Free Republic

President-elect Donald Trump's views on a range of issues, from immigration to climate change, alienated many left-leaning tech employees in Silicon Valley, but none more so than those working at Alphabet. During the presidential campaign, 33 employees at the tech giant donated $20,000 to Trump, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was a tiny fraction of the 1,400 employees who donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign, for a total of $1.6 million. And it wasn't just political donations. The revolving door between the Obama administration and the company swung hard and frequently during the past eight years: 22 former...

Gov. Cuomo kept his new budget hush-hush all Tuesday, and one reason is obvious: His call to extend the millionaires tax (again) shows his rank hypocrisy. Again. “No new taxes. Period,” Cuomo declared in 2011, nixing any extension of the “millionaires tax.”: “You are kidding yourself if you think you can be one of the highest-taxed states in the nation, have a reputation for being anti-business and have a rosy economic future.”

The number of older Americans taking on student debt on behalf of their children and grandchildren has quadrupled in the past decade, with consumers over 60 now holding $66.7 billion in student loan debt, according to a new report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The skyrocketing cost of college has placed a particular burden on older Americans, many of whom are struggling to pay back growing debts in their retirement years, according to the report. Nearly 40 percent of federal student loan borrowers over age 65 are in default, the highest rate for any age group, the data show....

China’s President Xi Jinping warned on Tuesday against scapegoating globalization for the world’s ills or retreating behind protectionist walls, staking out an alternative vision for the international economy days before Donald Trump takes office. The global economic order has been led for decades by the United States, but the president-elect is threatening to tear up the rule book, and Xi used his debut appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos to insist that globalization was irreversible. “Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so is light and air,”...

A 4-mile section of Highway 89 on either side of Emerald Bay remains closed, with some sections buried in up to 30 feet of snow, according to the California Department of Transportation. Caltrans maintenance crews are working to clear the highway, but with more storms expected this week, the highway won’t reopen until an extended period of dry weather allows workers to safely clear the area of snow and debris, according to a Caltrans news release. Motorists traveling between the south shore of Lake Tahoe and the north or west shore will have to use Highway 50 and Highway 28....

SAN JOSE – Around the world, people are demanding change. Recent electoral outcomes – perhaps most notably, the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States – have highlighted rising economic uncertainty. In this environment, it is imperative that leaders articulate and deliver on a clear vision for inclusive economic growth, one that accounts not only for tax and trade policy – the focus of many of today’s debates – but also for digitization. Representing $19 trillion in potential economic value over the next decade, digitization has the power to enable countries to kick-start...

General Motors today announced that it will invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations. These investments follow $2.9 billion announced in 2016 and more than $21 billion GM has invested in its U.S. operations since 2009. Investing Additional $1 Billion in U.S. ManufacturingMoves Axle Jobs to U.S. from MexicoMore than 5,000 New Jobs in Key Growth Areas    DETROIT – General Motors today announced that it will invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations. These investments follow $2.9 billion announced in 2016 and more than $21 billion GM has invested in its U.S. operations since 2009.The...

Could Bayer-Monsanto deal be good for U.S. jobs? FBN's Charlie Gasparino on reports Bayer may pledge U.S. investments and new jobs if the Bayer-Monsanto deal wins approval. German chemical giant Bayer AG is promising President-elect Donald Trump billions of dollars in research and development spending in the U.S., as well as what it is saying will be a significant commitment to create jobs, if its planned merger with Monsanto Co. (MON) receives the necessary regulatory approvals to proceed, a Trump transition team spokesman confirmed on Tuesday. The news was first reported earlier Tuesday by the FOX Business Network. “After [Trump’s]...

German-based Bayer AG has committed to President-elect Donald Trump that it will invest $8 billion in American research and development as part of its deal to acquire Monsanto, Trump's transition team said Tuesday. Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Bayer will also protect all of Monsanto's 9,000 American jobs while creating an additional 3,000 high-tech positions in the country. That agreement, he added, came after Trump met with CEOs from both companies last week.

A week before President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office, the U.S. Transportation Department issued new “guidance” for airline flight crews on how to avoid discriminating against Muslim and Sikh passengers. DOT said it recognizes the very important and difficult job of the airlines to provide a safe and secure travel environment. “At the same time, it is important that this function be carried out in a non-discriminatory manner.” The guidance says airline personnel must not be swayed by a passenger’s appearance alone: “In other words, airline personnel should ask themselves, but for the passenger’s perceived race, color, national...

Donald Trump may have a point about paid protesters: Job ads running in more than 20 cities offer $2,500 per month for agitators to demonstrate at this week’s presidential inauguration events. Demand Protest, a San Francisco company that bills itself as the “largest private grassroots support organization in the United States,” posted identical ads Jan. 12 in multiple cities on Backpage.com seeking “operatives.” “Get paid fighting against Trump!” says the ad.

