Iowa State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald unveiled a new tax calculator tool this morning in a conference call with reporters. According to a statement from the Obama campaign in Iowa, the calculator  

allows Iowans to test just how much savings individuals and families can expect under both Barack Obama and John McCain’s proposed tax plans.  The calculator prompts users to enter their households’ specific data, and then calculates the difference under each candidate’s proposals.  See the calculator at: http://taxcut.barackobama.com/

[…]

Treasurer Fitzgerald, who has been Iowa’s state treasurer for 26 years, said, “Iowans deserve to know the facts about each candidates’ tax policies.  As the McCain campaign continues to launch false attacks on Barack Obama’s tax plan, this new tax calculator will help voters across the country see for themselves how the Obama-Biden economic plan will provide real tax relief to 95 percent of working families.  Our country faces challenging economic times, and we need steady leadership that will put money back in the pockets of middle class families, create new jobs, strengthen our small businesses and turn our economy around – that’s what we’ll get with Barack Obama as president.”

Barack Obama will give a tax cut to 95 percent of workers and their families, leading middle class families to face the lowest income tax rates in over 50 years. He will also eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000, and give struggling homeowners a mortgage tax worth 10 percent of the interest they pay on their mortgage.

On the other hand, McCain will put the corporate interests ahead of the middle class by giving $45 billion in tax breaks to the 200 largest corporations in America, including $4 billion in giveaways to oil companies that are already making record profits.  And while he’ll reward corporations that ship jobs overseas, he won’t give any tax relief at all to 101 million households.

I just used the calculator, plugging in my family’s details, and we save five times as much under the Obama tax plan as we do under the McCain tax plan.

There’s also a short web ad on the tax calculator page, which highlights the key facts about the Obama and McCain tax proposals.

It’s nice to see a Democratic candidate going on offense when it comes to tax policy.

Over at the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog, Hilzoy had a great comment on news that John McCain may soon propose “economic measures aimed directly at the middle class” such as “tax cuts — perhaps temporary — for capital gains and dividends”:

Because what everyone is really worried about right now is how they’ll manage to pay the taxes on their massive capital gains.

The biggest surprise for me this year is how poor a campaign McCain has run since locking up the Republican nomination.

This is an open thread on the dumbest policy idea or campaign tactic McCain has come up with in recent months.

Although McCain had no great options for VP, in my opinion, I still think picking Sarah Palin was one of his biggest mistakes.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports,

Despite signals that Senator John McCain would have new prescriptions for the economic crisis after a weekend of meetings, his campaign said Sunday that Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, would not have any more proposals this week unless developments call for some.

There’s a winning message!

Everyone who doesn’t think that current developments call for some economic policy proposals, please raise your hands.

Great ad, “Zero,” released by Barack Obama’s campaign less than 12 hours after the presidential debate:

The Democratic political blogs seemed to think Obama’s best moment of the debate was when he pounded John McCain on being wrong about Iraq.

I liked that clip, but I think this ad is very smart, because the economy is a bigger issue for most voters than Iraq.

At fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver analyzes last night’s snap polls and explains why the snap polls and focus groups showed an advantage to Obama:

TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience.

[…]

McCain’s essential problem is that his fundamental strength – his experience — is specifically not viewed by voters as carrying over to the economy. And the economy is pretty much all that voters care about these days.

EDIT: The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on “understanding your needs and problems” before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on “prepared to be president” to a +21.

Click the link, because Silver’s piece is worth your time.

Speaking of the pundits who were McCain’s target audience, the Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen thought McCain won the debate.  

A popular topic of discussion in my town seems to be how crappy the roads have been all winter. The discussion has moved into the local newspaper and into the city council chambers.

I have to agree with a lot of the criticism because many of the roads that I drive on everyday are pretty bad. However, I do not blame the city council or the city workers for the ice covered and snow packed roads. I put the blame on the anti-tax crowd that gets all worked up about any discussion of property taxes. Every time a new budget is discussed the anti-tax gets all riled up about property taxes without stopping and thinking about what we actually spend our money on. This lack of rational debate has caused us to become a low-tax minimal-services society.

If you think it is a wise investment to pay overtime for city workers to hop into their snow plows in the middle of the night to clear the roads, then you might just have to pay a couple more dollars on your property taxes.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of all taxes. I understand that our tax money is wasted over and over again by the federal, state, and local governments. I don't like the fact that $9 billion of tax payer money is missing in Iraq. I don't like the fact that the state promotes corporate welfare if the company promises to locate jobs in the state. I don't like if cities abuse TIF districts that divert tax payer money away from schools and other services. It is too bad the anti-tax aren't as vocal on these issues.

The question isn't how much we pay in taxes, the question is about the the quality of services we receive from those taxes. Unfortunately, we have become a low-tax minimal-service society. So if you complain then you need to understand that you get what you pay for.

originally posted at Daily Kos

Reading articles about John Edwards, I have noticed the perception that his domestic policy ideas are mainly good for poor people, while other candidates are focusing more on middle-class issues.

David Mizner wrote an excellent diary last Tuesday: “What Edwards is About.” (If you missed it, click here or here–it sparked a lively discussion.) David points out that Edwards has done the most by far to call attention to growing social and economic inequality in the United States. I encourage everyone to check out his plans to reduce poverty in this country and globally.

