New York Times: Tax Code May Be the Most Progressive Since 1979

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WASHINGTON — With 2013 bringing tax increases on the incomes of a small sliver of the richest Americans, the country’s top earners now face a heavier tax burden than at any time since Jimmy Carter was president.

The last-minute deal struck by the departing 112th Congress raised taxes on a handful of the highest-earning Americans, with about 99.3 percent of households experiencing no change in their income taxes. But the Tax Policy Center estimates that the average family in the top 1 percent will pay a federal tax rate of more than 36 percent this year, up from 28 percent in 2008. That is the highest rate since 1979, at least.

By some measures, the tax code might now be the most progressive in a generation, tax economists said, while noting that every American is paying a lower burden currently than they did then. In fact, the total federal tax rate is still vastly lower for the very rich than it was at any point in the 1940s through 1970s. It has risen from historical lows, but is still closer to those lows than where it was in the postwar decades.

“We made the system more progressive by raising rates at the top and leaving them for everyone else,” said Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a research group based in Washington. “The offsetting issue is that the rich have gotten a lot richer.”

Indeed, over the last three decades the bulk of pretax income gains have gone to the wealthy — and the higher up on the income scale, the bigger the gains, with billionaires outpacing millionaires who outpaced the merely rich. Economists doubted that the tax increases would do much to reverse that trend.

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Obama Sends Warning Shot to Republicans on Debt-Ceiling Increase

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President Obama on Saturday sent a cautionary note to GOP leaders ahead of the looming debt-ceiling debate, warning the Republicans that anything but a timely hike in the nation’s borrowing cap represents a “dangerous game” that threatens the economy both at home and abroad.

In his weekly radio address to the country, Obama urged GOP leaders to support a drama-free increase in the debt limit, and tackle the issues of spending, revenues and entitlements in a separate context.

“As I said earlier this week, one thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they’ve already racked up,” Obama said from Honolulu, Hawaii, where he’s vacationing. “If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic.

“The last time Congress threatened this course of action, our entire economy suffered for it,” he added, referring to the protracted debt-ceiling debate in 2011. “Our families and our businesses cannot afford that dangerous game again.”

The debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling is shaping up to be the next big, partisan fight in a string of high-stakes budget battles that are threatening to consume most of the political oxygen in the early stages of the 113th Congress. The Treasury Department reached its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on Monday, but the agency has said it can shuffle funds to pay its obligations for roughly two months, setting the stage for a showdown as March approaches.

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Father of Four in California Makes His Stand Against Alleged LGBT Agenda in Classroom

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Monday’s meeting of the Capistrano Unified School District’s school board should offer more fireworks than usual.

At the meeting, Stan Wasbin, a father of four, plans to voice his complaint that local schools are becoming “re-education camps” because of an excessive focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, reports the San Juan Capistrano Patch.

Wasbin, a resident of the seaside suburb of San Clemente, asked in a three-page letter that his concerns about the supposedly agenda-driven politicization of the school curriculum be placed on the official board agenda.

Both the curriculum and Wasbin’s missive come in response to a new California law obligating social science classes to include the historical role played by gay, lesbian, bisexuals and transgender people.

“In our public schools, we want our children to learn math, music, science, English, art, American history and a foreign language or two,” Wasbin wrote, according to Patch. “That’s a lot, and that’s enough.”

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Obama Wants to Force Military Chaplains to Violate Their Religious Beliefs

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President Barack Obama called a conscience clause for military chaplains in the National Defense Authorization Act “unnecessary and ill-advised.”

The NDAA provision ordered that no member of the armed forces may require a chaplain to perform a rite or ceremony that violates the chaplain’s beliefs, and that chaplains may not be disciplined for refusing to perform such a ceremony.

The provision, which was introduced by now-former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, was a response to Obama’s 2011 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Religious liberty advocates and chaplains worried that they may be required to violate their consciences by administering sacraments or officiating marriage ceremonies to gay service members, which would be contrary to some religious traditions, including those of the Catholic Church.

