The Leader's Ledger

State of Play: Democrats Continue To Demand Job-Destroying Tax Increases On Families and Small Businesses

Democrats Seek To Raise Taxes By Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars. Democrats have floated ideas that could raise tax revenues by some $400 billion over the next decade as they negotiate deficit reductions with Republicans, according to people familiar with the plan, posing the most contentious issue as talks reach a critical stage this week. The Wall Street Journal

• Raising Taxes Remains A Non-Starter. The House will be in session the first two weeks of July but is slated to recess the week of July 17 – the same week as the new deadline. Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said Friday that the House might cancel that recess if needed. “Leader Cantor and [Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.)] identified over $2 trillion in spending cuts during negotiations with Vice President Biden over the last two months that could serve as the blueprint for a potential agreement,” Dayspring said. “The disagreement remains over the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes that Democrats are trying to impose on individuals, small businesses, and employers. As always, the House will be here if and when needed, including the week of July 18.” The Washington Post

Schumer: Medicare Is On The Table. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, said: “We are very willing to entertain savings in Medicare. Medicare gives very good health care very inefficiently.” The New York Times

Pro-Growth: Republicans Focus On Removing Barriers To Economic Growth, Job Creation

Getting The Message Out: House Republicans Stress The Negative Impact Of Overregulation On Jobs and The Economy. House Republicans held events in their districts last week focusing on their "Plan for America's Job Creators," featuring calls for lower business taxes and fewer regulations. At a meeting with local business leaders in his district, House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas said firms are facing an "avalanche" of government rules. "Entrepreneurship is currently at a 17-year low, not because of a lack of capital, but because of a lack of confidence," Mr. Hensarling said. The Washington Times

How To Get America Back On A Path To Prosperity: Reduce Spending, Remove Burdensome Regulation and Create An Environment Conducive To Investment. Reducing federal spending alone is insufficient to restore economic growth to anything approaching its post-World-War-II, 3.2% annual real-growth trend, much less make up lost ground. But cutting is necessary. Not only will it reallocate resources away from unproductive government uses toward more productive private enterprises, but it also will stem the tide of wealth and income redistribution that is stalling the engines of capitalism, instilling dependency among the people and fostering class resentment and a sense of entitlement while destroying freedom and initiative. ... So, while President Obama is correct that cutting government spending is not sufficient to restore prosperity, he is incorrect when he implies that cutting spending is not necessary. ... We can only produce our way to prosperity, and that means doing it the old-fashioned way: saving, investing, working and taking entrepreneurial risks. To do so, however, we must get government out of the way, off our backs, out of our pockets and bank accounts, out of our lives and back where it belongs: doing less with less. Forbes

Repatriation Would Create Over 2 Million Jobs, Boost The Dollar. Legislation introduced in Congress in May by Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, would allow companies to repatriate profits at a 5. 25 percent tax rate, below the current 35 percent corporate level and the same break offered in 2004. Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers has made the case for the tax break on earnings calls, in speeches and in national media, saying it would help overcome a system he calls “a dinosaur” and “put more than two million Americans back to work.” The dollar rallied against most of its major counterparts in 2005 after the Homeland Investment Act, as the tax holiday legislation was known, was passed as part of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. The U.S. currency gained 15 percent against the yen and 14 percent versus the euro in 2005. Bloomberg Government

The Obama Economy: President Obama’s Policies Have Made It Harder For Private Sector Businesses To Create Jobs

Business Groups, Economists: President Obama Has Increased Barriers To Job Growth. Businesses big and small aren't buying President Obama's claim that he's reducing the burden of costly federal regulations, a major barrier to job growth. "It's a mirage," said Dan Bosch, manager of regulatory policy at the National Federation of Independent Business. "The final rules that are coming out in the last two years are worse." ... Bill Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, said in a blog post that Mr. Sunstein's claims of fewer regulations in the Obama administration are "disingenuous." ... Economist Veronique de Rugy said Mr. Sunstein's claims about less rulemaking in the Obama administration don't hold much weight, because businesses are also worried about regulations in the pipeline. That especially includes the Dodd-Frank law governing Wall Street (with more than 440 suggested rules) and the Obama health care law. "Obamacare is going to be a gigantic burden on firms, and it introduces gigantic uncertainty into the economy," Ms. de Rugy said. "It's going to take years to know all the rules." The Washington Times

• Fewer People Are Investing In America: $200 Billion Less In Investment, 2 Million Fewer Jobs Economic recoveries are periods when investment capital usually surges into a country, but since this weakling rebound began in the middle of 2009 the U.S. has lost more than $200 billion in investment capital. That is the equivalent of about two million jobs that don't exist on these shores and are now located in places like China, Germany and India. .... To produce rapid growth, most capital must be allocated by markets. The effect of $4.5 trillion of borrowing since 2009 is that foreigners and Americans are buying Treasury bills instead of investing in the next Google, Oracle, Wal-Mart or biomedical company. Today, foreigners are financing food stamps and the next bridge to nowhere while Americans are building state-of-the-art production systems abroad. This is the real pernicious "crowding out effect" of the federal government's borrowing. The Wall Street Journal

President Obama’s Stimulus Has Caused The Debt To Soar and The Economy To Shed Jobs. The council (The President’s Council of Economic Advisors) reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job. In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead. Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs. The Weekly Standard

• Only 24% Of Households Believe They Will Be Better Off In The Next 12 Months, The Lowest Point In A Recovery Since World War II. Across a wide range of measures—employment growth, unemployment levels, bank lending, economic output, income growth, home prices and household expectations for financial well-being—the economy's improvement since the recession's end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II. ... Debt and a dismal job market have hurt consumers' confidence, which further damps their willingness to spend. The University of Michigan finds that 24% of households expect to be better off financially within a year's time. That's the lowest this measure has been at this point in a recovery since World War II. The Wall Street Journal

Off The Beaten Path

PSA: Bring Your Own ... NYC Rationing Toilet Paper At Coney Island – NYPost

Happy Dance

Lockout Watch: First The NFL , Then The NBA, Now ... The Joffrey Dancers – The Chicago Sun-Times