Free Republic

When Wauwatosa parent Darnelle Kaishian first heard about the K-12 budget cut in Gov. Scott Walker's biennial state budget proposal, she wondered: What would that actually mean for her schools? When she and some other parents heard that the cut would amount to about $900,000 for Wauwatosa next year and that art, some orchestra, an Advanced Placement course or school maintenance work could be trimmed, they sprang into action. Six weeks later, they've created websites and yard signs and T-shirts, knocked on doors, talked to neighbors and launched a letter-writing campaign that has blasted lawmakers with more than 2,000 pieces...

Nonpartisan legislative analysts and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget office agreed Thursday that revenue dropped $67 million below expectations between January and April, adding to this year’s budget deficit. The increase in tax revenue anticipated following the April 15 deadline wasn’t realized, according to budget analysts. In fact, personal income tax collections fell $65.5 million short of projections. Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes had forecasted 25 percent growth in personal income tax receipts.

Town of Grand Chute -- Gov. Scott Walker said his administration will continue to let science guide environmental policy in Wisconsin even if some scientists are laid off at the Department of Natural Resources. Speaking on Earth Day in this town near Appleton on Wednesday, Walker addressed notices of potential layoffs that have gone out to fifty-seven employees of the state Department of Natural Resources. DNR spokesman Bill Cosh has said that of that number, 27 employees are in the Bureau of Science Services, a unit of the DNR where Walker is proposing significant cuts. "We believe that science should...

With just six months before the next election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s governing Conservatives have introduced a budget that offers attractive tax breaks for targeted voters and puts the country’s finances back into a precariously small surplus.

Every year since 2011, the White House has used tax time to post a "Federal Taxpayer Receipt" showing taxpayers how their federal tax dollars are being spent. President Obama introduced the concept in his 2011 State of the Union address, and Wednesday the White House posted the fifth installment so taxpayers can see how "tax dollars are being spent on priorities like education, veterans benefits, and health care." While users can punch in their own tax liability and see dollar amounts assigned to each category, the figures are based on percentages from the prior fiscal year budget. Comparing those percentages...

The leaders of the Legislature's budget committee on Wednesday abandoned Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip the state Natural Resources Board and the state Agriculture Board of their policy-making powers. They also removed 13 other pieces of policy from Walker's budget, including one that would exempt research at the University of Wisconsin System from the open records law. Another one that was dropped would have had property assessment duties shifted from most municipalities to counties. In other action, the Joint Finance Committee voted to cut staff for Secretary of State Doug La Follette and reshape how courts are funded. Wednesday's...

April 15 is right around the corner, and millions of Americans will find themselves paying more in taxes than ever thanks to Obamacare. The law is more than a fundamental change to the country’s health care system. It also is a massive tax hike. As The Heritage Foundation’s Federal Budget in Pictures shows, according to the most recent scores, Obamacare will increase taxes by nearly $800 billion for the period of 2013-2022.

McDonald’s announced that over 90,000 employees will receive a pay raise effective July 1, 2015. After recent employee protests and slow sales, McDonald’s appears to be raising salaries to solve employee relation problems and improve it’s image with consumers.

Last week, the GOP-led Congress passed a budget resolution which, Republicans claim, will balance the budget in 10 years. The resolution is a policy document, intended to guide the appropriations process, and doesn’t itself have the force of law. More important than the details of the budget document, the action sets up the GOP to finally match its action to its rhetoric and undo the worst aspects of Obama’s fiscal policies. Over the next two weeks, while Congress is in recess, the House and Senate will begin to hammer out small differences between the budget resolutions that passed each chamber....

WASHINGTON – Unless you consider words like “repugnant” and “dangerous” to somehow be complimentary, it’s obvious congressional Democrats are less than enamored with Republican plans for the federal budget.In the House on Wednesday, no Democrats voted for the bill and 17 Republicans crossed the aisle on the 228-199 vote. Usually it’s the fiscally conservative Dems who cross over to vote with the GOP.After a marathon session of amendments and a 3:30 a.m. vote, the Senate passed the budget 52-46, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) casting “no” votes (Cruz said it didn’t include “meaningful entitlement reform”)...

