Taxes-Income, Sales and Excise

Here is a great link to the 50 states and the taxes they collect on your income, the goods you buy, and excise taxes on items like gas, cigarettes, alcohol etc. You can do some comparison shopping for the state you might want to live in our visit to get the best deal on a variety of taxes. Feel free to comment on what you learned about how our 50 states differ on the taxes they collect from their citizens.

Mr. Thompson

OMB

Here is the link to the Office of Management and Budget website. Feel free to search around. You can access some history of our debt and deficits, you can access the budget for this year, you can access a lot of interesting info about our government's spending of your taxes and how much the government collects in taxes from you. Feel free to post some comments about waht you found and what you learned.

Mr. Thompson

Vikings Stadium?

It isn't Congress but the Minnesota Legislature is an awful lot like Congress in terms of how it is organized, the law-making process, and the budget process (taxing and spending). Here is an article about the state trying to help get a Viking's stadium built.

Mr. Thompson

What? There is a limit to how much the US can be in debt?

We have a debt ceiling in the US. The gov't cannot go in debt more than that amount. Click the link to read the article about this "ceiling" or limit.

CEILING

Mr. Thompson

Secret Service

I know this story has nothing to do with the Legislative Branch but it is current and as described is "probably the greatest scandal to hit the Secret Service". Feel free to read and comment. Besides there is a US Constitution quiz attached to this site that is interesting to take since you are all Constitution experts now. For the record, I got 13 of 15 correct.

Mr. Thompson

The Buffett Rule

President Obama's weekly radio address from Sunday April 15th is attached in which he again explains his support for the Buffett Rule which could be up for a vote as early as next week. Yes I know the president is in Colombia but he still must do his job. Feel free to read his comments and respond with your own thoughts.

Mr. Thompson

Tax Day

Tax Day this year is April 17th. The following link is an article that you can respond to if you wish. There is plenty in this article to whet your appetite on taxes since I know you all love this topic. Your entry should be a brief comment about something you learned and why you thought it significant. Don't summarize the article and don't tell me whether you liked the article or not! Also, please read other posts so you don't re-state something someone else has already commented on. However you can piggyback on previous comments.

Tax Day

Mr. Thompson

Welcome Gov't Students

Here is your task should you chose to accept it.

The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget.  The 2010 Pig Book identified 9,129 projects at a cost of $16.5 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2010.  A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. 

Using the following link find an example of "pork barrel spending" by our Congress. You must include in your entry:
        A. The name of the Representative or Senator and the state he/she is from
        B. The amount of money the project
        C. An amusing description of what the money is to be spent on.
        D. You need to find an example that is recent though and not something from the 1960's.

http://www.cagw.org/

ALL ENTRIES MUST BE UNIQUE!  DON'T WAIT TO BE THE 63RD STUDENT TO POST TO THE BLOG AS YOU WILL NEED TO READ ALL COMMENTS TO INSURE YOURS HASN'T BEEN USED ALREADY!

Here is an example:
      In 2010, Senator Thad Cochran (Mississppi) managed to get $500,000 for the University of Southern Mississppi for "cannibus eradication". What a dope project! Maybe drug sniffing dogs should be taken down to our Southern states where the grass apparently is greener.

Assignment is worth 10 points and is due by the date we take our test on Congress.
Mr. Thompson