Voice For Liberty

Tag: Taxation

  • Tax increment financing in Iowa

    Readers of The Voice For Liberty in Wichita are well aware that I believe that when the government provides subsidies to businesses — either in the form of cash payments or preferential tax treatment — we create a corrosive business environment. Government picks winners and losers for political reasons, rather than letting the market decide…

  • The decline In Kansas continues

    The relative decline of Kansas continues. This decline is vividly demonstrated when state and federal revenue growth is examined.

  • Hypocrisy over oil profits abounds

    The recent swell of criticism over oil company “windfall” profits, some even coming from people who should know better, is truly remarkable in its hypocrisy.

  • Kansas Income Growth Lags

    By Karl Peterjohn You will earn more if you do not work in Kansas. That is nothing new but the size and scope of the economic problem facing Kansans has become more vivid. National data has regularly shown that Kansans’ incomes are lower than the national average and this is impacting the economic climate in…

  • Local economic development in Wichita

    There is an interesting academic paper titled “The Failures of Economic Development Incentives,” published in Journal of the American Planning Association, and which can be read here: www.planning.org/japa/pdf/04winterecondev.pdf. A few quotes from the study: Given the weak effects of incentives on the location choices of businesses at the interstate level, state governments and their local…

  • Tax reform and simplification

    Our tax system has a bias against saving and investment. That slows capital formation and wage growth.

  • Taxpayer Bill Of Rights (TABOR) eviscerated

    By Karl Peterjohn Governor Bill Owens won a Pyrrhic victory in his campaign to eliminate the Taxpayers Bill Of Rights (TABOR) limits on government growth in Colorado. Owens’ short lived Proposition C victory will lead to a host of long term consequences that are mainly negative for Coloradans looking for a better economic future for…

  • Reports of TABOR’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

    by Alan Cobb The supporters of Big Government were overjoyed this week when 52 percent of Colorado voters backed an effort to fix a glitch in that state’s hugely successful Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights by allowing the state government to keep an estimated $3.7 billion in scheduled tax relief over the next five years. This…

  • How About Something Simple Like the Truth

    While TABOR supporters offer hope and solutions to getting out of our economic slump, opponents offer nothing but nay-saying, scare tactics and misinformation.

  • TABORTruth.org Not Quite So

    Right away the website tabortruth.org states: “TABOR proponents are baiting citizens with the allure of tax cuts, …” My understanding of proposals for a TABOR in Kansas doesn’t include tax cuts, except in one case. That’s because taxing and spending will proceed in this way: First, spend up to the limit imposed by the sum…

  • Fact Sheet: The Truth About Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights

    The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights amendment has been an overwhelming success in Colorado. Colorado’s TABOR has successfully restrained the growth of state government and allowed millions of taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money. Since Colorado enacted the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992, the state has experienced one of the strongest economic growth…

  • TABOR Fact Sheet: Kansas vs. Colorado

    TABOR Fact Sheet: Kansas vs. Colorado Estimated at 10.4 percent of income, Kansas’s state/local tax burden percentage ranks 14th highest nationally, well above the national average of 10.1 percent. Kansas taxpayers pay $3,629 per-capita in state and local taxes. Kansas ranks 32nd in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index: Missouri (11th), Oklahoma (14th),…