(Click to see a larger image.)
Taxable income, which is the result of [Adjusted Gross Income] less exemptions and deductions, rose 2.5 percent to $4.2 trillion. However, total income tax fell 6.1 percent to $748.0 billion for 2003. . . . The decline in total income tax for 2003 reflects the reduction in tax rates, under [the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003], which lowered marginal rates above the 15-percent rate bracket and expanded the width of the 10-percent regular tax rate bracket for all returns and the 15-percent bracket for joint returns.(Emphasis added.) In other words, in 2003, income tax revenues fell due to the Bush tax cuts.
"Reasonable expectations of privacy," as the lawyers put it, are simply lower in the age of blogs and Webcams and surveillance videos than in the age of dial telephones. ... I wouldn't be all that upset if the Feds ran every damn phone call through the Echelon-style NSA computers. Do you have a problem with that?Well, yes:
Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.1984 by George Orwell, Chapter 1.
Let's be clear-- giving it to the original owner is not rewarding anything but dumb luck or shrewd political manipulation and lobbying prowess. And if we are rewarding the latter, then why complain if someone else with better political manipulation powers grabs the land?I'm not certain that I fully agree with Newman's political theory here, but the facts seem to support his view that this matter involves a sharp developer (Segal) who attempted to benefit from the same sort of exercise of police power that underlies the Kelo decision. The Township, for its part, simply wanted to exercise that police power differently.
Of course-- and this is the key point -- we should want no one gaining financially from manipulation of the political process. Which is why people need to FOCUS on the economic payoff from zoning changes and the public should demand that WHOEVER develops land after a zoning change has to pay the public for the windfall from the zoning change.
GAO Chief Again Warns Tax Increases May Be NecessaryAn audio/video feed of the conference can be found here. Walker's presentation begins at about 50 minutes into the feed. Walker's principal lesson "The past cannot be prologue." He notes that in the last 4 years, the unfunded liabilities of the federal government rose from $20 trillion (Yes, with a "t." According to Merriam-Webster "a very big number.") to $43 trillion. The unfunded debt is beginning to approximate the $48 trillion in total net worth of all Americans.
U.S. Comptroller General David Walker on December 12 opened a White House conference on aging with a warning that will be unwelcome to a president known for his tax-cutting ambitions: Raise taxes to avoid a fiscal meltdown.
"While nobody likes tax increases, including me . . . in the final analysis, over the longer term, you have to have enough revenues to pay your current bills and deliver on your current promises," he said.
According to Walker, the retirement of the baby-boom generation will put such a strain on the federal budget that tax increases will have to be part of the solution.
With a 15-year term as head of the Government Accountability Office, Walker enjoys a degree of insulation from repercussions for politically unpopular stances. In late October he called for allowing some of President Bush’s tax cuts to expire, and at the December 12 conference on aging he renewed a campaign against tax preferences that began with a stinging GAO report in September.
"Part of the problem is the way we keep score in Washington," Walker said. "Tax preferences are largely off the radar screen even though they amount to $700 to $800 billion a year in forgone revenue."
The status quo is not an option. . . . There is no way that we're going to grow our way out of this problem.Admittedly, the presentation appeals to policy wonks, but it is startling to see a mild-mannered, green eyeshade type get really angry.* * * * *"While nobody likes tax increases . . . . In the final analysis, over the longer term, you have to have enough revenues to pay your current bills and deliver on your future policies."
(Emphasis added.)Deficit cracking GOP's solidarity
Party-line votes no longer assured
* * * * *
When Congress returns next month from its Thanksgiving recess, Republican leaders who have never failed to marshal their forces on big party-line votes face the prospect of defeat on tax cuts and spending restraint -- the core issues that have united the party since President Ronald Reagan and gave them their House majority in 1994.
They have lost some tax and spending votes already, and postponed others because of the specter of losing. After a five-year spending spree on everything from the Iraq war to Medicare, deficits are now jeopardizing the tax cuts that were the centerpiece of President Bush's first term.
A move to preserve tax cuts on capital gains and dividends -- the gemstone of the Bush tax cuts for conservatives -- is in trouble in both the House and the Senate. For the first time since Bush took office, House Democrats are united against tax cuts, and Republican moderates are bucking their party leadership.
