Category: Public Finance

Nancy Pelosi Says a Wealth Tax on Billionaires’ Unrealized Gains is On the Way

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://mishtalk.com/economics/nancy-pelosi-says-a-wealth-tax-on-billionaires-unrealized-gains-is-on-the-way

Excerpt:

In the scramble to find a tax hike that all 50 Democrat Senators could support, Senator Kyrsten Sinema OKs a Tax on Billionaires’ Unrealized Gains.

….

The proposal by Senator Elizabeth Warren is a genuine wealth tax and easily could be tossed by the Supreme Court.  Warren obviously does not give a damn. 

Regardless, expect legal challenges based on the 16th Amendment.

The proposal taxes unrealized gains. But is there “income” before gains are realized? The courts will decide if this goes forward, but the idea is dubious at best.

Author(s): Mike Shedlock

Publication Date: 24 Oct 2021

Publication Site: MishTalk

40 Years of Trillion-Dollar Debt

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://reason.com/2021/10/22/40-years-of-trillion-dollar-debt/?utm_medium=email

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Excerpt:

It’s true, of course, that $1 trillion doesn’t buy what it used to. That amount in 1981 would purchase about $3 trillion worth of stuff today. The best way to measure the national debt over long periods of time is to compare it to America’s gross domestic product (GDP), a rough estimate of the size of the country’s economy in a given year.

In the early 1980s, for example, even as the gross national debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, the national debt was less than 40 percent of GDP. The national debt is now equivalent to the country’s GDP and is on pace to be nearly 200 percent of GDP by the middle of the century, as this chart from Brian Riedl, a deficit hawk and former Republican Senate staffer now working at the Manhattan Institute, helpfully illustrates:

Author(s): Eric Boehm

Publication Date: 22 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Reason

Biden’s Falling Approval Ratings Are Bad News For The Municipal Market

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizfarmer/2021/10/16/bidens-falling-approval-ratings-are-bad-news-for-the-municipal-market/?sh=7c3aed496a80

Excerpt:

Advanced refunding bonds allowed governments to refinance debt earlier, thus letting them take advantage of lower interest rates years sooner and save taxpayer money. The 2017 tax reform eliminated their tax-exempt status which effectively nixed their cost-saving value for governments. But the move increased federal government revenues by billions of dollars each year. Reinstating the bonds, according to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), would cost $11 billion over the next five years.

A federally subsidized taxable bond — what market watchers are calling BABs 2.0 — works differently. Unlike tax-exempt municipal bonds, BABs are taxable, and, as a result, open up the municipal market to new investors, such as pension funds or those living abroad. More buyers is a good thing, but BABs are also more expensive for governments. So to defray the added cost, the federal government in 2009 offered a direct subsidy of 35% of state and local governments’ interest payments on BABs.

That is, until sequestration in 2013 dramatically cut the subsidy and left state and local governments scrambling to fill the void.

BABs 2.0 would work similarly, but also lock in the federal subsidy — a much better deal for governments. They’re expected to cost the federal government more than $22.5 billion between 2022 and 2031, according to estimates from the JCT. 

Author(s): Liz Farmer

Publication Date: 16 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

COVID-19 Relief Program Tracker (NY)

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/covid-relief-program-tracker

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Excerpt:

The Office of the State Comptroller has created this dashboard to track federal relief funds received during the pandemic and eight programs that offer targeted assistance to New Yorkers most severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The tracker explains when each funding stream or program was authorized, how it is designed and how much has been received and spent to date. The data will be updated monthly and will be expanded over time as more information becomes available. We hope the information presented here can be used to help New Yorkers understand how federal aid is used and to inform future conversations about budget investments.

Select a relief program to view its funding and spending, or download this month’s data for all programs.

