Free Republic

This just in from what was once the best state in the Union: Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That’s according to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income. Given robust job growth and the prosperity generated by several industries, it’s worth asking why California has fallen behind, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)– Congress has until midnight Friday, to strike a deal on a host of issues before government funding is set to run out. At the heart of it, nearly 800,000 undocumented young immigrants. That’s why dozens of Connecticut Dreamers are on their way to the nation’s capitol Tuesday morning. They’re message to Congress is to pass the Dream Act. Republicans and Democrats both want to lift spending caps, which limit the amount of money the government can spend without adding to the deficit. Democrats say in order for them to support the republicans’ spending plan, they must include...

Democrats in high-tax blue states are already plotting ways to avoid the new tax law, hoping to seize on gimmicks that will allow their residents to cut their federal tax burden without costing the states themselves any money. The Democrats are trying to get around a new $10,000 cap on how much of their state and local taxes residents can write off on their federal forms. High-tax states fear their residents will quickly top the $10,000 limit, leaving them grumbling over their higher tax bills. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has suggested switching some of his state’s tax collections from...

My man Kevin D. Williamson is worried that the Republican Party has nothing to say to blue states like California and New York and that the party feels pretty good about it.  But such an approach leads to disaster, he says: Writing off half of the country as a lost cause is bad for the Republican soul.  It also will prove bad for Republican electoral prospects, in time. Well, yes.  On a tactical level, it is important to have something to say to the blue cities and not to write them off as Deplorables.  But that is to miss the wood for the trees. The...

January is traditionally the time to put the past behind us, turn over a new leaf, and make plans for what’s to come. Many indicators show the country’s economy has been pumping on all cylinders this past year. Stocks are at record highs and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in 17 years. Many would agree that the economy is moving in the right direction, which is excellent news. Unfortunately, this optimistic news is somewhat undercut by worsening financial trajectories at the state government level from coast to coast. The nation is not in as good a shape...

SHELBURNE, Vt. (AP) — Police say a man in Vermont has used a machete to attack a woman in her 70s as she delivered meals to a motel being used as emergency housing for the homeless. WCAX-TV reports 32-year-old Burlington resident Abukar Ibrahim is accused of attacking the 73-year-old Meals on Wheels volunteer who was dropping off meals at Harbor Place, which serves as a temporary emergency housing facility. The attack happened Friday in Shelburne.

The Republican tax overhaul may not do a great deal to boost overall economic growth — but it’s already having one stimulus effect. Call it the Full Employment Act for Tax Pundits.Ever since the contours of the plan made clear that residents of high-tax states would take the biggest hits, a cottage industry devoted to strategizing blue-state tax work-arounds has emerged. As a reminder, Americans for generations have been able to deduct the amounts paid for state and local income tax, as well as property tax, from their federally taxable income. But the new law caps that amount at $10,000,...

The cold wasn’t the only thing that hammered the Northeast in the final fortnight of 2017 — and we can thank our extreme political polarization for the traumas New Yorkers and New Jerseyans are about to suffer. On the last night of the year, the Trump administration informed New York and New Jersey that there was no longer a deal with the federal government to help fund the desperately needed new rail tunnel between the two states — a $13 billion hit. Before that came the signing of the tax bill, whose limitations on the mortgage-interest and state- and local-tax...

Homeowners are lining up in droves at local tax collection offices, hoping for one last chance to take advantage of a major tax deduction before it is wiped out in the new year. In Hempstead, town Tax Receiver Donald Clavin said "thousands" of people packed his office Tuesday trying to pay their 2018 property and school taxes a year in advance. "This is almost chaotic," Oyster Bay Tax Receiver James Stefanich told Newsday . He said homeowners began lining up in the cold an hour before his office opened.

The Democratic Governors Association, in an attempt to attack Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) tweeted this week about how 33,000 people left Illinois for another state over the past year, continuing years of outmigration from the Land of Lincoln. What they won’t be touting is the fact that during the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn (D), Rauner’s predecessor, 247,410 people on net left Illinois for the likes of North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and other states that are better stewards of taxpayers dollars. Those 247,410 people, according to IRS migration data, took $13.7 billion with them to states that that...