GOP leaders are pushing a measure to control entitlement spending by shaving Medicaid and food stamps for the poor. But the combination of investor tax cuts and reductions in poverty programs has already led to a series of embarrassing defeats in committee and on the House floor. Republicans are headed for a pre-Christmas showdown that could turn into a political disaster.
* * * * *The budget outlook -- and the problems facing the GOP -- promise to get much worse. Medicare's costly new prescription drug benefit, an $18 trillion unfunded liability sponsored by the White House and Republican leadership, starts in January. Just two years from now, in 2008, the enormous Baby Boom generation will begin retiring, ceasing income tax payments and starting to collect benefits, leading to a budget squeeze unprecedented in U.S. history.
"We're seeing the future," said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration and tax-cut advocate. "The decisions that have been made over the last five years have resulted in the chickens coming home to roost."
Total spending increases under the current President Bush closely rival those of President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat famous for conducting the Vietnam War while simultaneously increasing domestic spending.
Discretionary spending rose 48.5 percent in Bush's first term, according to an analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute, twice as much as in two terms under President Bill Clinton, when spending rose 21.6 percent. Adjusted for inflation, Bush has increased total spending at an annualized rate of 5.6 percent, compared with 1.5 percent under Clinton.
"It's only a matter of time before we stop talking about cutting taxes for a very long period of time and talk basically about increasing taxes," Bartlett predicted. "The end of the era of tax cutting is going to put tremendous strain on the Republican coalition, just as the end of the era of big spending put tremendous strain on the Democratic coalition" in the 1980s. "You're hearing more and more people on the Republican side talking about major losses in the congressional elections next year and about 2008 being a really, really bad year for Republicans."
In the two months since Republicans pulled their tax cut bills, the atmosphere has only gotten worse. Republicans lost two important off-year gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Bush's popularity has hit new lows, with the public now decidedly opposing the Iraq war. Leading GOP candidates, including Sen. Rick Santorum, a conservative member of the Senate leadership who faces a tough re-election fight in Pennsylvania, have refused to appear with Bush at campaign events.
* * * * *
As the post-Katrina conservative revolt gelled, the Republican leadership turned to Medicaid, food stamps and student loans for spending restraint. The Senate is proposing $35 billion in reductions and the House $50 billion; both chambers are also seeking between $56 billion and $59 billion in tax cuts.
Large gap to cross
There are enormous differences between the House and Senate on both measures. Reconciling them will be very difficult in the two weeks Congress has left before adjourning for Christmas.
Combined, the measures increase the deficit. The spending restraint appeased conservatives but provoked an outcry from Democrats and GOP moderates. Efforts to console moderates by dropping a measure for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and adding subsidies for home heating costs and dairy farmers have done little but stoke more controversy.
The Medicaid and food stamp cuts have attracted the most fire, and barely passed the House 217-215 before Thanksgiving, with no Democratic support. Republicans recessed before attempting to pass the tax cuts.
Much of the roughly $11 billion in cuts over five years proposed by the Senate for Medicaid, a health care program for the poor that many elderly use to pay nursing home costs, were recommended by state governors. They contend the program is becoming burdensome for the states, which must come up with money to match federal funding. Democrats have portrayed the reduction in the growth of Medicaid spending as dire, but even liberal analysts concede they are not severe. One provision would increase co-payments from $3 to $5, and another would allow elderly nursing home residents to shield $750,000 in home equity, raised from $500,000 after Republican moderates objected.
The cuts are "not awful," said Jason Furman, a former adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry now at the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
"It's less about the magnitude and more about why should you be asking poor people to pay anything more for health care at the same time that you're giving brand-new tax cuts to the most fortunate," Furman said. "That is what is just completely wrong with this picture.
"A go-it-alone Republican strategy works when you're trying to cut taxes or increase spending, but when you're trying to make tougher choices, the only way to do it is to work together with the other party for shared sacrifice," Furman said. "Budget reality is starting to catch up with the Republican Party."
Heavy U.S. borrowing with much more on the horizon is stoking concern about a potential financial crisis. Any one of several big economic imbalances -- including looming pressures on the federal budget, the zero U.S. savings rate, the historically high trade deficit, a real estate boom that has supported consumer spending -- could provoke a sudden financial shift, economists say.