Author(s):Thomas DiNapoli

Publication Date: accessed 17 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Office of the Comptroller of the State of New York

State comptroller launches COVID-19 relief fund tracker

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/DiNapoli-launches-tracker-of-COVID-19-relief-funds-16533107.php?IPID=Times-Union-HP-CP-Latest-News

Excerpt:

The state has received $21 billion in federal pandemic relief money and has spent $6.1 billion since the end of September, according to a new online tracker released by the state comptroller’s office.

Despite less than a third of the money being spent to date, much of the federal cash has a general spending plan ascribed to it. The state has received just over half of its expected federal aid, which is to total $39.8 billion, according to the tracker. 

“Thankfully New York is getting billions of dollars of federal funding that really has been a lifeline,” state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli told the Times Union. “When you’re seeing an infusion of funding at that magnitude, it is important to follow the money and make sure it is spent as intended.”

Author(s): Joshua Solomon

Publication Date: 14 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Times Union

What’s inside the Treasury’s proposal to track nearly all bank accounts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/treasury-proposal-to-report-bank-information-600/

Excerpt:

The Treasury proposal would have banks report “gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner.” Banks already report interest income over $10 on Form 1099-INT; this proposal would add a few lines to that tax document.

Treasury officials have said that fears of stepped-up audits are unfounded, and the administration has pledged not to increase audits on people earning under $400,000 a year, but focus enforcement “on higher earners who do not fully report their tax liabilities.”

Officials emphasize the IRS would not learn about individual spending patterns — only total money going in or out.

“The proposal involves no reporting of individual transactions of any individual,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CBS Evening News’ Norah O’Donnell. “If somebody reports an income of $10,000 and they had 3 million [dollars] go out of their checking account, that tells the IRS that’s an individual you might audit.”

Author(s): IRINA IVANOVA

Publication Date: 13 Oct 2021

Publication Site: CBS News

Who’s Missing From The ‘Build Back Better’ Reconciliation Bill? The Elderly And Disabled Poor

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2021/10/10/whos-missing-from-the-build-back-better-reconciliation-bill-the-elderly-and-disabled-poor/

Excerpt:

In recent articles, I have lamented poorly designed components of the Reconciliation Bill, from a poorly-designed “free childcare” program to a family leave plan that’s designed to be “free” rather than funded by the workers who benefit, to a Medicare drug benefit that’s planned to be implemented at the same time as Part A Medicare is facing insolvency, to a mandate that employers provide retirement plan access that leaves virtually all of the specifics up to a bureaucratic agency. And this just scratches at the surface of the expansive programs on tap if the bill is passed as currently drafted. But there’s one piece of legislation that advocates have been calling for, for years, which didn’t make the cut: an increase in the benefits for the poorest of the poor elderly and disabled who receive Supplemental Security Income, or SSI.

…..

So why didn’t SSI make the cut, when the Democrats compiled their list of programs for the “American Family Plan”? Do some of these changes go too far, increase benefits too much? Did they want to avoid opening up a can of worms with respect to larger plan design issues with the system, for example, concerns that the children’s benefits have become an “alternative welfare system” providing benefits for children equal to those for adults, even with mild conditions such as ADHD, that mean no one wants to touch the system?

Or does an enhancement of SSI benefits simply fail to meet the Democrats’ objective of making voters happy with broad outlays of cash benefitting the middle class as well as the poor?

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 10 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

No, Lightfoot’s Chicago Budget Does Not Make An ‘Actuarial’ Pension Contribution

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2021/10/10/no-lightfoots-chicago-budget-does-not-make-an-actuarial-pension-contribution/

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Excerpt:

Now, what she identifies as an “accomplishment,” having finished the climb up the pension ramp, is actually a state law that left her no choice in the matter. But that’s not the only incorrect part of her statement. Even having finally left the ramp behind, the plans are not funded on an “actuarially determined basis.” They are funded based on the Illinois legislature’s decision of a funding schedule which, for the police and fire plans, is sufficient to attain 90% funding in the year 2055, and for the Municipal and Laborers’ plan, not until 2058. Yes, if you do the math, that’s 34 and 37 years from now.

