AP: Unemployed “dumbfounded” by Democrat plan to tax benefits Republican stimulus eliminated taxes on unemployment   By Dave Carpenter CHICAGO - Some Americans are learning a jarring lesson about unemployment as they prepare their tax returns. At a time when the newly laid-off are swelling unemployment rolls to record numbers, the painful surprise for many is that jobless… Read more

By Chas Sisk Tennessee could reject a portion of the $787 billion economic stimulus package out of concerns that it would force the state to raise taxes on businesses in the future. At the National Governors Association meetings in Washington, D.C., Gov. Phil Bredesen said this week that he might turn down relief for unemployed workers worth an estimated $143 million because of… Read more

  By Alan Reynolds House Democrats propose to spend $550 billion of their two-year, $825 billion "stimulus bill" (the rest of it being tax cuts). Most of the spending is unlikely to be timely or temporary. Strangely, most of it is targeted toward sectors of the economy where unemployment is the lowest. The December unemployment rate was only 2.3% for government workers and 3.8% in… Read more

  The head of the Senate Budget Committee said he doubts President-elect Barack Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus package will create as many jobs as promised because it won’t do enough to unlock credit markets. Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said his committee projects the plan will reduce the unemployment rate by “maybe” 1 percent, or about half of the 3 million… Read more

  Tomorrow House Democrats plan to bring a bill to the floor that will expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program. And just like last year the bill is full of missed opportunities and misplaced priorities. Before I get into the details on how this will raise your taxes I want to make two points perfectly clear: 1. SCHIP should cover poor kids first. The Democrat plan shifts the… Read more

A 2006 Joint Economic Committee (JEC) study found that death tax "liabilities depend on the skill of the estate planner, rather than on capacity to pay." So much for tax fairness. By contrast, "family-run firms and farms particularly feel the pinch of the estate tax, because they are less likely to have the liquid resources needed to meet their estate tax liabilities." The latest JEC estimate is that the death tax has reduced the stock of capital in the economy by about $847 billion. Read more