1) CHART OF THE DAY: Death Tax Could Rise to Highest In World Next Year
Last week, we reported that the Left's tax plan for next year is to let the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire, slashing the current $13.5 million estate tax exemption in half. Many liberals want to pass a bill sponsored by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, that would cut the exemption all the way to $3.5 million and raise the rate from a flat 40%, to a three rate structure from 55% to 65%.
Our chart of the day shows the U.S. already has one of the highest death taxes in the world. We would be the highest in the world under the Warren bill.
Right now, the political betting markets predict that 2024 could be the ultimate change election – a "triple flip" where the party in control of the White House, House, and Senate all change.
This could be an ideal outcome for investors. The stock market, after adjusting for inflation, performs best when there is divided power in Washington.
3) Federal Flood Insurance Is the Problem, Not the Solution
The damage done by Hurricane Milton is tragic. But federal flood insurance programs make the tragedy and the losses much worse.
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which currently has underwritten more than 5 million policies, was created as a temporary fix in 1968. It has never been seriously reformed. It now issues 95% of all flood policies, and is $20 billion in debt (and those losses are likely to double). The subsidies encourage people to live and build in flood-prone areas where their lives and property are at greater risk because the insurance isn't properly risk-adjusted.
The main beneficiaries are well-off homeowners in flood-prone coastal areas, many of whom have second vacation homes.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul tried last year to exclude second homes from the federal flood insurance coverage. He pointed out that "one house in Virginia, they've rebuilt the house 41 times," but he was shot down. Paul says the number of homes that keep getting rebuilt is skyrocketing. "Severe repetitive loss properties", which describe buildings that have received at least four flood insurance payouts of $20,000 or more numbered 40,000 in 2022, up from just 10,000 in 2000.
Homeowners and lenders in some areas are caught in a cycle of getting flooded out, rebuilding, and moving back in only to get flooded out again.
Get rid of the program or require premiums that cover the cost of the insurance, which will discourage building in flood-prone areas.
4) Mail-In Voting Fraud Could Decide November's Election
In 2020, less than one-third of ballots were cast at a polling place on Election Day, while 43 percent of voters used a mailed ballot (the rest voted early in a government location).
The pandemic created many questionable voting regulations in states that encouraged mail-in voting with few safeguards.
What is the outlook for this year as we head down the election-day stretch?
In Pennsylvania, the largest swing state, the state Supreme Court has properly declined to hear a lawsuit that sought to overturn a rule that disqualifies a mail-in ballot if the envelope is missing the date or has the incorrect date listed. In 2020, several blue counties counted ballots that came in after Election Day without a postmark.
In Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has lost a pair of lawsuits and is being forced to rewrite the flimsy rules on handling mail-in ballots. Local election clerks must now verify the voter's signature on mail-in ballot envelopes. A judge has also ordered that election workers "must" - not "should" - verify that the number on the ballot matches the number on the ballot envelope.
In 2021, the Nevada legislature passed a permanent law to automatically mail a ballot to every active registered voter. This has created a nightmare of potential fraud. In the 2022 midterms, more than 95,000 mail ballots statewide were undeliverable. The state's key U.S. Senate race was decided by less than 8,000 votes.
This year, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has photographed hundreds of commercial addresses listed as residences on the Nevada voter roll. Some of these addresses included a Sonic Drive-In, the Las Vegas Airport, a 7-Eleven gas station, vacant lots, and the Larry Flynt Hustler Club. They submitted the evidence to Las Vegas election officials, but nothing was done. Finally, a lawsuit forced the officials to correct the voter rolls.
Other major problems remain. Nevada state law allows ballots to be counted if they are received up to four business days PAST Election Day. Many other states have similar laws. Christian Adams, the president of PILF, says "Mass vote-by-mail is the driving factor behind why Americans will likely go to bed on election night not knowing if the next president is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris."
Thanks to the lobbying bullying of the left we now have a system that has turned "Election Day" into "Election Month," with all the confusion and loss of perceived legitimacy in the results that system is likely to create.
With the United States’ presidential election on November 8, and a series of elections and other political decisions fast approaching in Europe, now is a good time to ask whether the global economy is in good enough shape to withstand another major negative shock. The answer, unfortunately, is that growth and employment around the world look fragile. A big adverse surprise – like the election of Donald Trump in the US – would likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession.
