Half of Americans aren’t paying federal income taxes. Is that right? A provocative statistic. Last July, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution) estimated that 47% of Americans would not owe a penny to the IRS for tax year 2009.1 The White House has projected the [...]

Cutting through the talking points. Now that the Affordable Health Care for America Act has been signed and the follow up reconciliation bills passed it is time to revisit claims circulating about what the law does.  To follow up the Health Care in America article we wanted to address some of the specific myths that have [...]

How do you pay down an $8 trillion debt? The Obama administration needs an answer, as the non-profit Congressional Budget Office says America’s debt could rise to $20 trillion by 2020. One possible answer has a very European ring to it: a VAT, or value-added tax. What are the chances of Americans paying a national sales tax? And what about an Internet tax? Or an energy tax? Are they also possible?

How will this impact the real estate market? The Fed pulls out of the mortgage market. On March 31, 2010, the Federal Reserve halted its 15-month-long program to buy up toxic mortgage-linked securities.1 Of all the things the Fed did to try and heal the economy and financial markets, this may have been its most [...]