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About 46 percent of American households will pay no federal individual income tax in 2011, roughly half of them because of structural features of the income tax that provide basic exemptions for subsistence level income and for dependents. The other half are nontaxable because tax expenditures— special provisions of the tax code that benefit selected taxpayers or activities—wipe out tax liabilities and, in the case of refundable credits, result in net payments from the government. Most important of those tax expenditures are provisions that benefit senior citizens and low-income working families with children. While those factors particularly affect lower-income households, different provisions eliminate taxes for other households. Itemized deductions and credits for children and education are more important for middle-income households, while the relatively few high-income nontaxable households benefit most from above-the-line and itemized deductions and reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
Why Some Tax Units Pay No Income Tax

Just 54 percent of all tax units will pay federal individual income tax in 2011, leaving about 46 percent paying no federal income tax or receiving a net refund. The significant fraction of tax units that do not pay income tax has become a topic of public debate. Some commentators have suggested that the large share paying no income tax is mostly the result of tax expenditures (sometimes referred to as “loopholes” or “tax earmarks”). If that were so, nearly all tax units would pay income tax under a reformed income tax with no tax expenditures. In fact, however, even with all tax expenditures repealed, standard income tax provisions that exempt a basic amount of income would still leave many units nontaxable.

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President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

:facepalm:

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.

Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102). The Federal government mandates that the Christmas tree sellers pay the 15-cents per tree, whether they want to or not. The Federal government directs that the revenue generated by the 15-cent fee goes to the Board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out the Christmas tree program established by the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. President, that’s a new 15-cent tax to pay for a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

Nobody is saying President Obama doesn’t have authority to impose his new Christmas Tree Tax — his Administration cites the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996. Just because the Obama Administration has the legal power to impose its Christmas Tree Tax doesn’t mean it should do so.

The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?

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the gov't innovating is by making tungsten illegal or requiring all tv's to be digital regardless of how shitty it makes them.

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private industry is forced to find cheaper labor in competing countries because our own gov't has ruined the business environment here in the states. let's just say they are innovating new jobs for the Chinese youth.

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I still can't wait to fly into St. Cloud Regional Airport...

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Do you know the why behind ditching analog broadcast TV? Digital is the future and is a far more efficient use of finite resources.

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I'm really torn about the environmental impacts of mining and industrial operations (that's what you're refering to with tungsten, right?).
There has to be some restrictions or greed and the desire for cheap products will destroy the planet we depend upon. Corporate responsibility doesn't exist so we come up with stupid blanket laws that are just as bad as none.

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Should we impose a labor rate or environmental impact based tax on imported goods?

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Either you pay Chinese kids US labor rates (those are going to be some wealthy kids) or pay import taxes based on the discrepancy.

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Adopt US environmental protection levels or pay import taxes based on how badly you're fucking the environment vs what is allowed here. Should we extend that regionally in this country too? Afterall it's much cheaper to grow/build/develop/code/support/etc everything in the mid-west than it is on the coasts. Fuck those job stealing midwesterners.

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Fuck your pork, I mean airport.

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I can't wait for Amtrak to bring their auto transport services to me. I'd very much like to load the MSM on a train and relax as I'm shuttled across the country to some kick ass roads and sweet tracks. Would make for some fantastic vacations.

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Recently, there have been shortages of some medicines. Cancer patients can’t get drugs they need.

Why not?

One reason is that a big drugmaker shut down for a year in part to meet Food and Drug Administration rules. The FDA makes it so expensive and difficult to sell drugs that there isn’t an eager pack of companies rushing to the fill the gap.

…Does the FDA say it’s sorry for its part and back off? Of course not.

Regulators almost never do that.

In fact, the FDA wants more power. It wants to regulate how your doctor uses his smartphone.

I’m not kidding!

The FDA wants the power to approve mobile medical apps that let doctors monitor patients’ vital signs over their phones. As one doctor put it, “Even though I’m away from the hospital, I can still look at … real-time wave form data just as if I were at the patient’s bedside.”

Sounds great. It makes doctors more efficient.

But the FDA basically says, “No, you just can’t put something on your phone if it’s a medical device. What if it doesn’t work right? We have to approve it first.” …what’s the harm in running apps past the regulators?

…There’s a big cost to the public when companies submit applications and then wait years for FDA approval. “We’re losing time, precious time that lives are dependent upon,” Emord said. “MIM Software developed a simple mobile device that would combine MRI images, PET scans, CAT scans all together and produce a super image that was better for diagnosis … right on your phone. To get that through the agency, it took two and a half years and cost some hundreds of thousands of dollars. All the while it could have been in use, and ultimately it was approved.”

Lawyers and reporters encourage bureaucrats to move slowly. If something goes wrong, the media make a huge fuss about it, and the class-action parasites pounce. But when the FDA delays a device for years and people die, we don’t report that.

We don’t even know who the victims are.

Useful HIV drugs were available in Europe for years before the FDA approved them for use here. A doctor at the Cleveland Clinic invented a medical app that helped physicians calibrate the amount of radiation to give to women with breast cancer. The FDA demanded so much extra and expensive proof of its safety that he abandoned it.

The FDA’s caution leads many companies to just give up on potentially lifesaving ideas. Yet I don’t hear companies complaining. “If you raise your head above the parapet and you become vocal in your criticism, the FDA remembers like an elephant and will stamp you out of existence. They’ll punish you. It’s so much discretion in their hands. They sit like emperors reigning over this stuff.”

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I can no longer just hook an old TV into the wall and get some basic cable.

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You can flip the channels anymore. I can go on and on with the downsides.

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Analog was always going to be ditched, so why stick your nose into it and cause trouble?

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The only reason this law was passed is so GE could get rich selling $50 light bulbs. The fact that there's some sort of benefit to the enviroment...like disposing of mercury in landfills, is only an easy selling point. :facepalm:

The technology isn't there yet; I hate LED, Halogen, and Flurencent bulbs -- I prefer candlelight to those POS bulbs...which frankly is about all the lumens they can output. And now, I can no longer buy the bulbs I like and enjoyed I've honestly looked into alternative sources to get some of the bulbs I used to buy. I've stocked up on 150 watt Revel type-A bulbs because those are no longer sold in store. It's retarded, and again, the market was already going in that direction.

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Ok Al Gore...

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Did you google it? That's your gov't innovation. They received $5 million in stimulous money in 2009, built this an extravagant terminal which hasn't been used. Now they are getting an additional $750,000 for a nice boost in innovation.

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why hasn't a private company done this? they better, cheaper, and make a profit

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unlike Amtrak that operates at a huge loss and it only in business because we prop it up.

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