While I agree that Edwards is the candidate who would accomplish the most for the least fortunate, I want to call your attention to his proposals that would benefit middle-class Americans. 

More after the jump. 

Two major energy bills are headed towards floor votes in the House probably Friday, Aug 3.  I haven't yet sorted out what amendments were made yesterday.  This is one of those Congressional doozies, a 700-plus page bill of high complexity that will have a lasting impact on the future of the nation.  Lawmakers will thus only have about 48 hours to familiarize themselves with its provisions.

Bill details and links to track both the bills and coverage of the provisions after the jump. 

Those of you who live in Polk, Dallas or Warren counties will get a chance to vote on the “Destiny” tax proposal on July 10.

David Elbert describes the basics in this piece in the Sunday Register. The concept is, the sales tax would go up from 6 percent to 7 percent in the three counties. One-third of the revenues would go to “property tax relief,” one-third to fund cultural attractions like bike trails, and one-third to local governments to use on whatever they want.

The Register coverage has been mostly cheerleader pieces on how great an idea this is, and how “Yes to Destiny” would help fund the things that make Des Moines a great place to live. They've been mostly dismissive of opposition as based on knee-jerk anti-tax sentiment, or on mistrust of local governments because of things like the CIETC scandal.

As much as I hate to find myself in agreement with the Grover Norquist wing of the Republican Party, I strongly oppose this tax proposal.

For me, it's really simple. The sales tax is regressive, and raising it would impact lower and middle-income people disproportionately. In theory, property tax cuts will offset the tax hike, but corporations and high-end homeowners will get most of the benefit from property tax cuts. Renters or those who live in inexpensive homes will just be getting a tax hike.

If corporations are so excited about these cultural amenities as a way to attract quality employees, then let them fund those initiatives without demanding a property tax cut for business at the same time. 

I'm all for spending more on the arts, music, and bike trails, but I'm not for raising the most regressive tax to do so. The Des Moines Partnership and Chamber of Commerce types who will wring their hands if “Destiny” fails to pass should ask the higher-income Iowans to chip in for culture.

“A bill working its way through the Iowa Legislature would provide tax incentives for a “Web search portal business” if that business invests at least $200 million in the state. . . In Council Bluffs, the Council Bluffs Industrial Foundation is assembling 180 acres of land north of Lake Manawa. The foundation, which is affiliated with the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce, will not say whether the land is for a Google project.

“No estimates were available for the amount of money that the company could receive from the incentives in the bill. The incentives involve sales, use and property tax exemptions for certain kinds of equipment and electricity.

“The City of Council Bluffs is considering offering up to $48 million in local property tax rebates over 20 years for whatever company builds on the land being assembled north of Lake Manawa. Those incentives would be in addition to the state incentives.

“Google announced earlier this year that it was building a $600 million data center in Lenoir, N.C., that would employ 210 people. State and local incentives for that project could be worth more than $260 million. The incentives include sales tax exemptions on electricity over 30 years.”
  Omaha World Herald, April 19, 2007

for the rest of the story, keep reading . .

“. . . the Iowa House has approved a

package of incentives to encourage more film production and development in Iowa. 

House File 892 creates . . . a variety of tax

incentives . . . will provide . . . an income tax credit . . .also allows an Iowa-based business an investment tax credit . . .  Finally, it has an income tax exclusion . . .

“These incentives will assist film makers with the expenses of producing a film, and make Iowa more competitive with other states that already have incentives for film projects. “

  By Speaker of the House Pat Murphy

“I never made an investment decision based on the tax code. . . .[I]f you are giving away money, I will take it.  If you want to give me inducements for something I am going to do anyway, I will take it.  But good business people do not do things because of inducements, they do it because they can see they are going to be able to earn the cost of captital out of their own intelligence and organization of resources.”

  By Paul O’Neill, former CEO, Alcoa and  former Secretary of the Treasury, quoted in THE GREAT AMERICAN JOBS SCAM

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!! I know how to get the money for Iowa’s clean elections bill. And is it ever SWEET!

Look here: Plug the Wal-Mart Loophole

It’s real tax money that now gets slyly siphoned out of the state and turned into tax-free profits for Wal-Mart and other devious corporations who operate in many states. They shift their money around, turning Iowa profits into “expenses” that they “owe” to their other pockets in other states where the money is not taxed. Eventually it becomes untaxed profits.

The fix is a reform known as “combined reporting” and it could have brought us $99 million in the year 2002. That’s FAR MORE than the ten million that we supposedly can’t find for VOICE.

We know where it is and we know how to get it. What are we waiting for, more campaign contributions to Patrick Murphy from Wal-Mart?

cross posted at http://iowavoters.or…

All this presidential stuff is okay, I guess.  But really people, even as a hard-core politics geek there is no way in heck I’m going to maintain interest and enthusiasm for 330-odd days until the caucuses, let alone the more than 20 months until the general.  We need something else to focus on as well or we will all go starkers, our friends and family will shun us.

Lately, my gaze has drifted lower towards local governance, especially local governement finance and economic development issues.  When we talk about economic development and growth in Iowa (as in most states now) the word, TIF enters the conversation pretty quickly.  More on TIFs and their uses and overuses on the flip.