* * * * *"It's just a matter of time before we have some kind of economic event that I think is just going to change the political situation 180 degrees and make deficit reduction the order of the day," he said. "I don't know what it will be. I just know that when you've got gasoline spilling onto the floor of your house, it doesn't really matter where the spark comes from."
After the Marines took Ubaydi [their objective], they didn't have the troops to hold it, and it again became a terrorist safe haven. Over the past two weeks, the Marines have been back in Ubaydi for more bloody fighting. This time they have enough trained Iraqi forces to hold the area, but why weren't there enough troops last spring? Every time you delve into the situation in Iraq, you come away with the phrase "not enough troops" ringing in your head, and I hope someday we will find out how this travesty came about.(Emphasis supplied.)
The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service. They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism. But, clearly, the old order was already in part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was coming back changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were becoming reacquainted with Fear. And suddenly there came into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Under-world. It seemed odd how it floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the current of my meditations, but coming in almost like a question from outside. I tried to recall the form of it. I had a vague sense of something familiar, but I could not tell what it was at the time.There is an unsettling feeling about in the country this Thanksgiving.
The NHS [British National Health Service] in East Anglia has announced overweight people will be denied knee and hip replacements.
NHS managers in East Anglia have decided obese people - classed as those with a body mass index above 30 [for the curious, yes, I fall into this category], which applies to nearly a quarter of the population - will not be allowed to have hip and knee replacements.
The decision by Ipswich, Suffolk Coastal and Central Suffolk primary care trusts, was taken in consultation with local doctors.
It is generally considered more dangerous to anaesthetise overweight patients, who are often asked to slim before going under the knife.There is, however, a broader (no pun intended) issue of public policy illuminated by the story. Specifically, how is medical care rationed if there are no costs constraints to obtaining treatment?
Other thresholds have been set for nine other procedures, including treatment for varicose veins and grommets for glue ear in children.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are now debating legislation to extend temporary tax concessions for capital gains and dividend income. The tax loopholes, enacted in 2003 and scheduled to expire at the end of 2008, allow capital gains and dividend income to be taxed at a top rate of 15 percent—less than half of the 35 percent top tax rate on wages and other income. If these provisions expire, as current law provides, dividends will once again be taxed at the same rates as other income, while the top capital gains tax rate will revert to 20 percent. A new state-by-state analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice shows that the lion's share of the benefits from extending these tax provisions would go to the wealthiest Americans. In particular:I bet you're suprised.
- Nationwide, the richest 1 percent of Americans, with an average income of almost $1.3 million in 2009, would enjoy 53 percent of the tax cuts.
- The average tax cut for this wealthiest group would exceed $12,000 in 2009.
- The vast majority of Americans would receive nothing at all from extending these special tax rates. 78 percent of Americans would get no tax cut, and an additional 10 percent would get less than $100.
- Extending tax breaks for unearned income would also worsen the nation’s fiscal health, increasing federal budget deficits by $31 billion in 2009 alone. If these cuts were made permanent, the long-term cost would be much higher.
Since 1991, under a law signed by the first President Bush, the benefits of personal exemptions and most itemized deductions have been gradually phased out for the very wealthiest taxpayers. In 2001, however, the second President Bush succeeded in repealing his father’s reforms. The repeal is scheduled to begin to take effect in 2006, with full repeal in 2010. When and if these two tax changes take effect, their benefits would go almost entirely to the wealthiest Americans.
In particular:
- In 2006, 97 percent of the tax cuts would go to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. The share going to the top 1 percent would rise slightly thereafter.
- More than 99 percent of Americans would receive nothing at all from these new tax cuts in 2006.
- The scheduled cuts would cost $2.6 billion in 2006 if allowed to take effect. The annual cost of these cuts would increase rapidly in later years, and would exceed $10 billion in 2010.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires that full committee hearings be open to the public and that documents made available to committee members for hearings be available to the public and press. The nine-member tax reform panel met publicly more than a dozen times since Bush named its members in January. The members also met in small group sessions that were permitted to be private because only four or fewer members -- not a quorum -- were present. Documents from meetings with less than a quorum of members are not required to be made public under FACA. Attempts by reporters to open the subgroup meetings and view documents prepared for the subgroup meetings were rejected.Frenzel is apparently well acquainted with the success of blue ribbon task forces, having served on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. He is a former Republican congressman from Minnesota now resident at the Brookings Institution.
