions through taxing stock buybacks: The bill taxes companies that buy their own stock back, ignoring the fact that doing so often raises the price of the stock. The tax therefore hurts 401(k) savings, and even union pension funds.
Tax on pharmaceuticals unless they accept price caps: The bill imposes a 95% excise tax on pharmaceuticals that do not accept government price controls, which could affect the ability of drug companies to develop new treatments in the future.
ATR also notes that the bill adds $80 billion, and 87,000 new staff members, to the Internal Revenue Service — and there is no guarantee that they will simply focus on wealthy tax evaders rather than auditing ordinary Americans with lower incomes.”
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But no mean tweets, right?
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Whasamatter?
You don’t care for it any more when it’s your ox getting gored?
Enjoy. You helped build this by electing the frauds who allow it.
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Just a reminder….. 🙂
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It’s just AOC’s Green New Deal Scheme repackaged with lies about non-existent inflation reduction.
“Senate Passes Schumer-Manchin Middle-Class Tax Increase and Green Boondoggle Bill
“The bill raises more than $700 billion in tax revenue and spends over $400 billion. The key elements include extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, a suite of climate-related spending and tax credits, provisions on fossil fuel energy, a 15% minimum corporate tax rate and more.””
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/08/senate-passes-schumer-manchin-middle-class-tax-increase-and-green-boondoggle-bill/
“Fox News reports:
The Senate Sunday passed the Democrats’ social spending and taxation bill after a marathon “vote-a-rama” session that lasted more than 15 hours, marking a major win for the Democratic agenda just over three months before Election Day.
Vice President Harris cast a tiebreaking vote to allow the legislation to pass 51-50.
. . . . The passage of the bill is the culmination of more than a year of intra-party negotiations among Democrats trying to pass a party-line bill. They used a process called budget reconciliation, which allows them to get around the Senate filibuster, to do it.
But even avoiding the filibuster, Democrats still encountered a major hiccup toward the end of their effort to pass it. A drafting issue would have increased taxes on companies worth less than Democrats’ intended $1 billion threshold if they were subsidiaries of a firm worth more than that amount.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., introduced an amendment to deal with the issue, which cost $35 billion. But his proposal would have been paid for by extending the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap for one year. That would have complicated passage of the final bill, because many Northeast Democrats detest the SALT cap.
The Senate passed Thune’s amendment. But it changed the way to pay for it by using an amendment from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to replace the SALT cap with “a two year extension of a so-called loss limitation policy.” That amendment passed with Harris’ help, and cleared the way for final passage.”
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Like with ObamaCare, they don’t care about the damage, they just ram it thru.
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AJ – you missed the sarcasm; the proverbial response from the right when people want to limit police rights was always “if you have nothing to hide?….” The same could apply here. People advocating law and order are suddenly worried when law and order are applied to them.
ATR is hardly an unbiased source of criticism. A 16.4 cents per barrel tax is a joke. Coal is mainly used for steel production and other corporate uses. To suggest these taxes will be passed through to consumers is to admit there is no competitive energy market. Currently, oil and energy companies are making record profits. They can absorb these taxes. In a competitive marketplace, at least one company will absorb the taxes forcing others to follow suit. However, if a competitive marketplace doesn’t exist and an oligarchy is price fixing perhaps its time for the Anti-Trust Act to come back.
Again, this is the same problem with arguing the 15% min corporate tax will be passed on to consumers. In a competitive market place, it should be absorbed by the corporation. Again they are making record profits (and pushing up inflation) that they can absorb the taxes unless they are engaged in price fixing. If the ATR is arguing that price fixing will allow corporations to pass through the taxes, then perhaps we have a different problem that needs to be solved.
Taxing stock buybacks is a small measure to combat a parasitical practise. There are no benefits to the general economy in a stock buyback; it temporarily increases stock prices and allows those in the inside to gain a profit and the CEO to “earn” a bonus. This sort of corrupt capitalism does not produce long term growth. Pension funds do not benefit from stock buyback as they need long term stable growth.
Stock buybacks were banned until Reagan allowed it in the 80s. Here’s a simple scenario — hedge fund manager takesover a profit making company, they sell all the capital assets (which are worth more than the company) placing the proceeds to the sale in the company ledgers, thereby inflating the share price, they sell shares, this decreases the price and they then buyback all the shares they sold at al lower price thereby creating a profit for the company — meanwhile the capital assets are sold, the company has very few employees, and most of the profit is derived from pump and dump. Not very productive and for Republicans to be against any type of stock buyback limitations demonstrates whose interests they have.
Stephen Miller is so out of touch with ordinary Americans. I’ve done the math already – most of the IRS is directed toward the richer half of America not the middle class. 400K a year is not a middle class income. Perhaps he thinks it is but thats the problem with the political class – they think they are middle class.
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I wonder if Liz Cheney might get the last laugh. Trump’s challenge is ever winning a national election again.
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She will have the last laugh;
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-fbi-donald-trump/index.html
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This is what happens when you “move on” from a fraudulent election.
“In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just in the way.” President Donald J. Trump
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The Manchurian DNC Party is running scared, and has now lost it completely…
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