Archive
WhatsApp with the Estate Tax?
What does Facebook's recent purchase of WhatsApp have to do with the estate tax? Actually, a good bit, if you're concerned about America's concentration of wealth. Why? Because an economy needs effective checks and balances. A tax on inherited fortunes essentially...
A Taxing Solution to the Greatest Challenge of Our Time
Ben Franklin said it best — nothing is certain, "except death and taxes." Like most Americans, we submit our 1040s to maintain the health of our nation. However, we'd personally rather decrease our income tax and instead pay a fee that reduces carbon pollution and...
Close the Paris Hilton Loophole
If our leaders want to balance the budget, here's a suggestion: Congress can scrap a new "Paris Hilton" giveaway that's draining billions of federal tax dollars. This giveaway takes the form of a complex tax loophole designed to circumvent the federal estate tax, one...
Behind the GOP’s Unhealthy Attack
To borrow a cute term William Safire penned for Spiro Agnew, the "nattering nabobs of negativism" carrying on about the evils of the Affordable Care Act aren't going to roll back the health insurance overhaul they like to deride as "Obamacare." Reality sure isn't on...
Let Them Eat Rice
A recent Scientific American blog post blamed environmentalists for costing poor, malnourished people an estimated 1,424,000 life years in India alone. Why? Because they presumably kept Golden Rice off the market for over a decade when it could have been helping the...
Hiding Profits in Slimy Offshore Wormholes
The dictionary defines the caterpillar as a "wormlike larva" and a "crawler." Also, that "pillar" part of the word is derived from a French verb that means to "pillage, abuse, mistreat." Good to know. Now, meet Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of...
Tax-Cheating Butterfly
3 Freaky April Fools’ Day Stories
On a recent morning, after checking news reports, I thought: What a freaky news day. Freaky Story No. 1: The Governor of Texas rarely has any ideas. But apparently one unexpectedly erupted from the usually dormant cluster of low-voltage brain cells in Rick Perry's...
Rigging the Electoral System for the Rich
A poll conducted late last year found that more than seven in ten voters think our election system is "biased in favor of the candidate with the most money." While nothing about this number is surprising — except, perhaps, that it's not even higher — it does reveal...
Billionaires Score Big Win with McCutcheon Decision
The Supreme Court's McCutcheon ruling dealt another 5-4 body blow to our democracy. To justify striking down limits that cap aggregate campaign contributions during a single election cycle, the Roberts Court ignored the way the world really works and made it far more...
