2) Under Proposed Tax Scheme Government Will Own 50% of Every Corporation in America
If you haven't seen it, UP co-founder and chairman Stephen Moore (presently on leave) and Susquehanna International Group founder Jeffrey Yass have a lead feature in today's WSJ.
The article documents the frightening truth that under the proposed left-wing radical tax plan, half of all corporate profits will go directly to governments. This is because they plan to raise the corporate income tax to 33% (when adding state and local taxes) and the capital gains tax (a double-tax on corporate earnings) to 34%. Add it together and the shareholders receive less than 50% of the returns.
It is a mathematical certainty that the tax scheme will lower the value of stocks a great deal. What we find troubling is that most investors who own as much as half of a company don’t vilify it as a “price gouger” or hassle them with inane and costly regulations. The Left would treat corporate America as a fat goose to be plucked, and the rest of us would pay the price.
Nearly every developed country has a demographic problem: baby boomers are retiring but birth rates have fallen so much that there aren’t enough workers to replace the retirees.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is implementing a plan that the U.S. could emulate.
On the one hand, Meloni is taking a tougher approach to migrant boat crossings and fraudulent employment and asylum applications. But she has also increased Italy's annual quota for non-European Union work permits, including 10,000 new spots for caregivers for the elderly.
Last week, Italy also passed a new law to dramatically simplify the stifling bureaucracy that comes with applying for a work permit.
Donald Trump has floated combining a crackdown on illegal immigration with more opportunities for legal job seekers. "It's so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also," Trump told a Silicon Valley podcast last June. "What I want to do, and what I will do, is... Anybody graduates from a college, you go in there for two years or four years, if you graduate, or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country."
The U.S. National Science Board has found that in 2021 temporary visa holders earned 7% of U.S. science and engineering bachelor's degrees, 34% of master's degrees, and 35% of doctoral degrees. It's self-destructive behavior for the U.S. to educate these students and then see them return home and help our trading partners outcompete the U.S.
Kamala Harris has not commented on the Trump proposal but did endorse the failed Senate bill that would have increased employment-based visas by 13 percent.
4) Nearly Half of Bay Area Residents Plan To Move Away
In 2020, Joe Biden won 78% of the vote in the five core counties of the San Francisco Bay Area – one of the country's most liberal enclaves.
But a new poll of 1,650 Bay Area voters by the San Jose Mercury-News finds great dissatisfaction with current conditions. Seven out of 10 surveyed see the area's quality of life has gotten worse in the last five years, including a majority of people who voted for Biden.
A nearly unanimous 97% of those polled said homelessness was a major problem, with 83% also citing rising crime. That may explain why 70% of those surveyed are backing Proposition 36 next month. It would roll back decade-old criminal justice changes and raise penalties for theft and drug crimes.
But many people aren't waiting for things to change. After all, things may get worse. Another measure on the November state ballot would repeal a 30-year-old ban on letting cities impose rent control. That would exacerbate housing shortages.
So it's no wonder a whopping 46% of respondents told the Mercury-News poll they were likely to leave the Bay Area in the next few years. The leading edge of that exodus has already been felt. The Bay Area's population has fallen by 3% since the COVID lockdowns.
5) Media Dismiss Concerns Over Election integrity, But Voters Are Worried
With Election Day less than a month away - and hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots already returned - the respected Gallup Poll has some sobering news. Only 57% of Americans are very or somewhat confident that their votes this year will be accurately cast and counted. The percentage who say they are "not at all confident" in the vote is now 19%. As recently as 2008, that number was only 6%.
While there is a clear partisan divide, even 47% of independents and 21% of Democrats tell Gallup that "people using illegal or fraudulent means to cast invalid votes" are a real problem.
Despite such findings, the mainstream media seems intent on dismissing concerns about election integrity.
Yet in August, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin removed 6,303 noncitizens who had "accidentally or maliciously attempted to register" to vote. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has announced that over one million people have been removed from the state's voter rolls, including people who moved out-of-state, ineligible or are deceased. Some 6,500 were potential non-citizens including 1,930 who had a history of voting.
Meanwhile, the liberals in Congress have voted down voter ID requirements. Joe Biden says there is no voter fraud to prevent.
Americans deserve to have an electoral process that they can trust and that protects their most sacred right. They are increasingly telling us they believe the integrity of that process is imperiled.
