Free Republic

The Trump administration's decision to divert $3.6 billion in funding for military construction projects to help build a wall along the southern border with Mexico prompted swift, and mostly critical, responses from lawmakers in Washington but on the ground in areas that will be impacted, the reaction has varied, ranging from extreme outrage to tempered support. Responses from politicians and residents in areas affected covered a wide spectrum but were primarily shaped by how those individuals feel about President Donald Trump and his commitment to building a border wall.

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) I am transmitting an alternative plan for pay adjustments for civilian Federal employees covered by the General Schedule and certain other pay systems in January 2020. Title 5, United States Code, authorizes me to implement alternative plans for pay adjustments for civilian Federal employees covered by the General Schedule and certain other pay systems if, because of “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,” I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate. Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 24.01 percent, costing $24 billion in the first year...

Democratic candidates for the 2020 nomination have promised more than $210 trillion in new spending across the field, analysis by the Washington Free Beacon shows. Of the 26 declared candidates—including Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) who dropped out earlier this month—most have put enormous new government programs front and center in their campaigns. Totaling up these proposals gives taxpaying voters a sense of the budget priorities of the average Democratic candidate. That overall figure is an undercount, as it is based only on proposals for which the Free Beacon could identify actual spending estimates. The true figure is much larger....

Never before have presidential candidates offered voters so much “free” stuff.Kamala Harris wants you to “collect up to $500 a month.”Elizabeth Warren says, “We need to go tenfold in our research and development in green energy.”No one has tracked the cost of all of the promises. So my video team did!Who will spend the most?Here are the new spending proposals from the five most popular (according to ElectionBettingOdds.com) candidates.In my latest video, we break it down by category, education spending first:Joe Biden wants to “triple the amount of money we spend for Title I schools” ($32 billion) create “universal pre-K”...

Most of us know that U.S. government spending is too high. And the deficit and the debt are going to get us one day. So why doesn’t someone do something? And why has President Trump done a “$320 billion budget deal” with Speaker Pelosi that kicks the can down the road yet again? How come he’s willing to do a deal with Nancy Pelosi that increases spending and raises the debt ceiling through the 2020 election? Well, of course. Trump wants to clear the decks for electoral action, and he doesn’t want to be stubbing his toe on a debt...

As Coloradans consider Proposition CC and the fate of our Taxpayer Bill of Rights this November, we should bear in mind the lessons of Novembers past. In 2005, voters were promised that if the state were allowed to keep the excess revenue that should have been refunded to taxpayers under TABOR, the money would be used to boost education spending. Referendum C was approved, but the money never made it to the classroom. “Spending on programs not associated with Referendum C has grown more than twice as fast as spending on education and health care,” former state Treasurer Mark Hillman...

The massive spending deal, negotiated by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and agreed to by the president, looks poised to kill off the Budget Control Act of 2011—the law that was meant to restrain federal spending. With that law on the way out, the question arises: Where can fiscal conservatives turn to exert real and lasting fiscal discipline? Thankfully, two members of Congress have introduced a bill to do just that. The Maximizing America’s Prosperity Act—or MAP Act—is a bill proposed by Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., that would limit federal spending...

The budget ‘deal’ being touted by President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will do nothing to solve the federal government’s fiscal issues. It’s more likely this ‘compromise’ is going to make problems even worse, especially once the debt markers are called in – whenever that happens.One of the (if not the) biggest problems in the ‘agreement’ is the fact spending can go up without any worry about hitting some sort of artificial barrier. 2. The Agreement modifies the discretionary spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act (“BCA”) for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 pursuant to the...

When President Donald Trump begrudgingly signed a budget deal he called “ridiculous” in order to get increases for the military budget, he asserted: “I’m not going to do it again.” That was 16 months ago. Now, the Trump administration and House Democrats reportedly have reached a deal to suspend the debt limit temporarily and increase spending by more than $300 billion with only limited cuts. Around 5:45 p.m. in Washington, the president tweeted: "I am pleased to announce that a deal has been struck with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy...

Three sources tell FOX News and FOX Business that budget talks between House Democrats and the White House are winding down, and a deal is close to being completed. These sources tell FOX Business that the deal includes spending caps and debt ceiling increases for two years each, respectively. The deal reportedly includes spending increases for defense and non-defense spending. A source close to the negotiations tells FOX Business that, for now, the deal would put no restrictions on reprogramming money for spending items – like a border wall. Sources tell FOX News’ Chad Pergram that the deal would permanently...