It is clear that the sermon mentioned specific political candidates by name and discussed specific policies and proposals forwarded by those candidates. It includes some negative statements about both Kerry and Bush, but it could be read to condemn many of Bush's policies and, implicitly, Bush's candidacy. Thus . . . it may well have crossed over the line drawn for tax exempt organizations.I have given some thought to some of the broader policy issues posed by the audit and the response.
[R]recent research suggests that the price elasticity of contributions by itemizers is more likely to be in the range of -0.4 to -0.8. If those estimates more accurately reflect taxpayer behavior, then a 10 percent decrease in the tax price would increase itemizers' contributions by between 4 percent and 8 percent.Similarly, the estate tax has a positive effect on charitable giving. In testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, in September of this year, William G. Gale of the Brookings Institution summarized studies on the effect of estate tax repeal on charitable giving as follows:
[A] variety of different kinds of research implies that estate tax repeal would reduce charitable bequests by between 22 and 37 percent, or between $3.6 billion and $6 billion per year. Previous studies are consistent with this finding, and also imply that repeal would reduce giving during life by a similar magnitude in dollar terms. To put this in perspective, a reduction in annual charitable donations in life and at death of $10 billion due to estate tax repeal represents a 5 percent decline in overall charitable giving and implies that, each year, the nonprofit sector would lose resources equivalent to the total grants currently made by the largest 110 foundations in the United States.(Mr. Gale's testimony and some of the studies he relied upon can be found here.)
An effort by New Jersey's two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidateJohn Kerry.
The chamber's GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, "Born to Run."
No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent," he said.
Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Tuition reductions for employees of educational institutions can be excluded from gross income if they are (1) restricted to education below the graduate level . . . (2) do not discriminate in favor of highly compensated employees, and (3) do not apply to amounts representing payment for services. The last restriction is identical to the one just discussed for scholarships: amounts that represent payment for teaching, research, or other required activities must be included in gross income and may be subject to FICA taxes. Only reductions in excess of such deemed payments are excludable (these excess amounts are like scholarships).Hat Tip to Terry Cuff.
Tuition reductions are excludable even if they are made for the employee's spouse and dependent children; they can also occur at schools other than where the employee works, provided they are remitted by the school attended, not paid by the employee's school. For example, college A could reduce the tuition of students who are children of teachers employed by college B, and neither the students nor parents would have to include the remissions in their gross income.
[T]he fruitcake makers maintain that the current serving size -- a wedge about two inches high and two inches thick -- is "overindulgent and probably unhealthy." Adds Bob McNutt, president of Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas, "Our fruitcake is like a fine wine. You take a taste, it kind of leaves you with this long, nice finish."The urban legend debunked?--There are really only a few fruitcakes in existence at any one time. Those fruitcakes are never eaten, merely passed as "gifts" from one family to another.
The bakers' 13-page petition calls on the FDA to "describe fruitcake as the food commonly known as fruitcake." It underscores the product's uniqueness ("Gertrude Stein would say 'A fruitcake is a fruitcake is a fruitcake!' "). It also clarifies who eats the concoction ("Fruitcake is consumed by all populations, but rarely by infants."), and it distinguishes fruitcake from other high-density cakes. ("No products are 'closely related' to fruitcakes. They are sui generis and for decades have been recognized by all population groups in the U.S.")
[I]ronically, it may end up being true that having pro-ID candidates thrown out of office at this point is the best thing the ID movement could have hoped for. But only time will tell that. I suspect that, at the very least, we will get a ruling from Judge Jones on the merits of the case. After that, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how it proceeds.I think that his pessimism is unfounded. The way I view it, there are four possibilities:
Subject to the limitations contained in this chapter, the tax imposed by section 2501 shall apply whether the transfer is in trust or otherwise, whether the gift is direct or indirect, and whether the property is real or personal, tangible or intangible; but in the case of a nonresident not a citizen of the United States, shall apply to a transfer only if the property is situated within the United States.(Emphasis added.)
