Liberal think-tank: NJ gets $9 Billion Fed Tax cut in 2019

While Democrat Congressman Josh Gottheimer has been engaging in histrionics of the most dubious kind, a liberal think-tank has been doing its research and calculations.  What it's come up with undermines the hysterics put out by Nancy Pelosi, Gottheimer, and his status-quo allies in the "problem keepers" caucus.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a liberal advocacy group, recently concluded that New Jersey would save nearly $9 billion in federal taxes in 2019, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Please review their findings yourself by clicking here for a spreadsheet with their analysis: https://t.co/GW6n37OXUn

Contrary to what Nancy Pelosi, Gottheimer, and the "problem keepers" have been saying, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy concludes that New Jersey will pay less in federal taxes under the new tax reform and job creation legislation passed by Congress.  The study includes these key findings:

- New Jersey residents will save nearly $9 billion in federal taxes in 2019;

- 81% of New Jersey residents will receive a tax cut and a further 8% would see no change in their taxes at all;

- The vast majority of taxpayers in every personal income bracket will see a tax cut, with most receiving a substantial tax cut;

- The average taxpayer in New Jersey will get a tax cut of more than $2,000.

Along with 81% of taxpayers getting a tax cut, small businesses are going to pay much less.  It will be the lowest tax rate since World War II -- drawing in new investment for the expansion of existing enterprises, allowing new start-ups, creating thousands upon thousands of new jobs and opportunities.  With billions less going from New Jersey to Washington, that money will be freed up to spend in our communities.

Even before the new tax reform and job creation legislation was passed, there was a sustained positive reaction from companies with local employees -- like OceanFirst Bank, AT&T, Comcast, Wells Fargo, Boeing, and Bank of America -- providing bonuses and pay-hikes to their employees.  These businesses are already using their anticipated savings to invest in their employees for the future, and it is clear that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is going to put more money in the pockets of hardworking taxpayers in New Jersey.

The doom and gloom coming from Nancy Pelosi, Gottheimer, and the "problem keepers" only works if you distort the figures.  The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy study makes clear that the doom and gloomers make sense only if you allow them to erroneously assume that Congress will allow the tax cuts to expire -- and even then this is only true for tax years beginning in 2027. 

Nancy Pelosi, Gottheimer, and the "problem keepers" are arguing in the face of history, which has taught us consistently that politicians who want to be re-elected -- even liberal Democrats like President Obama -- do not end tax cuts when faced with the option, but rather, extend them.  And with the broad consensus being that middle-class tax cuts must be made permanent (even Bernie Sanders says so) there is little chance that the scenario upon which Pelosi, Gottheimer, and the "problem keepers" base their doom and gloom will, in fact, ever materialize.

Instead of the drunken hysterics and all the mental illness being shopped around by the media about this (when they are not focused on a royal wedding or the latest installment of who touched who) interested citizens should be doing their own research and soberly studying the changes and benefits in the new tax reform and job creation package.  It will be well worth the time spent.

Guadagno won't "vote for Trump"

President Barack Obama can't bring himself to say the words "Islamic terrorism."  For Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, the words she can't say are "vote for Donald Trump."

But she's played fast and loose -- just like she did when it came time to tell voters where she stood on abortion.  Back when she was a candidate for the Assembly in 2007, Kim Guadagno assured party leaders that she was Pro-Life.  But when Chris Christie needed a Pro-Choice candidate for Lt. Governor as "balance" to his ticket, Guadagno quickly raised her hand and assured the world that she supported abortion. 

Of course, there are those who just LOVE Guadagno because -- after 2,473 days in office -- she's had an opinion other than the Governor's.  Unfortunately, it was "Red Shirt" leader Bill Spadea's.  That opinion was this:  That after 25 years of not raising revenue sufficient to pay for road and bridge maintenance, the state should continue to borrow just to cover the cost of the existing debt and that property tax increases should be used to fund actual transportation needs.

The cost to taxpayers of Guadagno's plan:  Property tax hikes of $574.00 each year.

We get a big kick out of so-called "conservatives" who say they support Guadagno.  Apparently, using future generations to subsidize cheap gas for today is more important to these "conservatives" than are the deaths of thousands of unborn children.  It is a scientific fact that after 20 weeks, these children feel pain, but that hasn't stopped New Jersey from remaining among an uncivilized remnant of nations (principally Communist China, Vietnam, and North Korea) that refuse to accept science.

Guadagno's latest loosey-goosey is to put out a robo-call saying that she supports the Republican ticket but without mentioning the word "Trump."  In this way she can tell liberal Democrats next year that she stands by her statement of October 9, 2016, about "not voting for Trump" (and thereby helping to elect rabidly pro-abortion Hillary Clinton and assure liberal control of the U.S. Supreme Court), while sliming GOP voters this year into thinking she's with them.  Everybody will be happy except the children.  The unborn will continue to die and those born will be handed the bill for the cheap gas subsidy that she's hoping will be her ticket to following Chris Christie into the Governor's office.

Guadagno's co-conspirator in this latest sham is none other than that flip-flopper in chief, Assemblyman Erik "Twister" Peterson.  The "Twister" (as he is known) can take a vote to support a ballot question in January and then act like he's never read it a few months later.  And he can sound just as convincing when he is talking out of either side of his mouth, swearing that both ways are "conservative."  Was he actually there when the vote was taken or is this a special talent?  Who knows?

Guadagno and Peterson should stop pandering to everyone -- especially the neo-fascist wing of the Alt-Right .  Pay attention to the debate, read, make up your mind, and then stick to it.  Yes, we know things change and there's always more information to be had, but a radio talk show isn't new information -- it is entertainment designed to sell vinyl siding, used cars, and suppositories of one sort or another. 

