Ever since the invasion of Iraq was contemplated, the White House has reassured people that Iraq’s oil money would remain theirs to spend to help rebuild the country. Earlier this year Bush was explicit: “One year after the liberation of Iraq, the revenues of the oil stream is pretty darn significant. That money will benefit […]

Karla L. Miller of Tax Analysts writes: The International Monetary Fund in a staff report on the U.S. economic outlook questioned whether the Bush administration’s medium- term goal of halving the deficit in five years is “ambitious enough”; the IMF’s suggestions for long-term fiscal security included imposing restrictions on tax cuts, broadening personal and corporate […]

George Mundstock’s 9th installment (August 2, www.discourse.net) in “US Taxation of Multinationals” goes after corporate inversions. Recommened reading also includes the prior eight installments as George is excellent. Earlier, I noted his July 19 piece on ETI “Leave No Corporation Behind”, which preceded US Taxation of Multinationals. For now, let me pass along part of […]

The price of oil is at an all-time high in nominal terms today: over $44 per barrel. Part of the reason for today’s increase in oil prices can be found in these statements by OPEC oil ministers: “The oil price is very high, it’s crazy. [But] there is no additional supply,” said OPEC president Purnomo […]

A longer transcript, also brought to you by the magic of Tivo (i.e., very close to right, but probably not verbatim), is up at Daily Kos. AB

By now, you’ve probably seen somewhere that Dennis Hastert is floating the idea of abolishing the IRS and replacing income taxes with a consumption tax (or, alternatively, a VAT). Kevin Drum’s already given this idea the treatment it deserves. But since this issue is resurfacing now, it seems like a good time to point out […]

From the NYT: WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 -Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete […]

Sadly, there are no transcripts of The Daily Show (if there are, please tell me where), so the following is a loose account, and quotations are only approximate (brought to you by the magic of Tivo.) Tonight’s guest was Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-TX) and member of the GOP’s “rapid response team” convened during the Democratic […]

A bit of trivia: yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the first of two attacks on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin that quickly lead to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave LBJ broad powers to escalate the American role in Vietnam from an advisory role to active participation. More when, or if, […]

Apparently when John Edwards said this in his acceptance speech on Wednesday: “And we, John and I, we will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaeda and these terrorists: You cannot run. You cannot hide. We will destroy you,” George Bush wasn’t listening. Or perhpas in place of “destroy”, he heard “negotiate and hope […]