90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, October 19, 2018

Go Figure: Federal Revenues Hit All-Time Highs Under Trump Tax Cuts

Taxes: Critics of the Trump tax cuts said they would blow a hole in the deficit. Yet individual income taxes climbed 6% in the just-ended fiscal year 2018, as the economy grew faster and created more jobs than expected.

The Treasury Department reported this week that individual income tax collections for FY 2018 totaled $1.7 trillion. That's up $14 billion from fiscal 2017, and an all-time high. And that's despite the fact that individual income tax rates got a significant cut this year as part of President Donald Trump's tax reform plan.
Income Taxes After Trump Tax Cuts

True, the first three months of the fiscal year were before the tax cuts kicked in. But if you limit the accounting to this calendar year, individual income tax revenues are up by 5% through September.

Other major sources of revenue climbed as well, as the overall economy revived. FICA tax collections rose by more than 3%. Excise taxes jumped 13%.

The only category that was down? Corporate income taxes, which dropped by 31%.

Overall, federal revenues came in slightly higher in FY 2018 — up 0.5%.

Spending, on the other hand, was $127 billion higher in fiscal 2018. As a result, deficits for 2018 climbed $113 billion.

Let's compare these results with Obama's last full fiscal year in office, 2016.

Individual income tax revenues went up by a mere 0.3%, Treasury data show. Fiscal 2016 also saw a 13% drop in corporate income taxes. FICA tax collections climbed by less than 1%. Excise tax collections dropped almost 3%.

Overall revenues increased by 0.5% — about the same as this year. The deficit? It climbed by $148 billion.

So, in other words, the government did better on revenues and deficits in the year after Trump's tax cuts went into effect than it did in Obama's last year in office.

Trump Tax Cuts To Blame For Deficit?

To this, critics say, yes, but revenues would have climbed faster had it not been for the tax cuts, because the economy was booming in 2018, unlike in 2016.

Not necessarily.

Yes, the economy was booming in fiscal 2018. But it probably wouldn't have been booming without the tax cuts. Had Trump not succeeded in getting his pro-growth tax cuts across the finish line, it's possible we'd have seen a year like Obama's last one. A sluggish economy, barely increasing federal revenues, and a large increase in deficits.

Does that mean Trump's tax cuts are fully "paying for themselves"? We wouldn't make that argument. But the faster economic growth is clearly offsetting at least some of their costs — which is precisely what...

Fabricating Hate Crimes Is a Byproduct of Victimhood Ideology on College Campuses

Anna Ayers, a student government leader at Ohio University, reported finding threatening messages in the drawer of her desk a few weeks ago.

Ayers, an LGBT student, said the three notes were “hateful, harassing,” according to The Post Athens, a student-run news outlet, and made specific attacks on her sexual identity.

“Senate will never be the same for me,” Ayers told The Post of the notes, the first of which she said appeared Sept. 27 in her desk at the Student Senate. “The friendships will continue to grow, and our successes will always evoke pride, but the memory of my time in senate and at OU will be marred by this experience. We will all have a memory of a time when this body failed one of its own.”

The incident caused a stir on campus. The problem was, that stir was based on a lie.

Police quickly concluded that no hate crime had taken place, and that Ayers actually had written the notes to herself.

The authorities charged Ayers with a misdemeanor, to which she pleaded not guilty. She is no longer a student at the university.

Incidents like this have become a strikingly common trend inthe past few years, especially on college campuses.

While most alleged hate crimes on campus go unsolved, it is hard to ignore the fact that so many hoaxes have occurred.

A variety of motivations may prompt a student to make up a hate crime, but one thing is for certain: The overwhelmingly dominant ideology on college campuses celebrates victimhood, even above achievement, and achievement itself is worthless without victimhood.

If one doesn’t maintain some kind of victimhood status, your opinion is worth less, your accomplishments are dismissed, and your success is written off as the product of privilege.

It’s no wonder Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., continues to maintain that she has Native American heritage—which Harvard Law School once openly celebrated—despite the thinnest of evidence that she has any connection to the Cherokee tribe.

For students seeking attention and accolades from peers on a modern college campus, it may make sense to create the false impression that you have become the victim of a hate crime or some other kind of oppression.

This is especially true given how quickly the stories are exploited for...

More Red Every Year...

How Red is the Little Red Schoolhouse”, United States, 1945

On the Street: We Went to a Trump Rally. Here Are the Stories No One Tells.

This week, The Daily Signal presents a special edition of “On the Street.” We traveled to Lebanon, Ohio, to attend a rally featuring President Donald Trump. While we were there, we talked with everyday Americans about the issues that matter and which of Trump’s accomplishments are most important to them.

“I like how he shows his faith,” one attendee told us. “I haven’t seen that in a leader in a very long time, but I love how he shows his faith and his love for God and his love for country.”

“He’s doing what he said he was going to do,” another supporter said. “Regardless, he’s trying to drain the swamp and that’s important. One thing he did, probably by getting elected, he showed us just how corrupt Washington was. I don’t think we knew that.”