[A] college education is . . . the ticket to a higher tax rate.How could I have missed something that, in retrospect, seems so obvious? Throughout my professional carreer, I have recommended such tax planning techiques for clients as having wealthy grandparents pay the college tuition of their grandchildren directly to the colleges they attend, thus avoiding any taxable gifts and having the money subject to estate tax. (I'll bet that even the Bush family employs this strategy. My guess is that George I is paying the Yale tuition for W's daughter.) Instead, I should have been recommending that the grandparents paid as much estate tax as possible and to leave their progeny to fend for themselves.
. . . [L]ower income taxpayers have lower levels of educational achievement, while higher income taxpayers have higher levels of educational achievement. . . . As we look further up the income scale, the percentage of taxpayers with a high school degree or less falls sharply while the number with some college or better grows considerably. Among those taxpayers in the top 20 percent, more than 8 out of 10 have some college education or better. This illustrates an ironic result of our progressive tax rate system and our national efforts to encourage young students to get a college education – there is a stiff tax penalty for achieving a college education.
Saving a copy of a document in "rich text format" (RTF), or as a simple text file first (options in the Save menu), and then converting it into the common "portable document format" (PDF) before circulating it is a good tack, Mr. Kennedy said. Still, some debate remains as to whether traces of metadata from word-processing programs like Microsoft Word are carried through to the PDF file.Of course, even PDF has its problems. In May, Dave Fishel reported on the ease with which material in PDF documents that authors had believed to be redacted can be uncovered. Fishel's comments with respect to whether the inability of Adobe Acrobat "redactions" to permanently hide the intended material can be fairly characterized as a "potential problem with PDF" are relevant to the Word "problem" as well:
I'd characterize it as a lack of skills and awareness on the users' part, which is generally related to a lack of training, lack of curiosity about and time to use and understand the tools, and also to a failure by organizations to provide proper tools and methods.
The . . . agreement provided that both parties would be directors of the corporation; that Edenbaum would be President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Chief Executive Officer; and that Schwarcz would be Vice President and Director of Operations. It further stated that Edenbaum's vote would be "controlling in any business decisions and/or disputes between the parties either as shareholders or directors" and that Edenbaum would "have the final say in all business and corporate decisions."In late September, 2001, after a lenghty period of strife, Edenbaum discharged Schwarcz from her position as Director of Operations and discontinued payment of her salary.
The agreement also spelled out the parties' duties and responsibilities. While Edenbaum was responsible for paying "all bills," "generat[ing] resident bills," "hiring of consultants," "[m]arketing of the facility," making all "business management decisions," "oversee[ing] all paperwork of resident files," "giving tours to prospective clients and their families," and "keeping [the] house in compliance with state and county regulations," Schwarcz was responsible for the "[c]ooking and cleaning of the home, patient care, grocery shopping, transportation for residents, laundry and daily house maintenance." The two shared responsibility for "[r]esident activities, hiring staff ... accepting residents" and "family interactions. And finally, the agreement provided that Edenbaum and Schwarcz would receive "equal salaries" and share equally in the company's profits.
"Oppressive" conduct is not defined by the statute. But, as it is singled out as a separate category of conduct justifying corporate dissolution by Corps. & Ass'ns § 3-413(b)(2), we surmise that it does not necessarily involve "fraudulent: or "illegal" conduct. "Oppressive" conduct has been described by other jurisdictions as:(Citations omitted.)burdensome, harsh and wrongful conduct; a lack of probity and fair dealing in the affairs of a company to the prejudice of some of its members; or a visual departure from the standards of fair dealing, and a violation of fair play on which every shareholder who entrusts his money to a company is entitled to rely.
"Oppression," however, has also been defined by one Maryland commentator as "conduct that substantially defeats the reasonable expectations of a stockholder." James J. Hanks, Jr., Maryland Corporation Law § 11.7(b)(1990, 2004 Supp.). Or, in the more precise terminology of one of our sister states, "conduct that substantially defeats the 'reasonable expectations' held by minority shareholders in committing their capital to the particular enterprise."(Citation of judicial authority omitted.)
