By Paolo von Schirach May 19, 2012 WASHINGTON – On May 16 former US President George W. Bush made a speech in Washington, DC at the “Celebration of Freedom”, an event aimed at presenting the Freedom Collection, interviews with freedom activists. Here is an excerpt from his remarks.
By Paolo von Schirach April 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – Sebastian Mallaby, (The Buffettt rule is a sorry excuse for tax reform, The Financial Times, April 13, 2012), correctly points out that President Obama’s insistence in pushing the idea of tax increases for the rich (the “Buffett rule”) is bogus tax reform. Surely we could and probably [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 21, 2012 WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is a courageous man. He came forth with a Republican budget proposal that would actually do something substantive about entitlement and tax reform. He already did this with his 2011 “Path to Prosperity” budget proposal. But that got nowhere because the [...]
By Paolo von Schirach Related story: http://schirachreport.com/index.php/2011/09/30/the-buffett-rule-is-pure-demagoguery-taxing-the-rich-more-in-america-would-do-nothing-to-spur-enterprise-the-only-engine-for-investments-and-jobs-creation/ March 20, 2012 WASHINGTON – I wrote a while ago (see link above) that the “Buffett rule” is just feel good populism. The ”Buffett rule” is a proposed tax code change that would require the few very wealthy Americans who are taxed at a low rate because their money comes from [...]
By Paolo von Schirach March 14, 2012 WASHINGTON – Listening to the pundits debating the upcoming presidential elections, the consensus boils down to this: if the unemployment rate stays as is (8,3%) or trends down between now and November, president Obama gets re-elected. If it goes higher, then he is in trouble and may not make [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 28, 2012 WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, yesterday February 27, was a day of national and international protest about the integrity of our food supply promoted by the Occupy Wall Street Movement and its affiliate Occupy Our Food Supply. The point of the protest was to fight against the large agri-business [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 9, 2012 WASHINGTON – The confused and fractious Republicans appear terminally incapable of getting their act together, as the latest contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri won by comfortable margins by conservative Rick Santorum show. By now it is pretty obvious: a large chunk of the rank and file GOP activists really do not [...]
By Paolo von Schirach February 6, 2012 WASHINGTON – Remember Yale historian Paul Kennedy and his 1987 tome “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers“? At that time there was a lot of interest in, and indeed concern about his fairly comprehensive narrative focusing on how all major Western Powers, primarily because of the huge [...]
By Paolo von Schirach January 26, 2012 WASHINGTON – It is quite depressing to observe Washington total political paralysis, accompanied by cheap and openly divisive populism. Admittedly, it is difficult to govern when the two parties are so deeply divided. But the president has to try. This is what he was elected to do and what he gets paid [...]
By Paolo von Schirach January 21, 2012 WASHINGTON – What is surprising about the decisive victory by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina Republican primary is the speed with which public sentiment about him among Republican voters changed so dramatically and so quickly. How can it be that all opinion polls projected a [...]