Phil Kerpen

Some Republicans left town this holiday season feeling triumphant, with a no-tax-hike AMT patch, an energy bill that could have been much worse, a clean SCHIP expansion, and an omnibus appropriations bill relatively free of policy riders and ostensibly within the president’s budget limits. But leading fiscal conservatives are less than sanguine. Their major concerns with the omnibus are the use of budget gimmicks and emergency spending designations to hide higher social spending, and the large-scale re-emergence of pork-barrel earmarks. President Bush has little choice at this point but to accept the former, but he has it within his power to eliminate the over 9,000 earmarks in the bill simply by upholding the U.S. Constitution and issuing an executive order clarifying that earmarks should be ignored. There is a precedent here, and a good one for conservatives: Ronald Reagan.

Phil Kerpen
Posted: 12/13/2007

Congress still has an awful lot of work to do in a very short period of time if its members want to spend more than a couple of days around Christmas at home with their families. The must-pass list is lengthy, including at least: a continuing resolution or omnibus spending bill to keep the government open, a patch to prevent the alternative minimum tax from slamming the middle class, a farm bill to extend or replace the expiring 2002 version, and an extension of the expiring State Children’s Health Insurance Program. With all that and more to do in very little time, the Senate will instead spend time today on a reckless, costly energy bill that has no urgency other than political grandstanding.

Higher taxes and onerous regulations on energy production and use will cost American taxpayers considerably. The energy bill would hike taxes for oil companies, making domestic producers less competitive and increasing America’s dependence on imported oil. It also has costly mandates that will raise prices for motorists. Those are, in effect, tax hikes.

. . . courtesy of the pay-as-you-go Democrats.

By Phil Kerpen

Last week the House Ways and Means Committee reported a bill (H.R. 3996) that would, among other things, prevent the alternative minimum tax from slamming middle-income families. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this bill (like its mother) is packed with ill-advised tax hikes, ostensibly to satisfy the Democrats’ pay-as-you-go rules.

The apparent assumption here is that the government is somehow entitled to the massive tax hike that the AMT represents under current law — a tax hike that was unintended and most lawmakers agree should be contained or eliminated. But a closer look at H.R. 3996 shows that Democrats are more concerned with appearing to follow their own rules than actually following them.

Charlie Rangel has started a tax-reform conversation, but finishing it will take a lot more work.

By Phil Kerpen

Last week House Ways and Means chairman Charlie Rangel rolled out a massive tax bill, best known by its informal name, “the mother of all tax reforms.” The good news is that the bill cuts the corporate income-tax rate. It also repeals the dreaded alternative minimum tax (sort of). The bad news is that the tax hikes and new spending included in the bill make for a package that would do more harm than good.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 8:11 AM

By: Phil Kerpen

Rep. Charlie Rangel is bent on including a carried interest capital gains tax hike in the must-pass patch to the alternative minimum tax.

This bad idea will carry tax implications for every American.

With such a strong push behind it, this is a plan that we need to take seriously, because the stakes are high. This tax hike would, in itself, cause a significant economic disruption by sending capital offshore and discouraging the creation of new venture-backed businesses.