Connecticut continues to be dogged by messy finances. The budget legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy adopted in late October for fiscal year 2017-18 is in deficit. Gov. Malloy’s Office of Policy and Management estimated a $202.8 million hole Nov. 20, while state Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo concluded Dec. 1 that the hole is $207.8 million. Before these forecasts were issued, the state was expected to contend with a $4 billion deficit in the 2019-21 biennium. ... “between 2015 and 2016, Connecticut saw a net loss of 2,050 tax filers who earn more than $200,000 per year.” This amounted to...

The GOP tax reform bill known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” came one important step closer to becoming law on Tuesday when the bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 227 to 203. No Democrats voted for the bill, of course. The party of big, centralized government isn’t for anyone keep more of their own money, other than perhaps illegal aliens and welfare recipients, and will never vote to cut anybody’s taxes. But not all Republicans voted for the bill either. Here are the 12 Republicans — all from high tax states — who joined...

R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island is now just 157 residents away from losing one of its two seats in the U.S. House, which would give the state a single vote there for the first time since George Washington was president, according to an analysis of newly released population data. Kimball Brace, the reapportionment expert who has been involved in drawing legislative and congressional districts in Rhode Island since the early 1980s, ran the numbers Wednesday after the U.S. Census Bureau announced Rhode Island had added about 2,000 residents between July 2016 and July 2017.

If Republicans succeed in limiting the state-and-local tax deduction, one hope is that this could finally inspire a come-to-Jesus moment in prodigal high-tax states. Democrats in Illinois ought to be especially chastened by new IRS data showing an acceleration of out-migration. The Prairie State lost a record $4.75 billion in adjusted gross income to other states in the 2015 tax year, according to recently IRS data released. That’s up from $3.4 billion in the prior year. Many of the migrants were retirees who often flock to balmier climes. But millennials accounted for more than a third of the net outflow...

The percentage of federal individual income tax filers claiming a deduction for state and local taxes paid in 2015, ranked by state: 1. Maryland: 45.7 percent 2. Connecticut: 41.3 percent 3. New Jersey: 41.2 percent 4. Virginia: 37.3 percent 5. Massachusetts: 36.9 percent 6. Oregon: 36.0 percent 7. Utah: 35.3 percent 8. Minnesota: 34.7 percent 9. New York: 34.5 percent 10. California: 34.4 percent 11. Georgia: 32.8 percent 12. Rhode Island: 32.8 percent 13. Colorado: 32.5 percent 14. Delaware: 31.6 percent 15. Illinois: 31.3 percent 16. Wisconsin: 31.0 percent 17. New Hampshire: 30.9 percent 18. Washington: 29.9 percent 19. Iowa:...

As we watch Roy Moore thumping his Bible to defend himself from accusations of child molestation, let me toss out a verbal hand grenade: To some degree, liberals practice the values that conservatives preach. This is complicated terrain with lots of exceptions, and the recent scandals involving Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and Al Franken underscore that liberals can be skunks as much as anyone else. Yet if one looks at blue and red state populations as a whole, it’s striking that conservatives champion “family values” even as red states have high rates of teenage births, divorce and prostitution. In contrast,...

Many lawmakers in Congress and in statehouses around the country peddle the same supply-side theory about income taxes: the lower the tax, the more the economy will grow. But new research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reveals this economic approach is failing to deliver in the states. In fact, states with higher income taxes outperformed states with no income tax. My colleagues and I compared the economic track record of the states that have charted the most radically different courses with their income tax policies, or lack thereof. Specifically, we examined economic growth in the nine states...

In a controversial move, California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill lowering the crime of deliberately exposing a sexual partner to HIV from a felony to a misdemeanor.

In its rush to destroy itself, California has gone and done this: Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Friday that lowers from a felony to a misdemeanor the crime of knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without disclosing the infection. The measure also applies to those who give blood without telling the blood bank that they are HIV-positive. Modern medicine allows those with HIV to live longer lives and nearly eliminates the possibility of transmission, according to state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), authors of the bill.“Today California took a major step toward treating...

The Resistance wants a showdown with Donald Trump, and looks like it will get its wish soon. Our Democrats would make California a “sanctuary state,” setting up a confrontation with the federal government over fundamental questions of who gets to enter the country, who gets to stay and how the rules will be enforced. Meantime, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Wednesday announced the state is suing the Trump administration yet again. This time, California wants to block the president’s proposed border wall on the grounds that it would be bad for the environment. Since when does the environment trump...