June 27, 2006

LA Times Says Terrorists Weren’t Using Bank Transfer Money to Kill People

Today's LA Times has an article by the editor of the paper, titled "Why we ran the bank story." It contains this howler:

We sometimes withhold information when we believe that reporting it would threaten a life. In this case, we believed, based on our talks with many people in the government and on our own reporting, that the information on the Treasury Department's program did not pose that threat.

The program tracked money being sent to terrorists who use it to kill people. Does the Times pretend to think that terrorists are using the financing for some peaceful purpose?

Gore “Global Warming” Docu Loses Box Office Heat

From Variety:

"An Inconvenient Truth" started off marching bigger than the penguins, but now it's looking more like "Bowling for Columbine."

Paramount Vantage's global-warming doc bowed Memorial Day weekend to a boffo $367,311 at just four theaters, giving it a three-day average of $70,333 per play, the highest ever for a documentary.

But after expanding successfully to the top 10 and 25 markets in its second and third frame, keeping its average take at $17,615 and $12,334, respectively, doc has slowed down significantly as it opened in smaller cities and suburban markets.

The GWB Tax Cuts Worked: Tax Cuts Power Growth in Consumer Wealth *and* Cut Deficit

From Human Events:

Before the Bush tax cuts, asset values were dropping. But since 2002, the year before the Bush tax cuts took full effect, the assets of American households have surged from $47 trillion to $66 trillion. That is an increase of almost $19 trillion-or an average of roughly $10 million per minute!

Similar increases in American wealth followed the Kennedy tax cuts in the 1960s, the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s, and even the tax cuts that a Republican Congress forced on President Clinton in the 1990s. When business taxes go down, after-tax profit goes up. Stock market values are based on anticipated future profits. When taxes on investors (like dividends and capital gains taxes) are cut, their assets automatically increase in value. Investments in homes and stocks and bonds become less risky, capital floods back into markets, and asset values explode.

That's the theory, and, so it appears, the reality as well.

And from AlphaPatriot:

Wonder of wonders, voodoo economics is working:

When President Bush pledged in 2004 to cut the deficit in half by 2009, critics guffawed. The Boston Globe headlined a story, "Bush's plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; higher spending, lower taxes don't mix, analysts say." "Fanciful," "laughable" and "all spin," said the critics.

Well, it turns out that 2009 might be coming early this year. ... This year, the deficit could go as low as $300 billion, right around the 2009 goal of 2.5 percent of GDP.

As Rich Lowry goes on to explain, pro-growth works:

The deficit climbed unexpectedly in the early Bush years and is declining unexpectedly now, not because the projections for economic growth were wildly off, but because the kind of people who pay the most taxes took a bath early in the decade and are recovering now. Almost 47 percent of income taxes are paid by those making more than $200,000 a year, and they are thriving again. A chunk of the current revenue surge is also from corporate income taxes, which are up 30 percent over last year.

...But the bottom line is that cutting taxes worked for Reagan, and even though George W. inherited the Clinton Recession, it worked for him too.

See also these previous posts:

The GWB Tax Cuts Worked: More Great News on the Economy

The Tax Cuts Worked-Economic Expansion: Year Five

The Bush Tax Cuts Have Resulted in Higher Tax Revenue

Lower Taxes Make the Economy Stronger

Lower Tax Rates Are Resulting In Higher Tax Revenue

A Myth Debunked: Bush Tax Cuts Did Not Favor the Rich

Tax Cuts Work: Government Forecasting Incorrectly Thought Tax Costs Would Reduce Tax Revenue