Unleash Prosperity Hotline #1,005

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Unleash Prosperity Hotline
Issue #1,005
04/25/2024
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1) Welcome to Regulatory Hell

Biden and his are promulgating new regulations at a frantic pace as if the clock is running out on them. Last week we may have seen the biggest and costliest heap of new regulations slammed on the back of businesses in American history.

The most expensive of last week's 59 new final rules were:

EPA "Multi-source Emission Standards," including electric vehicle mandates for 2027 to 2032
Department of Energy efficiency standards for “General Service Lamps.”
Department of Labor’s (DOL) latest rule on “Lowering Miners’ Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica and Improving Respiratory Protection.”

But then they followed up last week with another blizzard of regs in recent days.

This week's big announcements:

FCC rules to re-regulate internet access (net neutrality 2.0)
EPA zero-carbon freight transportation standards by 2035
FTC bans most employer non-compete rules

We’d thought that no one could out-regulate Obama – but boy were we wrong.

The folks at American Action Forum report that the economic costs of the regula-holics have reached over $1 trillion in just over three years in Office and that this price tag on private households and businesses is TRIPLE the cost under Obama. It's 30 times higher than new regs under Trump.

AAF notes that "if 'Biden Administration Regulatory Costs' were a country, its gross domestic product would rank 17th in the world, just behind Indonesia." And that is based on the agencies' own lowball cost estimates.

Our advice is that after this exhausting paroxysm of rulemaking, maybe the Biden regulators should take the rest of the year off.

Fat chance, right?

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2) Joe Biden Proposes Biggest Middle Class Tax Hike in Modern Times

Well, the cat is finally out of the bag on Biden’s tax plans. Biden admitted yesterday in a campaign speech that he will allow the repeal of the entire Trump tax cut of 2017 (which the CTUP team helped craft). This will clobber middle-class Americans with incomes FAR below $400,000. More than six of 10 U.S. households would owe thousands of dollars a year more to the IRS.

This tax plan would mean:

Higher tax rates
A lower standard deduction
A new 20 percent hike in small business tax rates
More families are forced to pay the alternative minimum tax (AMT)
Repeal of Full expensing for business investment in equipment
Repeal of expensing for research and development (R&D) costs
More families forced to pay estate tax

This is all said to be necessary because Biden says the rich don’t pay their “fair share.” The chart below shows that the Trump tax cuts made the income tax MORE progressive:

Ironically, the Biden tax scheme would bring back the state and local tax deduction for his millionaire and billionaire friends in blue states.

This is tax fairness?

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3) New York Stashes $90 Million for Journalism Subsidies in State Budget

New York has arguably the most bloated state budget in America, and with the exception of California, the highest tax burden to pay for it all. So the wizards in Albany just enacted a new taxpayer-funded handout - this one to…the media.

The program is similar to a national proposal in the first iteration of "Build Back Better" to subsidize journalists but was removed after a public backlash.

The program offers refundable tax credits to cover 50% of salaries up to $50,000 per employee, plus an extra $5,000 for each new hire.

Here is the official justification for the program:

"It is hereby found and declared that New York state needs, as a matter of public policy, to provide financial support and incentives for businesses which operate as newspaper and broadcast media, to sustain a productive and effective industry."

Our view is a) this is an egregious waste of money, and b) if New York wants a “productive and effective news industry,“ try telling the truth. Start with the nation’s fountain of misinformation: The New York Times.

We expect this idea to spread rapidly in other blue states, many of which have already tinkered with smaller grant programs. What could go wrong?

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4) AARP Received $832 Million from UnitedHealth in 2022

When we lock horns with left-wing advocacy groups, it often feels like we have water pistols and they have bazookas. That's especially true with AARP, which practically mints cash from its "royalty" arrangements:

A new study by Juniper Research Group for American Commitment details how the UnitedHealth/AARP advocacy juggernaut has severely distorted health policy debates in recent years and estimates their 2022 take from UnitedHealth alone at $832 million – and growing. So we will ask it again: whose interests is the AARP representing in Washington? Given that UnitedHealth just reported record profits, we'd say they're the ones being served.

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5) Former British PM Liz Truss Warns of an International Deep State

We at CTUP were excited to host former British Prime Minister Liz Truss for a dinner in Washington this week to celebrate her new book Ten Years to Save the West.

Truss gave a harrowing account of how she was undermined at every turn by the permanent British bureaucracy after she introduced a pro-growth, supply-side budget. She was forced out of office after 49 days.

Her story is worth reading because she warns that the same progressive bureaucrats and media forces on our side of the Atlantic will attempt to undermine Donald Trump if he is elected. As Prime Minister, she found her own bureaucracy was trying to rewrite her speeches based on pointers prepared by the Biden State Department!

“The U.S. economic establishment already is arming against Mr. Trump and his economic program,” she warns. She says Trump must not only prepare for a return to fiscal responsibility, but also to take on the unelected administrative state that kneecapped her: “My Republican friends must be ready for the fight of their lives.”

Liz Truss at CTUP Dinner with Anne and Steve Moore

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6) If Only It Were Just TEN Commandments.

Correction: Oracle is moving their world headquarters from Texas (not California) to Nashville. They are continuing to shutdown operations and sell off properties in California – the state where they were originally founded.

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