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FORBES' POST-ELECTION PLAN: CUT INCOME TAXES FOR EVERYONE TO BOOST MIDDLE CLASS
STEVE FORBES: Doing across the board tax cut right now would be good because it'll get the economy moving. This has been a top recovery. Rich have done very well, the rest of the American people have not because the Democrats believe in trickle-down economics, along with the Federal Reserve. So slashing tax rates across the board with a sound dollar, America will come roaring back.
RICK UNGAR: If you look at how the Republicans did so well on this election. They basically took the Democratic platform, which is always geared towards the middle class. That's where the votes are. So there was a bit of a switcheroo here, I actually agree with Steve.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD: Give the middle class a tax cut. The tax cuts have worked in the past. Get this-- 60 percent of spending in this country is done by the middle to lower classes. Give them a break.
JOHN TAMNY: Let's face it the rich have all the money precisely because they're rich, and when you reduce the government burden on them, they don't sit on the money, the money flows into new businesses through loans and investments.
MIKE OZANIAN: Across the board tax cuts David--you're right; it takes a lot of the politics out of it. And what I really like about across the board tax cuts, it helps small businesses. From 1980 to 2010 the number of small businesses where income was not taxed at the business level, but taxed at the individual level, tripled. Those businesses generated 50 percent of all passed through income affected by the top two rates. So if you cut all tax rates you're going to really help business creation.
NEW CALLS TO SCRAP COSTLY EPA RULES AFTER GOP WINS CONTROL OF SENATE
SABRINA SCHAEFFER: Yes, I absolutely think this is good news for the country. David, you know I'm a mom, I have three little kids, I oversee the family budget. I'm well aware when energy costs go up. I feel it at the grocery store; I feel it at the gas pump. The reality is that the presidents war on coal is going to be devastating for this country if we don't manage to sort of reign in the EPA's regulations.
RICK UNGAR: It can't go unnoticed that you're going to have a majority leader in the Senate who comes from Kentucky, one of the leading coal producing states. Obviously they're going to be better represented. Whether it's good or bad, Sabrina could be right, it could create some jobs.
STEVE FORBES: The market place should decide whether we use coal, natural gas, oil, or a mix of them, rather than bureaucratic decrease in EPA which has been waging a jihad against coal for several years now. Not based on science but based on ideology, they just don't like coal. They also don't like oil and gas, stop that nonsense.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD: Here's the thing, yeah we don't like pollution, and we can all agree with that- we hate pollution. But there's free market plays and strategies right now, there's carbon capture, methane capture. The market is fixing the pollution problem on its own.
MIKE OZANIAN: What bothers me the most about this so-called clean power plan, this new push by the EPA, is that when they first pushed it out they didn't even want any dialogue with the coal industry. You know they have finally started to have some so-called town hall meetings to find out exactly how this plan will be implemented and how the coal manufacturers and the electricity producers can adapt to it.
IRS: NEARLY HALF OF TAXPAYER PHONE CALLS MAY GO UNANSWERED IN NEXT TAX SEASON
JOHN TAMNY: The IRS is in a front to a free society and it's not about reforming it, it's about abolishing that which we have to cower before on an annual basis, that's the only way to work this.
RICK UNGAR: I have to ask this question, you can go a little too extreme here. You can't have an honor system when it comes to people paying taxes. And whether it's higher or lower, people have to pay taxes. So how else are you going to do it?
STEVE FORBES: You can abolish most of it except clerks to process for simple returns. And for IRS agents we can be humanitarian and give them job retraining. But the fact of the matter is, this not answering phone calls, this Washington monument thing, saying we need more money. They not only don't answer phone calls, they don't answer letters.
ELIZABETH MACDONALD: We don't have a voluntary system we have a withholding system too and you are guilty until proven innocent. This is the poisonous mindset of Elizabeth Warren, Hilary Clinton, and president Obama; the--you didn't build that attitude. You know that the government does not operate at the consent of tax payers, when it does. It is there to serve us.
SABRINA SCHAEFFER: I think these reports are so important because it jolts the American people into realizing just how bad big government can be. Just how corrupt it is. This is why we need to streamline our taxes, why we need to change things because it breeds corruption.
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