Tag Archives: President Barack Obama

Are tax increases in our future?

The Knoxville Economics Forum will step into the middle of one of the most divisive issues of the presidential campaign at its April 20 meeting – tax increases.

Jane G. Gravelle, a specialist in the economics of taxation, is the keynote speaker. Her topic: “The Long Term Fiscal Outlook: Are Tax Increases in Our Future?”

Cutting taxes, especially corporate tax rates, are a central theme of the Republican candidates campaign, while President Barack Obama and the Democrats want to raise taxes on millionaires.

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Exxon and the art of whining (or how to make $11B with taxpayer help)

Economy.jpgIt takes an incredibly warped sense of corporate entitlement for a company to believe it
 deserves taxpayer subsidies when it reports a quarterly profit of nearly $11 billion.

But that’s what we saw on Thursday when Exxon Mobil Corp. released its first quarter report. The giant oil company said it earned $10.7 billion, its largest quarterly profit since the 2008 third quarter when gasoline prices were even higher than they are now.

Along with the financial report, Ken Cohen, Exxon’s vice president for public affairs, published a lengthy statement on the company’s Perspectives blog defending Exxon’s soaring profits and blasting politicians for daring to protect taxpayers’ interests.

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Reagan and Obama: Champions of necessary tax increases

Columnists often lift quotes from political speeches to illustrate the point they’re trying to make. I’ve done it myself many times — it’s an excellent way to add emphasis to what you’re writing.

RONALD+REAGAN.jpgHowever, keeping the quote in context isn’t always easy. A case in point, David Moon’s column in Sunday’s News Sentinel. In the April 24 column, Moon used a quote from President Barack Obama to draw a contrast between Ronald Reagan’s tax reform policies and the current president’s financial reform policies.Obama+Tax+Cuts.jpg

The Obama quote — from a speech just about a year ago — has been widely repeated by the president’s political opponents who want to paint him as a socialist. Unfortunately, the quote is often taken out of context.

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