[I]t is generally understood that, in addition to supplying capital and labor to a contemplated enterprise and expecting a fair return, parties comprising the ownership of a [closely held] corporation expect to be actively involved in its management and operation. Unlike the typical shareholder in a publicly held corporation, who may simply be an investor or a speculator and does not desire to assume the responsibilities of management, the shareholder in a [closely held] corporation considers himself or herself as a co-owner of the business and wants the privileges and powers that go with ownership. Employment by the corporation is one such privilege and often is the shareholder’s main source of income. Moreover, "providing for employment may have been the principal reason why the shareholder participated in organizing the corporation."(Citations and most internal quotation marks omitted.)
But the very nature of a closely held corporation makes it possible for a majority shareholder to "freeze out" a minority shareholder, that is, deprive a minority shareholder of her interest in the business or a fair return on her investment. The limited market for stock in a [closely held] corporation and the natural reluctance of potential investors to purchase a noncontrolling interest in a [closely held] corporation that has been marked by dissension can result in a minority shareholder's interest being held "hostage" by the controlling interest, and can lead to situations where the majority "freeze out" minority shareholders by the use of oppressive tactics.
Because of the "predicament" a minority shareholder is in when a freeze out occurs, courts have looked at a majority shareholder's alleged "oppressive" conduct, in terms of the "reasonable expectations" held by minority shareholders in committing their capital to the particular enterprise. The "reasonable expectations" view of oppressive conduct "[r]ecogniz[es] that a minority shareholder who reasonably expects that ownership in the corporation would entitle him to a job, a share of the corporate earnings, and a place in corporate management would be 'oppressed' in a very real sense [sic] when the majority seeks to defeat those expectations and there exists no effective means of salvaging the investment." But, we caution, "oppression should be deemed to arise only when the majority conduct substantially defeats expectations that, objectively viewed, were both reasonable under the circumstances and were central to the petitioner's decision to join the venture. It "should not be deemed oppressive simply because the petitioner's subjective hopes and desires in joining the venture are not fulfilled." That is to say, "[d]isappointment alone should not necessarily be equated with oppression."
(a) The entry of an order requiring dissolution of the corporation at a specified future date, to become effective only in the event that the stockholders fail to resolve their differences prior to that date;The portion of the opinion that deals with Schwarcz's claims is truly breathtaking. It extends the concept of "oppression" as used in Corps. & Ass'ns § 3-413(b)(2) further than most Maryland practitioners believed was the case. Just as importantly, the opinion opens the way for trial courts to resolve shareholder disputes with a well-designed scalpel rather than a meat ax.
(b) The appointment of a receiver, not for the purposes of dissolution, but to continue the operation of the corporation for the benefit of all the stockholders, both majority and minority, until differences are resolved or 'oppressive' conduct ceases;
(c) The appointment of a 'special fiscal agent' to report to the court relating to the continued operation of the corporation, as a protection to its minority stockholders, and the retention of jurisdiction of the case by the court for that purpose;
(d) The retention of jurisdiction of the case by the court for the protection of the minority stockholders without appointment of a receiver or 'special fiscal agent';
(e) The ordering of an accounting by the majority in control of the corporation for funds alleged to have been misappropriated;
(f) The issuance of an injunction to prohibit continuing acts of 'oppressive' conduct and which may include the reduction of salaries or bonus payments found to be unjustified or excessive;
(g) The ordering of affirmative relief by the required declaration of a dividend or a reduction and distribution of capital;
(h) The ordering of affirmative relief by the entry of an order requiring the corporation or a majority of its stockholders to purchase the stock of the minority stockholders at a price to be determined according to a specified formula or at a price determined by the court to be a fair and reasonable price;
(i) The ordering of affirmative relief by the entry of an order permitting minority stockholders to purchase additional stock under conditions specified by the court;
(j) An award of damages to minority stockholders as compensation for any injury suffered by them as the result of 'oppressive' conduct by the majority in control of the corporation.
Brian Riedl, a Heritage budget expert, described a "spending spree" since 2001, noting widespread waste and ineffective programs.On the other hand:
Joseph Minarik, vice president and director of research for the Committee for Economic Development, noted that the swing from budgetary surplus in 2000 to deficit today has been 6% of GDP, and 80% of that has come from declining revenues, although most future deficit growth will result from health-care and other spending growth.(Emphasis added.)
Roberts: "Scott, you said that- or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?"Roberts later apologized for his "poor choice of words."