“The Armed Forces shall accommodate the beliefs of a member of the armed forces reflecting the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of the member and, in so far as practicable, may not use such beliefs as the basis of any adverse personnel action, discrimination, or denial of promotion, schooling, training, or assignment,” the bill read.

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Boehner Returns as Speaker by Three Votes

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House Speaker John A. Boehner narrowly survived his re-election battle on Thursday as the 113th Congress convened at the Capitol amid calls for cooperation on the same issues that left lawmakers gridlocked over the past two years.

In the Senate, the two top leaders have at least for the time being averted a potentially disastrous fight over filibuster rules, and the inspiring return of Sen. Mark Kirk, Illinois Republican, from a yearlong recovery from a stroke left the upper chamber awash in optimism.

In the House, Republicans and Democrats issued a call to focus on civility, even as they try to tackle big issues.

“If you have come here to see your name in lights or to pass off political victory as accomplishment, you have come to the wrong place. The door is right behind you,” Mr. Boehner said after winning the speaker’s gavel for the second time. “If you have come here humbled by the opportunity to serve, if you have come here to be the determined voice of the people, if you have come here to carry the standard of leadership demanded not just by our constituents but by the times, then you have come to the right place.”

He reconvened the House at noon, just minutes after the 112th Congress officially gaveled to a close, shutting the door on two years that set records for legislative futility.

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CAIR Chief Claims Muslims Discovered America First

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Muslims discovered the Americas long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, the head of a D.C.-based jihad-linked Islamic lobbying group told a Saudi TV station Dec. 27.

“There are historical accounts according to which the Muslims preceded Columbus, who is said to have discovered the U.S.,” claimed Nihad Awad, the co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

“Some documents and accounts indicate that Muslim seafarers were the first to reach the U.S., [so] the bottom line is that Islam played a part in the establishment and development of the U.S.,” Awad told the Saudi interviewer, in an interview in a New York studio.

CAIR did not respond to The Daily Caller’s request for an explanation of Awad’s comments, which were recorded by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Awad’s group bills itself as a “civil rights” group, but five of its former employees have been jailed or deported for terror offenses, and FBI officials refuse to meet Awad because of his ties to jihadi groups, such as Hamas.

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FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year Than Rifles

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According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

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Cruz Sworn In As Texas’ First Hispanic US Senator, Will Introduce Bill To Repeal ‘Obamacare’

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AUSTIN, Texas (CBS/AP) — Tea party darling Ted Cruz has been sworn in as U.S. senator and says his first order of business will be introducing a bill he knows will never pass.

Cruz is a Cuban-American and former state solicitor general. On Thursday, he became the first Hispanic to represent Texas in the Senate.

He has pledged that his first bill would seek to repeal “every syllable of every word” of the Obama administration’s health care reform law.

Now in office, Cruz said he will keep that promise, even though he knows Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama will ensure his bill won’t become law.

Fueled by grassroots support, Cruz could become a rising star among Capitol Hill conservatives following the retirement of tea party leader U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

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Glenn Beck Tried to Buy Al Gore’s Current TV but Sold to Al Jazeera Instead

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photo credit: gage skidmore

Before Al-Jazeera, there was Glenn Beck.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Glenn Beck’s media company, The Blaze, approached Current Media about a sale last year, but was told in the words of one source that “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view.”

The Blaze “reached out to them to buy it,” a source familiar with the talks told POLITICO. “They would have replaced Current programming with The Blaze programming, but were told on initial calls that [Current] wouldn’t sell to someone they weren’t ideologically in line with.”

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University Hosts Former Most-Wanted Criminal Suspect/Communist/Black Panther for “Great Conversations” Series

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Angela Davis, a retired professor, political activist and the third woman ever named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, will be in Grand Forks Feb. 6 as a diversity speaker selected by the UND University Program Council.

Davis will be part of UND’s “Great Conversations” program; a faculty member will interview her at 7 p.m. at Chester Fritz Auditorium. The event will be free and open to the public.

Davis, 68, a distinguished professor emerita in the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, became a nationally recognized activist in the 1960s as a leader of the Communist Party with close relations to the Black Panther Party.

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