We took our cameras “On the Street” to the Trump rally to find out this and more. Watch the whole video above.

2018 Poll: Immigration ‘Most Important’ Issue for GOP Voters

Immigration is the “most important” 2018 midterm issue for Republican voters, according to a national survey released on Thursday.

The Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll found that 25% of Republicans ranked immigration as the most important midterm issue. “Economy and Jobs” (23%) was second, followed by health care (17%), “gun policy” (17%), and “tax cuts and reform” (7%).

President Donald Trump has tried to single-handedly make illegal immigration a top issue for voters while he has barnstormed across the country for Republicans in recent weeks.

Trump has branded Democrats as the party of “abolish ICE” and “open borders” and has said that Democrats want to turn America into a “friendly sanctuary for murderous thugs” like MS-13 gangsters.

At a Thursday evening Montana rally, Trump said he would be willing to send the military to the U.S.-Mexico border “because of the illegal immigration onslaught brought by the Democrats” and referred to the 2018 midterm elections as “an election of the caravan,” referring to the thousands of migrants headed to the United States from Honduras.

“This will be an election of [Justice Brett] Kavanaugh, the caravan, law and order, and common sense,” Trump said, blaming Democrats for wanting more illegal immigrant migrants to enter the country because they “figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat.”

Earlier on Thursday, Trump tweeted about the migrant caravan and accused Democrats of leading the “assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S…..”

“In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!..,” Trump added. “The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA. Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border. All Democrats fault for weak laws!”

In a startling revelation, Guatemala’s president announced in the country’s largest newspaper that nearly 100 ISIS terrorists have been apprehended in the impoverished Central American nation. Why should Americans care about this?

A caravan of Central American migrants is making its way north. Let’s not forget that Guatemala is one of the countries that bombarded the U.S. with illegal immigrant minors under Barack Obama’s open border free-for-all. They came in droves from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala through the Mexican border and for years Uncle Sam rolled out the welcome mat offering housing, food, medical treatment and a free education

Guatemala has long been known as a major smuggling corridor

A terrorist could have easily slipped in considering the minors, coined Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), were not properly vetted and some turned out to be violent gangbangers who went on to commit heinous crimes in their adopted land of opportunity. In fact, the nation’s most violent street gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), was energized by the barrage of UACs.

The Texas Department of Public Safety even issued a report documenting how the MS-13 emerged as a top tier gang in the state thanks to the influx of illegal alien gang members that came with the UACs. At the time more than 60,000 UACs—many with criminal histories—had stormed into the U.S. in a matter of months. Tens of thousands more eventually made it north.

Guatemala has long been known as a major smuggling corridor for foreigners from African and Asian countries making their way into the U.S. Last year Guatemala’s largest paper, Prensa Libra, published an in-depth piece on the inner workings of an international human smuggling network that moves migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh to the U.S. Individuals are sent to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates then flown to Brazil before heading to Colombia.

Once in South America, the migrants are transported to Panama before moving on to Costa Rica then a central point on Guatemala. One Spanish news report refers to Guatemala as a human smuggling paradise because it’s so easy to get fake passports. A few years ago, the head of Guatemala’s passport division got arrested for selling fake passports to a group of Colombians, according to a government announcement.

All this makes ISIS terrorists operating in Guatemala incredibly alarming. President Jimmy Morales confirmed it during a recent security conference attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as well as the presidents of...

When news came earlier this week that another migrant caravan that started in Honduras was on its way to the United States, President Donald Trump laid down the law with Mexico and Honduras.

“The United States has strongly informed the President of Honduras that if the large Caravan of people heading to the U.S. is not stopped and brought back to Honduras, no more money or aid will be given to Honduras, effective immediately!” the president tweeted.

The U.S. gave $175 million in aid to Honduras last fiscal year, according to The Hill.

And this morning, he told Mexico they needed to stop such caravans or he would close the border.

“I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Now, that show of strength seems to have impressed itself upon Mexico.

From Daily Caller News Foundation:

Mexico sent federal police to its southern border Wednesday with a warning that they will detain and deport any members of a highly publicized migrant caravan who try to enter the country without a visa.

The police officers arrived in two planes in Tapachula, a border city that is a popular waypoint for migrants coming up through Central America to cross into Mexico. Local media reports showed hundreds of agents deplaning, some carrying riot gear.

In a statement released Wednesday evening, the Mexican foreign ministry said any of the caravan migrants entering the country “in an irregular manner” will be arrested and administratively deported if appropriate. Migrants who claim they are fleeing violence and want to petition for asylum must do so at the border, while remaining in a government-run camp for up to 45 days, the statement also said.

And the Mexican government had already said entry visas would not be granted to migrants who don’t meet “the requirements to transit toward a neighboring country.” They have also said they don’t grant visas at the border but only at Mexican consulates abroad.

The caravan which started in Honduras has now swelled by some estimates to around 3000 people.

The people in the caravan say they are fleeing conditions in Honduras and hope to get refugee status in Mexico or visas to enter Mexico to be able to get to...