The rich already pay (much) more

The more you earn, the higher your tax rate.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projects that for 2011, households with more than $1 million in income will have an average federal tax rate of 29.1%, compared to a rate of about 12.4% for households with income of $40,000 to $50,000. The center counts all federal taxes, including income, payroll and estate taxes.

Internal Revenue Service data suggest a similar pattern for individual income tax, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. It found that households with income between $40,000 and $50,000 have an average tax rate of about 6.8%, while households with income over $1 million have an average rate of 24.6%.

Then again, what do they know about it?

Stimulus spending vs. clear communication

A thought-provoker about the nature of the market place. Keynes, patron saint of governmental borrowing and spending, missed it, this fellow says. So did I, but no one invokes me when they want to stimulate the economy, even when meaning allowing the market to have its way.

A clue to what the quoted economist means lies in this, the first of 62 comments, in which it is said, “[P]rices are signals transmitting information, and that government action adds noise to the signal.”

I get that. Prices as signals, made hard to read by gummint static.

Amarillo, here they come

Say what? Chicago’s Joe Scheidler taking a pass on a pro-life protest?

Earlier this week, Joseph Scheidler, director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, said his group strongly supports Pavone but would not participate in the Amarillo protests.

We try to discourage that, Scheidler said. The bishops are kind of a fraternity. You attack one bishop, you are attacking the whole episcopal gathering.

It’s huge, as we say these days — not Scheidler’s demurrer but the protest, which is about Fr. Pavone and his bishop.

Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Executive Director Gregg Cunningham and Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said Thursday they are mobilizing activists and billboard trucks from cities nationwide to converge next week in Amarillo for peaceful protests outside Diocese of Amarillo facilities and activities.

Cunningham and Newman said the groups will use graphic images of aborted fetuses in informational pickets designed to spur people to urge Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to allow the Rev. Frank Pavone to return to his international pro-life ministry.

We’re talking trucks, planes, graphic images, etc. Enough to make you sympathetic with a bishop.

White House, Solyndra and all that

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig . . .

In this time of record debt, I question whether the government is qualified to act as a venture capitalist, picking winners and losers in speculative ventures and shelling out billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Wednesday during a subcommittee hearing on the Solyndra loan guarantee.

. . . Home again, home again, market is done. And maybe, maybe, somewhere over the rainbow is an end of federal subsidy of pet “green” (as in money) enterprises.

(Apologies to nursery rhymers everywhere.)