White House officials and congressional lawmakers are nearing a deal that would boost government spending levels over the next two years and raise the federal borrowing limit. If passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, it would avert a default crisis this fall and avoid automatic spending cuts next year. The agreement would raise spending by $320 billion, compared to the strict spending levels established in the 2011 Budget Control Act and set to go into effect next year without legislative action, according to three people familiar with the negotiations who requested anonymity to discuss the unfinished deal. The...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hit back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over Twitter on Saturday night after Pelosi knocked the freshman lawmaker for not voting with moderate Democrats on a spending package passed by Congress last week. Earlier on Saturday, Pelosi took aim at progressive congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) after the four voted against a $4.6 billion spending package recently passed by Congress that sought to remedy issues at the southern border. In an interview with the The New York Times, Pelosi said she believed the four lawmakers made themselves...

Gov. Phil Murphy’s action brings to close this year’s battle with the Legislature dominated by members of his own party, but not necessarily the dispute over raising taxes to right the state’s finances versus reforming public employee pensions and health benefits.

As expected, Governor Phil Murphy signed a record-setting FY 2020 budget on Sunday, line-item vetoing $48.5 million in spending (impounding many millions more, too, with little offered in the way of firm details) and avoiding a state government shutdown but authorizing $38.7 billion overall. That’s up from the $37.4 billion New Jersey spent over the course of fiscal year 2019.Murphy gave up (for now) on his fight for a millionaire’s tax increase. The Governor nevertheless doubled-down on his class warfare rhetoric, declaring that he remains “on the side of putting New Jersey’s families ahead of the wealthy, ahead of privileged...

“The budget deal will maintain the state’s ongoing commitment to fiscal prudence,” Senator Holly Mitchell, who heads California’s budget deal committee, said of its $215 billion budget. The Democrat official also falsely described the state’s highest budget in history as “responsible”. Responsible in California on budgetary matters is graded on a curve the size of the planet. This is a state whose senate passed a socialized medicine bill with no way to pay for its estimated $400 billion cost. A mere $215 billion budget is as prudent and responsible as California Democrats ever get. California’s corrupt one-party state didn’t just...

This year, Sen. Rand Paul's (R–Ky.) effort to balance the federal budget didn't even get a floor vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. Paul's so-called "Pennies Plan" failed a procedural vote on Monday evening when only 22 senators voted in favor of a cloture motion that would have brought the bill to a final vote. A majority of Republicans and all Democrats voted against proceeding to a floor vote on the bill. It's another sign that fiscal responsibility is all but dead in Congress, even as the national debt heads toward record highs and the budget deficit approaches $1 trillion this...

If Congress doesn’t act, Americans’ taxes will automatically increase in the coming years. The 2017 tax cuts are temporary, and some of those taxes are scheduled to start increasing in three years’ time. Last year, American families of four saw their taxes cut by an average of $3,000. The typical taxpayers benefited from getting to keep about $1,400 more of their hard-earned money. One of the most important parts of the tax cuts, which support new business investments for workers and jobs, begins to expire after 2022. Three years after that, taxes increase on personal income. As deficits increase to...

Each year, millions of Americans pay their taxes. We suffer through the nightmare of unfathomable IRS forms, spend tens of billions of dollars on tax experts so the IRS won’t audit us … and yet watch as other people slip through the cracks.Those cracks are pretty large. The IRS has concluded that approximately 16.3 percent of taxes simply don’t get paid. This was the case in 2001, 2006, and 2008-2010.In 2018, this meant that almost $643 billion in federal taxes simply went unpaid, based upon the $3.3 trillion pulled into federal coffers– what the IRS and Government Accountability Office...

As news circulated Tuesday that President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are eyeing a $2 trillion infrastructure spending package, the House Republican Study Committee introduced a budget proposal that recognizes that America’s $22 trillion—and rapidly growing—national debt is unsustainable, and that Congress must change course. “Preserving American Freedom,” the Republican Study Committee’s comprehensive fiscal 2020 budget proposal, would rein in Washington’s spending addiction by prioritizing core constitutional functions. By reducing inappropriate and wasteful spending and right-sizing the federal government, the committee’s proposal would balance the budget in six years and start...

One day last week, amid spiraling fallout over special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dialed up the president and requested a meeting. She talked to President Donald Trump about working together on an infrastructure package. It was the first phone call between the two since the testy days of the government shutdown earlier this year, and it seemed productive. They are planning to meet, she told The Associated Press in a Wednesday interview.