Jane Lathrop Stanford (1828-1905) was the co-founder of Stanford University together with her husband, Leland
Stanford. They founded the
university in 1891 as a memorial to their only child, Leland Stanford Jr. After her husband's death in 1893, she funded
and operated the university almost single-handedly until her death in 1905. After the death of their only son Leland Stanford, Jr., in 1884 while on a trip
in Italy, the
elder Leland turned to his wife and said "The children of California shall
be our children." They then founded
Leland Stanford Junior University in their son's honor. The university opened in 1891. After Leland's death on June 21, 1893, Jane in
effect took control of the university. The
university suffered severe financial hardship because of Leland's death, and
the trustees advocated a temporary closure of the university until tax and
legal issues could be resolved, but she insisted it remain in operation. For the next several years she ran the
university as if it was her own household, paying salaries out of her personal
resources and pawning her jewels to maintain the university's building program. It was at her direction that Stanford
University gained an early focus on the arts. She also advocated the admission of women; the
university had been coeducational since its founding. She figured prominently in the issue of
academic freedom when she sought and ultimately succeeded in having Stanford
University economist Edward A. Ross fired for making speeches favoring
Democrat William Jennings Bryan and favoring racism
against Chinese American "coolies", outlining eugenics policies
directed against Chinese people and other racial groups, and for his
collectivist economic teachings. This
case resulted in the American Association of
University Professors' "Report on Academic Freedom and Tenure" of
1915, by Arthur Oncken Lovejoy and Edwin R. A.
Seligman, and in the AAUP 1915 Declaration of Principles. She traveled to London during 1897,
the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond
Jubilee, hoping to find a buyer for her rubies and other jewels to raise
funds for the university; however, she was not able to sell them at that time. In 1905 she directed the university trustees
that after her death, her jewels should be sold and the funds used as a
permanent endowment "to be used exclusively for the purchase of books and
other publications." The board of
trustees confirmed this arrangement, and the Jewel Fund continues to add to the
university's library collections. The endowment, originally $500,000, is now
worth about $20 million. Items purchased
through the Jewel Fund display a distinctive bookplate which shows a
romanticized Jane Stanford offering her jewels to Athena, the goddess of
wisdom. Since 2007, benefactors who
provide endowments for library acquisitions are referred to as members of the
Jewel Society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Stanford
For decades, the excise tax on
gasoline and diesel fuel has been the main source of funds for building and
maintaining the nation's roadways. It
has paid for most of the four million road miles currently in service. But now there is agreement across the
political spectrum that the gas tax is broken and needs to be replaced, or at
least overhauled. The problem is
twofold: First, the tax has failed to
keep up with the rising cost of highway construction and repair. And second, improved fuel economy and the rise
of hybrid and electric vehicles means that more driving won't be matched by higher
gasoline sales, and that how much people pay for the roads won't necessarily
reflect how much they use them.
Transportation experts have been warning for at least a decade about the
looming crisis in the motor-fuels tax. The
federal tax, at 18.4 cents for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel, hasn't
changed since 1993. As a result, the tax
buys about half the concrete, steel and other materials it did 20 years ago. Some states
have managed to increase the tax, but many have had to increase their reliance
on other sources—registration fees, sales taxes and general-revenue funds—to
meet their transportation needs. Looking
ahead, the Congressional Budget Office predicts gas-tax revenue will fall by a
cumulative $57 billion over the next 11 years thanks to a scheduled increase in
federal fuel-economy standards. That's a
13% cumulative reduction in projections for the trust fund over that
period. Michael Totty Read more, including options for replacement funds at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443864204577619082194372886.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Gasoline taxes map, combined
local, state and federal from American
Petroleum Institute, July 2012 http://www.api.org/Oil-and-Natural-Gas-Overview/Industry-Economics/~/media/21EBD0B62EBA42B1965EE82EFFB6585D.ashx
Search the Internet Archive at: http://archive.org/
Choose the Web, moving
images, live music, audio or text. My
test search on September 18 was in the Web for alternative minimum tax, and the
first entry was: The basics of the alternative minimum tax Keywords: Salman
Khan; Khan
Academy
About half of those who don't pay
federal income taxes are knocked off the rolls by targeted breaks such as
assistance for the poor through the earned-income tax credit. Others don't earn enough to meet the threshold
for paying an income tax. Troops serving
in combat and elderly Americans also get tax breaks that can exempt them from
paying federal income taxes. The share of households not paying federal income tax
has almost doubled since 1992, in part because Congress has continued to add
tax breaks, particularly for lower- and middle-income Americans. These include the creation of the child tax
credit under Democratic President Bill Clinton and a doubling of its size under
Republican President George W. Bush. A small number of American households that don't pay
any federal income tax earn more than $1 million a year, according to the Tax
Policy Center, mostly because they deduct investment losses or claim numerous
exemptions. Two-thirds
of those who don't pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, leaving
just 18% of Americans who don't pay income or payroll taxes. Many of them are elderly Americans who receive
Social Security benefits. Damian Paletta
and John McKinnon http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004650019634728.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The U.S. Congress passed the Tax
Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) (Pub.L. 99-514, 100 Stat. 2085, enacted October 22,
1986) to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many
tax
shelters and other preferences. Referred
to as the second of the two "Reagan tax cuts" (the Kemp-Roth
Tax Cut of 1981 being the first), the bill was also officially sponsored by
Democrats, Richard
Gephardt of Missouri
in the House of Representatives and
Bill
Bradley of New Jersey in the Senate.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was given impetus by a detailed
tax-simplification proposal from President Reagan's Treasury Department, and
was designed to be tax-revenue neutral because Reagan stated that he would veto
any bill that was not. Revenue
neutrality was targeted by decreasing individual tax rates, eliminating $30
billion annually in loopholes, and increasing corporate taxes. The bill reduced overall revenues by 8.9
billion dollars. As of 2012, the Tax
Reform Act of 1986 was the most recent major simplification of the tax code, drastically
reducing the number of deductions and the number of tax
brackets. The top tax rate was
lowered from 50% to 28% while the bottom rate was raised from 11% to 15%. Many lower level tax brackets were
consolidated, and the upper income level of the bottom rate (married filing
jointly) was increased from $5,720/year to $29,750/year. This package ultimately consolidated tax
brackets from fifteen levels of income to four levels of income. This would be the only time in the history of
the U.S. income tax (which dates back to the passage of the Revenue Act of 1862) that the top rate was
reduced and the bottom rate increased concomitantly. In addition, capital
gains faced the same tax rate as ordinary
income. The rate structure also
maintained a novel "bubble rate." The rates were not 15%/28%, as widely
reported. Rather, the rates were
15%/28%/33%/28%. The "bubble rate" of 33% simply elevated the 15%
rate to 28% for higher-income taxpayers. As a result, for taxpayers after a certain
income level, TRA86 provided a flat tax of 28%. This
was jettisoned in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act of 1990, The original Alternative Minimum Tax targeted tax
shelters used by a few wealthy households. However, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 greatly
expanded the AMT to aim at a different set of deductions that most Americans
receive. Things like the personal
exemption, state and local taxes, the standard deduction, private activity bond interest, certain
expenses like union dues and even some medical costs for the seriously ill
could now trigger the AMT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Reform_Act_of_1986