Political leaders and adults of any kind should avoid believing that listening to Bill Spadea takes the place of the serious, sober, consideration of rational policy.  The Spadea show is not only a poor substitute, it is no substitute at all.  Quite the opposite.

Guadagno, before she replaced Governor Christie with talk radio host Spadea.

Child rape: The Legislature should express its outrage to Congress

An important column by Michelle Malkin today.  The American military is the representative of the American people.  When it is forced to stand by and look the other way while its so-called allies enslave and rape children, that reflects on each and every one of us -- unless we do something about it. 

We know the New Jersey Legislature can act when it wants to.  Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a resolution that inadvertently labeled the national flags of Scotland and Jamaica as "symbols of hate".  So here is a chance to do something more than symbolic, and to get it right. 

Whether in the regular military, the Reserve, or the National Guard, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines from New Jersey have served in Afghanistan.   A resolution from the Legislature would protect their good name and defend potential whistleblowers among them.  The Legislature must ask Congress to protect those whistleblowers who have already come forward and to hold hearings into the mass enslavement and rape of children in Afghanistan.  Then once it has all the facts, Congress must act. 

Here is the story that started it:

"Bacha Bazi": Obama's Silence on Afghan Military's Child Rape

A Commentary By Michelle Malkin

Friday, September 25, 2015

American soldiers are being punished for blowing the whistle on the systematic rape and enslavement of young boys at the hands of brutal Afghan Muslim military officials.

Honorable men in uniform risked their careers and lives to stop the abuse. Yet, the White House -- which was busy tweeting about its new feminism-pandering "It's On Us" campaign against an alleged college rape crisis based on debunked statistics -- is AWOL on the actual pedophilia epidemic known as "bacha bazi." On Thursday, Obama administration flacks went out of their way to downplay Afghan child rape as "abhorrent," but "fundamentally" a local "law enforcement matter."

This is the price the innocents pay for blind multiculturalism.

A New York Times report on the Afghan Muslim practice this week garnered attention and outrage on Capitol Hill -- and prompted a river of denials from Obama Defense Department brass, who insisted our troops were not ordered to look the other way.

But the subjugation and sexual assault of these children -- and their victimization by Afghan military personnel working alongside our troops -- is not new.

Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi's wrenching documentary on "The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan" aired in London and the U.S. in 2010. The United Nations has known and done nothing as Taliban warlords and Afghan police groomed, sodomized and sexually trafficked generations of young boys. The U.S. State Department acknowledged last year that "there were reports security officials and those connected to the ANP (Afghan National Police) raped children with impunity."

In February, I reported on the case of Maj. Jason Brezler. He's still fighting for his reputation and his military career after warning colleagues of an insider attack on an American base in the Helmand province.

Refresher: The highly decorated Marine reserve civil affairs officer had sent a classified document through his personal email account to fellow Marines at Forward Operating Base Delhi in 2012. The correspondence, which came in response to a FOB Delhi Marine's request for information, involved the shady history of Taliban-tied Afghan police chief and accused drug lord and child molester Sarwar Jan.

Jan had been suspected of coordinating Taliban operations, selling Afghan police uniforms to our enemies and raping at least nine boys on base. A few weeks after Brezler's warning, which went unheeded, one of Jan's teenage "tea boys" went on a shooting spree at FOB Delhi. Marine Staff Sgt. Cody Rhode was shot five times, but survived. Three others died of gunshot wounds: Staff Sgt. Scott Dickinson, Cpl. Richard Rivera and Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley. Buckley's relatives filed suit against the government last fall over what they believe has been a coordinated and illegal attempt to suppress details of the insider attack.

Meanwhile, Brezler is forced to watch Hillary Clinton get away with massive email security violations, while he's railroaded for using a personal Yahoo account to try to protect his fellow Marines.

In a separate case, the Army this month denied an appeal by decorated Green Beret Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, who was discharged in 2011 after physically confronting an Afghan police commander accused of kidnapping, chaining and raping a local village boy, beating his mother, and laughing about it when questioned. Another soldier who joined Martland in the confrontation, Cpt. Daniel Quinn, was reprimanded and left the Army.

Asked whether the president had taken steps to review his military's treatment of these whistleblowers, White House spokesman apathetically shrugged: "Not that I'm aware of."

Ho-hum.

A White House that wants to spend billions to stop "climate change" in the name of saving all the children of the planet can't bother to stop the violent sexual assaults of boys held hostage right under our noses by our warmly embraced "allies" in the Afghan military.

A White House that splashed social media with pleas to "Bring Back Our Girls" after Boko Haram jihadists in Nigeria kidnapped 300 girls and women has nothing to say about the legions of boys forced into prostitution and pedophilia rings witnessed by U.S. troops.

A White House bent on whitewashing away radical Islam's sins against Christians, Jews, gays, apostates, cartoonists, genitally mutilated women and child brides would rather celebrate "diversity" than lift a finger to protect the victims of political correctness run amok.

To paraphrase 2009 Nobel Prize winner President Obama: It's on you.

Michelle Malkin is author of the new book "Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs." Her email address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

Inside the Solyndra Solar Scandal

Incorporated in 2005, Solyndra was a California company that manufactured CIGS thin-film solar cells.  The company was praised for its unusual technology but plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with conventional solar panels and it filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011.   

Solyndra received a $536 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Obama's economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Solyndra also received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.

Following the bankruptcy, the government was expected to recoup $27 million under the Solyndra restructuring plan, but no money was ever recovered.