Free Republic

I’m pretty sure I know how California will fail. I don’t know exactly when it will happen, but after the result in the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District two weeks ago, the Golden State’s rendezvous with fiscal perdition is going to happen sooner than we think. Let’s talk about the “how.” California’s foundering won’t be precipitated by a single catastrophic event. Apart from the threatened CalExit, voter initiatives to partition the state, or the Big One shaking us into the Pacific, it won’t be the equivalent of a sudden, unexpected stroke on a random Tuesday that brings...

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Friday said he wanted to further lower the corporate tax rate, from 21 percent to 20 percent, as part of a second round of tax cuts later this year. Trump, in an interview with Fox News to mark the six-month anniversary of the $1.5 trillion tax cut law Republicans passed last year, said other parts of the new tax plan would be tailored to the middle class. “One of the things we’re thinking about is bringing the 21 percent down to 20 and for the most part, the rest of it will go right...

Republicans have had a rough week, mostly of their own making, and on Wednesday they added to their self-punishment with a spending fiasco in the Senate. Two GOP Senators blocked the Trump Administration’s rescissions package that would claw back $15 billion, much of which wasn’t even likely to be spent under current policy. A Senate procedural vote to move the rescissions package failed 48-50 after defections from Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Burr of North Carolina. From what we’ve heard Ms. Collins wanted to keep the money on ice so if it isn’t spent as part of its current...

When 39 university associations send an open letter to Congress expressing “grave reservations” about proposed legislation, you can be sure that money is involved. No matter how they describe their concern about students, our colleges and universities have spent money at a pace well above inflation for decades, and they have raised tuition and fees in tandem. The federal student loan program has been their “enabler,” so they want to keep the money flowing.New buildings, new stadiums, fitness centers, luxury apartments, a “lazy river” at Louisiana State University, climbing walls at Notre Dame and Rutgers, and a $120 million refurbishing...

Lately I’ve been losing track of how old everyone is. Friends, co-workers and family members are resisting middle age with vigorous exercise, careful diets and regular doctor visits. Even when 50-year-olds look like they’re 50, they often dress or party as if they’re still in their twenties. Our capacity to fetishize youth never ceases to amaze. But while older Americans definitely want to look like younger folks, they certainly don’t want their finances. That’s because the wealth gap between generations keeps widening, and their children’s future is beginning to look ugly. Just two years ago, the median American born in...

Two Republicans voted with Democrats in the Senate yesterday to defeat a bill that would have cut $15 billion from the $1.3 trillion budget request passed in March. Susan Collins and Richard Burr voted with every Democrat to deny a White House request to rescind less than one half of one percent of the budget. Daily Caller: "It is disappointing that the Senate chose to reject this common-sense plan,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said in a statement, “and the American people should be asking their representatives in Washington one simple question: If they cannot pass good-government legislation...

Maryland's stepped-up efforts to collect unpaid tolls are raking in millions of dollars for the state - outpacing the growth in toll revenue itself. State lawmakers and consumer protection groups say the crackdown - which includes referring thousands of delinquent accounts to collections - is punitive and predatory and is pushing Marylanders into debt - and in some cases bankruptcy. Transportation officials say they are only enforcing tolls motorists should be paying anyway - a major shift from years past when the state allowed scofflaws to run up hefty amounts in unpaid tolls and fines without consequences. "Certainly, we want...

IMF creates Global Private and Public Debt Database for all countries going back to 1950s. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2018/05/14/Global-Debt-Database-Methodology-and-Sources-45838

The long-awaited 2018 edition of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) Budget and Economic Outlook was released this month. It does not paint a rosy picture of the nation’s fiscal future, projecting $12.4 trillion in additional debt over the next decade. If past estimates are any indicator, however, that doesn’t reflect reality. Without a substantial change to the culture of overspending in Washington, the country’s fiscal situation is likely even worse. Ten years ago, CBO estimated that Congress would run a $151 billion surplus this past fiscal year. Instead, the country ran a $665 billion deficit. That’s in part because CBO conducts its...

I am a Millennial. I am smackdab in the middle of this generation that now makes up the largest portion of the U.S. workforce. I write this out of love, a desire to inform, and a deep concern for where we are and where we are going. The over-analyzed, overly entitled, and increasingly struggling generation of Americans born roughly between 1981 and 1997 have been berated by a never ending stream of articles about them in recent years. They are the most ethnically and racially diverse in America’s melting pot so far, behind only the generation to follow it. Millennials...

