FATCA has been implicated in the recent surge in renunciations of U.S. citizenship by Americans abroad. Expatriations have risen from a pre-FATCA trickle to a current level of thousands per year. Many Americans operating overseas businesses and requiring foreign financial services are being forced to choose between citizenship and livelihood.
American Domestic Policy
Obamacare Follies: Lessons For Israel
An administration which so easily lies to its own citizens to achieve domestic political ends cannot be trusted to act faithfully towards the citizens of other countries. Continue reading
America’s Racial Spasm (And The President Who Isn’t Helping Matters)
Race is an inherently loaded and divisive topic; when race is a key component of a politician’s winning election identity, it remains part of his governing identity. Racial divisiveness is thus likely to be more present, not less. Continue reading
US expats in Israel and Obamacare
This column was originally published in Israel Hayom.
Americans abroad, take note: If the mandate is upheld, there is nothing to stop the American government from applying it to you, too–including fines/taxes up to $1,900 per family per year–regardless of whether you are involved in the U.S. economy in any way, simply by virtue of your citizenship. Continue reading
Happy Veterans Day, Gilad Shalit
This column was originally published in American Thinker magazine.
Israeli proponents of the Shalit deal argued that “we are all Gilad Shalit.” That is truer than we realize: in fact, we all owe our existence and our freedom to the ultimate sacrifice of countless others every bit as much as Gilad Shalit owes his to the awful sacrifices made on his behalf.
We are oddly fortunate in that the vast majority of sacrifices are but abstractions to us — statistics, ceremonies, or images of neat rows of crosses and Stars of David on the Normandy cliffs.
Constant awareness of the enormity of the sacrifices made on our behalf would paralyze us; we know we can never earn it. So, we cope by compartmentalizing. We go on living normally by not focusing on those sacrifices too much, yet not taking them for granted. We in the free world carve out Veterans/Armistice Days to recognize our awesome debts, and designate moments of reflection, memory and honor of those who sacrificed so we can live. And then we go back to the business of living.
Perhaps, one day, Gilad Shalit will be able to do the same. Continue reading
Another country heard from: Abe Katsman weighs in 