Must-Reads for July 20
National Review: Did the State make you great?
The argument between Left and Right is about what you do beyond infrastructure. It’s about transfer payments and redistributionist taxation; about geometrically expanding entitlements; about tax breaks and subsidies to induce actions pleasing to central planners.
Townhall: Trashing achievements
At a time when a small fraction of high-income taxpayers pay the vast majority of all the taxes collected, it is sheer chutzpah to depict high-income earners as somehow being subsidized by "the rest of us," whether in paying for the building of roads or the educating of the young.
Must-Reads for July 19
The Wall Street Journal: More bad news for public pensions
Three recently released data points bring new worry to a long-standing if not always front-of-mind U.S. economic problem, underfunded public pensions.
National Review: Obama believes success is a gift from government
Affluent voters trended Democratic over two decades on cultural issues. But economic issues dominate this year, and these voters may not appreciate Obama’s assertion that they don’t deserve what they’ve earned.
The Economist: Paying for it
The public goods upon which the middle class equally depends are financed disproportionately by the wealthy. Asking the minority who already finances rather more than most to "give something back" is plain, old-fashioned demagoguery.
Must-Reads for July 18
The Wall Street Journal: 'You didn't build that'
The Presidential election has a long way to go, but the line of the year so far is President Obama's on Friday: "You didn't build that." Rarely do politicians so clearly reveal their core beliefs.
Human Events: New study - tax hikes on wealthy are a job killer
According to Ernst & Young, economic output would grow 1.3 percent in the long run, costing $200 billion in the short term. Employment would fall by another 0.5 percent in the long run, costing the economy around 710,000 fewer jobs in the short term.
Townhall: This is the Obama recovery
It doesn't matter if real gross domestic product only grew at 1.7 percent in 2011 and at annual rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year. It doesn't matter if unemployment has remained above 8 percent in every single month since the last recession ended. This is what Obama's expansion looks like.
Must-Reads for July 17
Townhall: Chicago teachers union thumbs nose at proposed 20% raise
Just for the record, the students of Chicago were never mentioned in the Tribune report about the labor talks. This is further proof that in union schools, they are frequently treated as afterthoughts while the adults fight over money.
The Wall Street Journal: Toying with recession
Democrats are delighted to let a giant tax increase whack the economy in January because then Republicans won't be able to stop it and will also find it impossible to cut taxes again on anyone whom Democrats define as "the wealthy.
Washington Examiner: Editorial - Obama shows he's clueless about small business
It isn't easy to understand what it takes to create jobs while making money, but Obama has proven himself extraordinarily obtuse on the subject.
Washington Times: Editorial - Mind your own business, Obama
President Obama thinks business owners don’t actually do anything. This is the most convincing proof yet that he has no concept of how the economy works.
Must-Reads for July 16
Washington Examiner: Welcome to California - America without Republicans
With all of this unfunded government spending, Keynesian-Democratic thinking would predict that California's economy should be booming. It isn't.
The Wall Street Journal: The tax cliff is a growth killer
The blunt reality is that we cannot have a prosperous economy when government is overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, overregulating and restricting the free flow of goods and services across national boundaries.
Chicago Tribune: State test scores up in CPS - but increase is the lowest in 7 years
Overall, schools that instituted a longer day sometime during the school year saw a rise of 2.5 percentage points in students meeting or exceeding state standards. For the schools that started the longer day in September, that gain was 6.6 percentage points.