Making good on a promise to slash government, President-elect Trump has asked his incoming team to pursue spending and staffing cuts. Insiders said that the spending reductions in some departments could go as high as 10 percent and staff cuts to 20 percent, numbers that would rock Washington if he follows through. At least two so-called "landing teams" in Cabinet agencies have relayed the call for cuts as part of their marching orders to shrink the flab in government. The cuts would target discretionary spending, not mandated programs such as Medicare or Social Security, the sources said. The spending reductions...

Donald Trump won the Rust Belt and White House with help from his threats to slap tariffs on Chinese imports and goods shipped across the border from Mexico. Whether he’d make good on those threats became almost an after thought as his promised tax cuts, infrastructure spending and deregulation drove stocks higher after the election. But with the president-elect taking to the bully pulpit—like his Twitter posts threatening a “border tax” onToyota andGeneral Motors—the questions are bubbling to the surface, especially as his Jan. 20inauguration nears. What kind of protectionist measures can he get away with, for good or bad?......

It is far too early to render final judgment on the Obama presidency. All the chatter about his "legacy" overlooks two obvious realities. The significance of Obama will depend heavily on events that have not yet happened (for starters, the fate of the Iranian nuclear deal) and comparisons, for better or worse, with his successor. Still, it's possible to make some tentative observations. As I've written before, the administration's greatest achievement was, in its first year, stabilizing a collapsing economy and arguably avoiding a second Great Depression. Even now, only eight years after the event, many people forget the crash's...

With their Party having won control of all three branches of the federal government in the recent election, Republican tax experts are seemingly desperate to help the GOP give back its gains. Evidence supporting this claim is the growing support among Republican tax scholars (and apparently legislators too) in favor of what they describe as a “border adjustable tax system.” They don’t call the Republican Party the “stupid party” for nothing. The new revenue stream popular among certain members of the Republican commentariat calls for reducing the corporate tax in favor of a value-added tax (VAT) placed on goods made...

Which state gets the biggest share of its budget from the federal government? Is it California, the left’s bizarre alternative universe?Is it Illinois, the poster child for big-government excess? Nope, not even close. As a matter of fact, those two jurisdictions are among the 10-least dependent states.And if you’re guessing that the answer is New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, or some other “blue state,” that would be wrong as well.Instead, if you check out this map from the Tax Foundation, the answer is Mississippi, followed by Louisiana, Tennessee, Montana, and Kentucky. All of which are red states! So does...

Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday it will significantly increase its investment in the U.S. while Donald Trump is president and is considering building a new U.S. factory. Chung Jin Haeng, a president of the world's fifth-largest automotive group, said Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and their affiliated companies will spend $3.1 billion by 2021 on research and development and maintaining their factories in Alabama and Georgia. That represents a 50 percent increase from the $2.1 billion the companies invested in the U.S. in 2012-2016. The increased spending comes mostly from research and development, as the South Korean maker of the Genesis...

The humor writer Andy Borowitz recently joked that Donald Trump had been named the Kremlin’s “employee of the month.” I giggled at that, and then winced. It’s painful even to joke about. Some of the most explosive reports about America in the last few days appeared in Israeli newspapers. They suggested that American intelligence officials had warned Israel to “be careful” about sharing classified information with the Trump White House, for fear that it would be given to Russia. American intelligence officials reportedly cautioned that Vladimir Putin might have “leverages of pressure” to extort Trump. That presumably was a reference...

So now we know: This is how it's going to be after Inauguration Day, too. When coverage falls afoul of Donald Trump, the soon-to-be-president will feed the media itself into the news grinder. As Matthew Continetti wrote in the Washington Free Beacon, the new administration is going on permanent offense; Trump will invert the usual equation to subject individual journalists and their employers to scrutiny and slashing attacks of the kind usually reserved for public officials. Trump started Wednesday's cyclone of a press conference with a warning sheathed in seeming compliments: Thanks for the restraint in holding off on all...

Semiconductors are essential to everything from home appliances to cars, satellites and fighter aircraft. The U.S. has led the industry since its start in the 1950s, with firms like Intel, Qualcomm and Apple today accounting for nearly 50% of global sales, worth about $165 billion a year, and employing some 359,000 Americans. Semiconductors are the fourth-most valuable U.S. export behind airplanes, petroleum products and cars. China hopes to change this through state subsidies and predatory trade practices. The White House report, drafted by industry and policy experts, warns that “Chinese policies are distorting markets in ways that undermine innovation, subtract...