Remember when a disagreement between Republicans on the budget was “cataclysmic” for GOP claims to governance? Democrats last passed a normal budget resolution six years ago, but Republicans went all of seven days before both chambers finally passed budget resolutions. Our long national nightmare, at least as envisioned by Politico, is over: The Senate passed a Republican-authored budget plan early on Friday that seeks $5.1 trillion in domestic spending cuts over 10 years while boosting military funding.The 52-46 vote on the non-binding budget resolution put Congress on a path to complete its first full budget in six years. It...

Normally quarrelsome House Republicans came together Wednesday night and passed a boldly conservative budget that relies on nearly $5 trillion in cuts to eliminate deficits over the next decade, calls for repealing the health care law and envisions transformations of the tax code and Medicare.

The practice of slipping unrelated or pet projects into spending bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — from new helicopters to fighter aircraft — has long been derided as deceptive and financially irresponsible. But now lawmakers have taken the budget gimmickry to a whole new level — no longer even pretending that billions of dollars in additional war spending would go to fight Islamic State militants and the Taliban.

President Obama’s budget suffered its latest ignominious defeat when the Senate rejected it on a 98-1 vote Tuesday evening, capping off the first votes of the budget season. Democrats objected, saying the plan wasn’t really Mr. Obama’s, but Republicans said it had all the same numbers as the president’s blueprint, and so the vote counts as a rejection of his fiscal year 2016 plan. “This is the president’s proposed budget,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who forced the vote by offering the amendment, complete with the tax hikes, spending increases and deficit targets Mr. Obama had projected in...

Proposed budget represents a serious effort to enact reforms that are long overdue. These and other measures are needed to encourage economic growth, the heart's blood of the nation The announcement of a new fiscal budget for the U.S. government always sets the stage for struggles between the spenders and those trying to put some limits on the spending. The spenders usually win because politicians—particularly progressive ones—love to tap the national treasury in order to reward their supporters. As the Speaker of the House John Boehner said on the occasion of the March 17 announcement, “For 53 of the last...

President Obama criticized potential GOP budgets from both Congressional chambers for relying on outdated economic ideas in a new interview released Saturday. Obama said neither House nor Senate Republicans impressed him with budgetary strategies they released earlier this week. The President faulted both versions for ignoring middle-class families. “So it is the classic trickle-down, top-down approach to economics that we know has failed,” Obama said of the two budget proposals in a Friday interview with The Huffington Post . “And the fact that we are putting this forward once again — with tax cuts for the wealthiest, so that the...

The Republican-led House passed budget resolutions every year since taking control in the 2010 midterms, while Senate Democrats under Harry Reid refused to pass any at all for four years. After less than 24 hours, though, a Republican “failure” to come up with an agreement between the House and the Senate is not just “cataclysmic” already, but proof that the GOP can’t handle the “basic functions of governing.” Republicans handled it for four years while Democrats failed to perform the basic function of legislating, but somehow that didn’t get seen as “cataclysmic” for them at Politico. Maybe Politico’s analysts could...

Speaker John Boehner has made plans to bypass House conservatives and ram through two items opposed by the right. He will try and pass a budget deal, using a parliamentary manuever to speed passage. He is also planning a vote on the so-called Medicare "doc fix" he negotiated with Nancy Pelosi last week. Politico: If they’re able to clear the two measures, a battered leadership will go into the Easter recess with some pep in its step, as it tries to extend highway funding, begin work on annual appropriations bills and raise the debt ceiling. Not to mention, passing a...

House fiscal conservatives took the upper hand — for the moment — Thursday in their struggle with Republican defense hawks for control of the GOP’s 2016 budget proposal. After 24 hours of uncertainty and stops and starts, the House Budget Committee voted along party lines, 22-13, to send a leaner spending plan to the House floor for a vote. GOP leadership had pressured Budget Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., all week to find enough votes on his panel to boost the plan’s funding for the Overseas Contingency Operations account. Without that additional defense spending, many House Republicans said they wouldn’t support...

CLEVELAND — President Obama used this manufacturing hub — and important swing state — as the backdrop to draw a sharp distinction Wednesday with his Republican rivals over the economy, as both sides aim to frame the debate for the coming presidential race. The day after House Republicans unveiled their budget proposal — which would cut more than $5 trillion out of the federal budget over the next decade and balance the budget by cutting domestic programs — the president touted some of the very programs that would come under the GOP axe. Obama dismissed a House plan that “doubles...