It takes a lot of courage for a president to target almost a quarter of the federal budget for reform in an election year. But this is exactly what President Trump is doing with his executive order, "Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility." We're now spending more than $700 billion per year on low-income assistance, which is more than we are spending on our national defense. And there are plenty of reasons to believe this spending is inefficient, wasteful and counterproductive. Over the last half-century, some $22 trillion has been spent on anti-poverty programs and yet...

When President Trump signed the 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill last month, he was emphatic that it wouldn’t happen again.Referring to the fact that no one could possibly have had time to read this mammoth piece of legislation, he said, “I will never sign another bill like this again.”The implication, of course, was that nothing could be done about this latest round of massive overspending. Like it or lump it, there it is.But that’s not exactly true. The president can, in fact, do something. He can pursue what’s known as a rescissions package.Don’t let the wonky word cause your...

Yesterday, as most Americans are painfully aware, was “Tax Day,” the last day for filing individual income taxes this year. When the smoke clears, Americans will have paid $1.6 trillion in individual income taxes. And contrary to the populist rhetoric of both the Left and the Right, the vast majority of those taxes will have been paid by the rich. The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, who earn 16 percent of U.S. income, will pay roughly 43 percent of federal income taxes this year. Of course, income taxes are only one component of federal taxes, and for most Americans, it’s...

“We’re engaged!” The phrase can cause excitement … or fear. Once the joy wears off after hearing your pals are getting hitched, you realize your bank ­balance is about to take a massive hit. Georgina Childs, 30, has had enough of forking out as a result of being a wedding guest… The PR account manager from Essex, England, got herself into £2,000 (almost $2,900) of debt and had to move back in with her with her parents after attending 20 weddings and 12 hen dos (bachelorette parties) in four years.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says that trillion-dollar deficits could not have been avoided by the GOP-controlled Congress, responding to critics within his party who say that leaders have behaved irresponsibly. “That was going to happen. The baby boomers retiring was going to do that,” Ryan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of projections that the country will start running trillion-dollar deficits as soon as 2020. Etc...

The Texas Department of Transportation has a contractor lined up to add a lane to each side of Texas 130 through Pflugerville, a popular commuter route that often backs up during rush hour.But the $36.7 million contract with OHL Construction is now caught up in the freeze on toll road projects — even though the project would be an expansion of an existing toll road, funded with toll road revenue. It would not use money from the gas, sales and energy taxes that have been the target of grass-roots anti-toll groups.“The planning and (bidding) has been done. The contractor is ready...

The GOP's signature tax law is projected to increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion between 2018 and 2028, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office. According to the report, the tax law would cost the government $2.3 trillion in revenues, but economic growth would offset that figure by about $461 billion. At 11 years, the report covers a slightly longer time period than the usual 10-year projections, but even accounting for just the first decade, the figure remains around $1.9 trillion. Some Republicans argued vociferously during the tax debate that tax cuts in the bill would...

The Democratic National Committee under Tom Perez and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) has been anything but successful. The committee, which has undergone multiple purges in staff, including the firing of their top fundraiser, has failed to catch up with their Republican counterparts. TheyÂ’re a whopping $6 million in debt and they just took out a $2 million loan to keep the lights on. ItÂ’s a total disaster and the bleeding hasnÂ’t stopped (via Daily Caller): The Democratic National Committee (DNC) reported more than $162,000 in additional debt in an amended FEC report filed this week. The DNC originally reported $6.1...

Elizabeth Zemba of Mt. Pleasant, a daily Pennsylvania Turnpike traveler, turned to art and creativity to express frustration with the highway's ever-rising tolls. She created an Internet meme. A photo of a turnpike tollbooth is overlaid with the logo: "Pennsylvania Turnpike re-inventing highway robbery since 2009." For many, annual turnpike toll increases simply have become too much to bear. Two weeks ago, a coalition of truckers and motorists advocates filed a class action suit against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, PennDOT and Gov. Tom Wolf, seeking to recoup "excessive fees" that went to underwrite projects other than the operation of the...

In the first quarter of 2018, the financial and investing industry went into overdrive detailing the upside of the 2018 tax cuts and the positive impacts of a "business friendly" executive and congressional branch on business in America. The stock market hit record highs and the Federal Reserve proclaimed such good times as to raise their economic outlook and increase the likelihood for interest rate hikes. From January 1, 2018 through March 28, 2018 (Q1), real GDP likely grew $110 billion (a 2.5% rise on an annualized basis). However, the fly in the ointment...according to the Treasury, from Jan 1,...