Qatar Accused of Funding Terrorism, Study Finds Increase in Tax Avoidance by Wealthy Individuals
Eye on NY: Bogus ‘Study’ on Tax Flight
That Fiscal Policy Institute paper purporting to show that tax hikes don’t push high earners to flee New York “has a glaring problem: It relies heavily on an almost microscopic sample size,” flags the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin. Its data comes from the American Community Survey, based on just 9,000 yearly interviews in New York, and “whittling that group down, in multiple years, first to households in the top 1 percent of incomes and then to those that moved in the past year would have left FPI with a sample size of high-income moves that could fit around a picnic table” — rendering the study meaningless. And “data from more definitive sources have shown multiple warning signs of taxpayer outmigration.” Beware: The top 1% of New York earners account for about 46% of the state’s income-tax take.
Israel war: The Only Viable Peace Plan
Despite pressure to accept “a so-called two-state solution” post-war, Jerusalem should “unequivocally reject” a Palestinian state “while Hamas rules Gaza and a corrupt Palestinian Authority controls” the West Bank, warn Michael Oren & Jason Greenblatt at The Wall Street Journal. A recent survey found 75% of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 atrocities and want to eliminate Israel. Instead, Team Biden should resurrect a Team Trump plan, known as “the vision,” for “a Palestinian state similar in size to the pre-1967 area of the West Bank and Gaza, with unprecedented investment in the Palestinian economy” and “security provisions” for Israel. It’s “the only proposal Israelis might approve” and “an opportunity” Palestinians “would be wise not to miss.”
Neocon: Sanction Qatar as a Terror Sponsor
“Cringe-inducing” US statements thanking Qatar for helping with Israeli-Hamas negotiations, fumes Commentary’s Jonathan Schanzer, are “like thanking the thug who punched you in the eye for bringing you an ice pack.” Qataris are “longstanding financial sponsors of Hamas”; they’ve provided it a headquarters from which to operate and tried to save it from destruction, “Israel’s stated war aim.” Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Taliban and other terrorists roam the country freely. A US demand that Qatar evict Hamas’ leaders is “long overdue,” but Washington should also end Doha’s status as a major non-NATO ally and sanction it as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Pentagon must “make contingency plans for moving our air assets out of the country.”
From the right: Veep’s Israel Scolding
Vice President Kamala Harris’ remarks in Dubai on the Israel-Hamas War “were morally weak and untethered from reality,” thunder National Review’s editors. She “delivered a version of the same message” as other Biden officials — “tongue-lashings about Israeli conduct and calls for restraint.” This is “rooted in the same failed Obama-era strategy of trying to show ‘daylight’ with Israel in the groundless hope that it will earn more trust in the Arab world,” even as “Israel is going above and beyond its responsibilities to minimize civilian casualties.” “Instead of blaming Hamas for the toll on civilians in Gaza,” the veep “put the onus on Israel.” “The Biden administration should deliver one simple message to Israel in its war against Hamas: Get the job done.”
Culture critic: How To Save Gen Z
“It is now painfully clear that we are failing younger generations,” worries Spiked’s Joel Kotkin. Young people have increasingly “authoritarian . . . worldviews” and are less likely to own homes, be career-oriented and have strong relationships. Most “dread almost everything that lies ahead,” showing that “the young are being poorly served in numerous ways, notably by the economy.” Plus: “Youngsters know increasingly little about the world,” and “this lack of education, made worse by the pandemic, not only makes these young people less capable — it also empowers propagandists of the extremes to twist history for ideological purposes.” Don’t “shy away from denouncing their craziness. But we must also focus on restoring economic mobility, entrepreneurial opportunity and, most of all, faith in the essential values and worth of our civilisation.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