In fact, the plans’ actuarial valuations calculate a figure that’s labelled the Actuarially Determined Contribution. For the Fire plan (19% funded), the city’s contribution was only 79% of the ADC; for the Police plan (23% funded), the city’s contribution was only 75% of the ADC. And these are the two plans which reached the top of the ramp last year!

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 10 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

SALT Deductibility, Hypocrisy and Good Government

Mary Pat Campbell
SALT Deductibility, Hypocrisy and Good Government

Excerpt:

SALT deductibility does create serious issues, however. SALT was the largest itemized deduction, allowing itemizers to export a substantial portion of their burdens onto other Americans through the federal tax code. If I faced a 30percent federal marginal tax rate, paying $100 more in SALT lowers my federal tax bill by $30. It only costs me $70. Because that subsidy rises the more property is owned and the higher the income of the owner, the distortion overwhelmingly favors the richest, with the middle-class (who own less property, earn less, and face lower marginal tax rates) getting far smaller benefits, and non-itemizers getting no subsidy at all. In the process, it also subsidizes high state and local tax states at others’ expense.

Even when citizens do not feel they get their money’s worth from SALT-financed services, federal deductibility still subsidizes those governments, increasing their incentives to act in ways contrary to citizens’ interests. No wonder Democrats in high budget/high tax states are so strident in supporting deductibility. In the example above, federal income tax deductibility means that as long as a local citizen believes such spending provides more than 70 cents of value per dollar of spending, and they don’t take into account the added federal burdens they must bear from those similarly subsidized elsewhere, they think they gain. That encourages those governments to do more of what they should not do and more of what they do badly, not more of what their citizens find worth doing.

Author(s): Gary Galles

Publication Date: 6 October 2021

Publication Site: AIER

Illinois and Iowa – the Mutt and Jeff of ‘balanced budgets’

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/illinois-and-iowa-the-mutt-and-jeff-of-balanced-budgets

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Iowa (the blue line) maintained positive net revenue in 15 of the 16 years. Illinois, on the other hand, did so in only three of those 16 years.

The frequency of truly-balanced-budgets, as indicated by “Net Revenue,” provides significant explanatory power (in econometrics-speak) for two important measures of state government performance – Truth in Accounting’s “Taxpayer Burden” measure of overall financial condition and rankings of the states on the latest Gallup results for a survey of trust in state government. 

In our latest (2021) Financial State of the States report on state government finances, Iowa ranked 9th, while Illinois ranked 48th. And in the latest Gallup poll on trust in state government, Iowa ranked 8th, while Illinois ranked 50th (dead last).

Author(s): Bill Bergman

Publication Date: 28 Sept 2021

Publication Site: Truth in Accounting

Financial State of the States 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2021

Full PDF: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Booklet-2021.pdf

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Excerpt:

Unfunded retirement liabilities
are the largest contributing factor
to the $1.5 trillion in state-level
debt. One of the ways states make
their budgets look balanced is
by shortchanging public pension
and OPEB funds. This practice
has resulted in a $926.3 billion
shortfall in pension funds and a
$638.7 billion shortfall in OPEB
funds

Author(s): Truth in Accounting

Publication Date: September 2021

Publication Site: Truth in Accounting

Revisualizing the Financial State of the States: 2021 edition

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/revisualizing-the-financial-state

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Excerpt:

One large benefit of a tile grid map is you can see the geographically small states, which are often more obscured when you a geographically accurate map.

When viewed in this way, with the states colored by their grades, you can see that there’s a Northeastern Rogue’s Gallery, in addition to the expected stinkers of Illinois, Kentucky, and California (also, Hawaii, but many people don’t expect that one.)

But I want to point out that a lot of “red” states, in the political sense, also have crappy finances.

Texas is a particularly bad offender here, with a taxpayer deficit of -$13,100 per taxpayer. It’s not just the “expected” states where pensions are grossly underfunded — mind you, pretty much every single taxpayer sinkhole here has grossly underfunded state-level pensions — but it is a widespread problem.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 29 Sept 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack