We learn, via Instapundit, that Joe Biden thinks paying taxes is patriotic:

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says that paying higher taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans.

Biden says he and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama want to “take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people.”

Under the Democrats’ economic plan, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut.

Biden told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday that, in his words, “it’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

Sorry Joe — but the only way we’re going to get out of this rut and win the war is by planting more fruits and vegetables.  And re-using our iron products.  Like the good old days.

If you prefer lower taxes, stay away from these states in 2008:

• “Maryland’s New Year Begins with Tax Increases”
• Massachusetts: “Every able resident who still hasn’t gotten health insurance by Jan. 1 will not only lose a state income tax exemption, but get slapped with monthly fines.”
• “Is 2008 the year that Mississippi finally raises the state’s cigarette tax to a more realistic level when compared to the burden smoking exacts on all taxpayers in terms of public health care costs?”
• “Quakertown [Pennsylvania] residents can expect a 25.5 percent electric bill increase in 2008, and those who work in the borough likely will have to pay a new $52 tax.”
• “Starting on New Year’s Day, Texas plans to tax strip clubs $5 for every customer who shows up to watch performers bump and grind.”
• Virginia: “Legislation passed by the 2007 General Assembly, House Bill 3202, creates a sales and use tax on labor and service charges for certain motor vehicle repairs. The new tax, called the Motor Vehicle Repair Labor and Services Tax takes effect in the Northern Virginia Transportation District on January 1, 2008, and in the Hampton Roads Transportation District on April 1, 2008.”
• “In Wisconsin, on January 1, 2008 Wisconsin’s cigarette tax will increase $1.00 to become $1.77. The $1.00 increase will mean.”
• Wyoming: MERRILL (WY) — “Starting January 1st smokers will hand over $1.77 in state taxes for every pack of cigarettes they buy.”

So, where to go for relief?

• Hawaii  “HONOLULU (AP) – New state laws going into effect this week aim to lower taxes, increase state rent assistance and ease requirements on motor vehicle safety inspections.”
• Oklahoma: “A measure that will reduce the income tax rate for individuals from 5.65 percent to 5.5 percent is among about a dozen bills taking effect Jan. 1.”
• Utah: “Utahns will see the most significant tax changes made in decades come Jan. 1, and state leaders hope voters will remember these tax breaks at election time next November.  All told, residents will see more than $205 million in tax cuts for 2008 starting in the new year.”

Tennessee has both good news and bad news: “Starting Jan. 1, Tennesseans will pay more sales tax on caskets but none on flags, while farmers will have to carry a state-issued certificate to continue getting their tax breaks…Also taking effect Jan. 1 is a reduction in the state sales tax on grocery food from 6 percent to 5.5 percent.”

Andrew Roth at the Club for Growth blog reminds us of today’s importance:

Happy Repeal Day!

On this day in 1933, the 21st Amendment was passed, ending 13 years of a ridiculous experiment in federal nannyism.

As the Doors sang, show me the way to the next whisky bar.

Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag today reflects on four years of Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governor:

“Through it all, he understood one thing better than his critics: The voters will never build a monument to a governor for raising taxes and/or cutting spending, both of which he probably needed to do to if he was to get the state’s finances under control. But his whole career made clear that it’s monuments he wants.”

Hold on a moment. Rewind. “The voters will never build a monument to a governor for raising taxes” …. Huh, they won’t?

Let’s remember the Republican governor before Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Wilson.

Here’s what National Review wrote about Wilson in 1995 as he was prepping for a presidential run:

“He’s facing big obstacles, no question. Compared to Dole, Gramm, and Alexander, he’s gearing up late, with his official announcement expected later this month; he’s pro-choice in a party where lifers still do a lot of the walking, licking, and phoning; he raised taxes; he raised taxes; boy, did he raise taxes!”

And here’s the New York Times in 1999:

“His willingness to raise taxes to help close a crushing budget deficit when he took office in 1991 infuriated anti-tax crusaders while earning him little credit from liberals, because he insisted on cutting spending by a like amount.”

So did this tax-raising governor — egads, a tax-raising REPUBLICAN governor — get a monument?

You better believe it …

UPDATE: Peter Schrag e-mails this note:   “Tellingly, Wilson got the monument for his time as mayor of San Diego, not governor.”

Lost in all the hoopla about MoveOn’s ad coming from President Bush’s press conference today was a great and historic moment.  We heard probably the single most definitive statement ever by an American president of a profound belief in supply side economics:

I’m a supply-sider. I believe supply-side economics, when properly instituted, enables us to achieve certain objectives. One, people find work and there’s hope in the economy. Two, that supply-side economics yields additional tax revenues.

That was Bush today, speaking not from prepared text but in response to a question.

Was Ronald Reagan ever this eloquently simple during an exchange with the media?

Not if this 1982 moment with the press corps was any indication:

Q. Mr. President, on that note, do you think Jack Kemp and other conservatives are trying to undermine your Presidency? And is it…

Reagan: No, I think that Jack sincerely believes—is a purist in the supply-side economics. And we’ll continue to talk and reason together.

Reason together?  Seems like the current Oval Office occupant might be a purist as well.

Instapundit points us to a Gallup poll finding Congress’ approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974.

The dismal ratings seem to be looming larger and larger over the Democrats in charge.

For instance, check out Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI):

“The expectations when we took control in January were so high, and we all feel it,” Stabenow told the Lansing State Journal editorial board last week. “We kind of feel like everybody thought the Democrats are now in control of the House and Senate, the war is going to end, we are going to have universal health care, everybody’s going to be able to go to college, no more global warming.”

Holy high expectations, Batman! Wouldn’t it be easier to just cut taxes and call it a day? Folks might approve of that.

Gotta love the Europeans.  They’ve figured out another fee to add to everyday life.  This time they want to charge a fee to  — get ready for it, get ready, OK here it comes — PARK!

From EarthTimes:

Amsterdam - The Dutch drivers’ organisation ANWB is critical of a government plan to force owners of polluting cars to pay higher parking fees. On Tuesday, a spokesman of the Dutch Ministry of the Environment said diesel cars and Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) will soon pay more to park their cars. By contrast, environmentally friendly cars will see their parking costs reduced.
The government is due to discuss the bill next month. If accepted by the parliament, the new law could be put into practise in 2008.
Markus van Tol, spokesman of the ANWB, says his organisation supports all initiatives that benefit the environment, but says he is doubtful whether this particular idea will do that.
“Apparently, the draft bill only deals with parking, not with overall car usage.”

A fee on parking?  Shhhh — don’t tell the U.S. Congress.  They might want to import the idea.

By the way, great name for a spokesman — van Tol.  Wonder how much the toll on vans costs over there.

Since many of you no doubt have taken your lap top and WiFi connection to the beach to make sure you don’t miss a single exciting moment of Extreme Mortman, let me just say, thank your lucky stars that you’re not spending your Memorial Day holiday in the Hamptons.

You’d probably be going hungry right about now.

We learn from an AP story about how the Wall Street boom is stirring Hamptons home sales that at one local gourmet shop in Sagaponack, lobster salad is selling for $100 a pound.

To which the only response must be: Hey, cut your own damn Alternative Minimum Tax!  We’re through fighting for you rich folks.  Oh, and can save some lobster salad for me?

What’s the latest ludicrous tax?

Would you believe the Washington, DC government will soon be taxing motorcoaches, the lifeblood for so many of the tourists who come to the Capital City and spend money here?

Turns out that’s going to happen starting Juiy 1.  We learn from busesoverdrive.com:

For each “trip permit” fee (what most folks call a tax) operators must surrender $50 per coach for each six-day period, or up to $2200 per year for each bus.   … The 2006 Motorcoach Impact Study documents that “a single tour bus on a two-night tour injects as much as $16,000 into a local economy.” That’s D.C. restaurants, hotels, vendors and other retail businesses, all of which collect sales taxes on such revenues on behalf of our nation’s capital.  So the tourism tax slapped on bus operators could result in less visitor-generated local spending, meaning a decline in tax revenues overall.

The pro-motorcoach community says, “We will fight this with every resource possible to crack D.C.’s addiction to taxes. It’s not a pipe dream.”  Indeed.  Damn taxes set us up again.

Unusually tough talk from U.S. Comptroller General David Walker coming up this Sunday on “60 Minutes.”  According to a press release, Walker:

“…says the law that added a prescription drug benefits to Medicare may be the most financially irresponsible legislation passed since the 1960s. …[Walker] says Medicare — barring vast reform to the program and the nation’s healthcare system — is already on course to possibly bankrupt the treasury and adding the prescription bill just makes the situation worse. “The prescription drug bill is probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,” says Walker, “because we promise way more than we can afford to keep.”  He argues that the federal government would need to have $8 trillion today, invested at treasury rates, to cover the gap between what the program is expected to take in and what it is expected to cost in the next 75 years — and that is in addition to more than $20 trillion that will be needed to pay for other parts of Medicare. “We can’t afford to keep the promises we’ve already made, much less to be piling on top of them,” he tells Kroft.

More here