Free Republic

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — The 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) September 17 does not bode well for those who want to see decreasing deficits. The CBO projects spending for federal healthcareprograms will "rise substantially" in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)." The CBO predicts that budget deficits will decline during the next few years. After this initial decline, though, the CBO calculates ...

Liberals are unwillingly to realize that you cannot legislate the poor into success. When poverty becomes comfortable, it goes from being a condition to a way of life. When liberals decided to increase the amount of benefits provided to the poor (which happens every year automatically) because “with a little more help, they will be able to make it on their own” the poor become more entrenched in their entitlement mentality. They will do even less to change any aspect of their life because they are certain that liberals will continue to provide more for them so they can work...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Monday called for criminal charges to be filed against people who defrauded a federal phone subsidy program. McCaskill sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, urging the agency to refer examples of fraud in its Lifeline program to the Justice Department for prosecution. "Knowingly providing false information to a government agency for profit must be investigated. If these companies are found in violation of federal law, I expect the DOJ will prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law," she wrote. She also urged the FCC to more aggressively use its own...

When Trader Joe's announced it was dropping health benefits for part-time workers, it reassured them that they'd be no worse off as a result. "We believe that with the $500 from Trader Joe's and the tax credits available under the (Affordable Care Act), many of you should be able to obtain health care coverage at very little if any net cost to you," noted CEO Dan Bane in a memo to employees revealed this week. In other words, Trader Joe's — like some other companies — has decided to shift its health care costs onto federal taxpayers via the subsidized...

President Obama recently spoke at a Binghamton University Presidential Town Hall meeting. “We don’t have an urgent deficit crisis. The only crisis we have is one that’s manufactured in Washington, and it’s ideological. And the basic notion is, is that we shouldn’t be helping people get health care and we shouldn’t be helping kids who can’t help themselves and whose parents are underresourced, we shouldn’t be helping them get a leg up. And so some of the Headstart, even deeper cuts in education support, even deeper cuts in basic science and research. And, you know, that’s like eating your corn...

President Obama recently spoke at a Binghamton University Presidential Town Hall meeting. “We don’t have an urgent deficit crisis. The only crisis we have is one that’s manufactured in Washington, and it’s ideological. And the basic notion is, is that we shouldn’t be helping people get health care and we shouldn’t be helping kids who can’t help themselves and whose parents are underresourced, we shouldn’t be helping them get a leg up. And so some of the Headstart, even deeper cuts in education support, even deeper cuts in basic science and research. And, you know, that’s like eating your corn...

The liabilities for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac amount to $4.9 trillion, according to economist James Hamilton<. That equals $42,494.15 per household. This is especially troubling since the US homeownership rate is 65% and 60% of home sales are made with all-cash. So, renters really end up subsidizing homeownership AND Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While this is outrageous, the other costs of government spending and promises are even more outrageous. We know that the employment situation in the US is terrible with 70% of jobs created since January 2009 being low-paying, part-time jobs. And median household income...

We know that the employment situation in the US is terrible with 70% of jobs created since January 2009 being low-paying, part-time jobs. And median household income keeps declining. 20130816_mainstreetmisery After reading James Hamilton’s horrifying paper on the size of off-balance sheet liabilities for America, I thought I would put together the following table to you could see the household share of government debt, entitlements and The Federal Reserve Balance Sheet. householdshare There are 115,310,000 households in America. Government spending in the U.S. as of Q2 2013 was a little over $5.8 trillion. That equates to $50,328.68 per household. The...

There is very little meaning in things simply given away. America’s public education system has become the quintessence of that idea -- a “free” system that produces unprepared and overly entitled youths ill-equipped to advance America's future. High-minded progressives see public education as something to be protected from private competition and the ravages of more innovative systems at home and abroad. I spared teachers from my ire of my last column, but they are not without fault. For the most part, though, teachers are superseded by education reformers, especially on the right. In public education, teachers are rarely specialists in...

The Federal government debt outstanding is almost $17 trillion. This has grown at a staggering pace since 2007. GFDEBTN_Max_630_378 (2) And that is the GOOD news! According to economist James Hamilton at University of California at San Diego, the value of notional off-balance sheet liabilities was around $70 trillion in 2012. We were already aware that unfunded liabilities are staggering, according to USDebtclock.org. usbtclcok The biggest items in this category are Social Security and Medicare. If current policies are maintained, these off-balance sheet liabilities will require enormous sacrifices from future taxpayers. Better know as massive increase in taxes. Hamiton includes...

The Federal government debt outstanding is almost $17 trillion. GFDEBTN_Max_630_378 (2) And that is the GOOD news! According to economist James Hamilton at University of California at San Diego, the value of notional off-balance sheet liabilities was around $70 trillion in 2012. We were already aware that unfunded liabilities are staggering, according to USDebtclock.org. usbtclcok The biggest items in this category come, of course, from Social Security and Medicare. If current policies are maintained, these off-balance sheet liabilities will require enormous sacrifices from future taxpayers. Better know as massive increase in taxes. Hamiton includes the implicit mortgage guarantees of Fannie...

The Newtown Middle School student won $2,000 as the runner-up. A Connecticut eighth-grader who misspelled the correct answer to a "Jeopardy!" question and lost money over it says he was cheated. Thomas Hurley III correctly answered the Final Jeopardy question about the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. But Thomas spelled it "emanciptation" and was ruled out by host Alex Trebek. He bet $3,000 of his $9,600 in winnings and finished well behind a rival who amassed $66,600. "I was pretty upset that I was cheated out of the final 'Jeopardy!' question," he told The News-Times of Danbury. "It...

Unfortunately, the fall of Rome is a pattern repeated by empires throughout history ... including ours? A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event called "FreedomFest." We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome did. Historian Carl Richard said that today's America resembles Rome. The Roman Republic had a constitution, but Roman leaders often ignored it. "Marius was elected consul six years in a row, even though under the constitution (he) was term-limited to one year." Sounds like New York City's Mayor Bloomberg. "We have presidents of both parties legislating by executive order, saying I'm...

This gets really tiring....(Robert Reich vomits forth) "In other words, much in modern America depends on where you draw boundaries, and who's inside and who's outside. Who is included in the social contract? If "Detroit" is defined as the larger metropolitan area that includes its suburbs, "Detroit" has enough money to provide all its residents with adequate if not good public services, without falling into bankruptcy. Politically, it would come down to a question of whether the more affluent areas of this "Detroit" were willing to subsidize the poor inner-city through their tax dollars, and help it rebound. That's an...

Looks like you've hit the jackpot, leeches! gub'ment cheese Now that those who receive food stamps in the US outnumber the sum of those actually employed in the private sector (due in no small part to federal government radio advertising aimed at potential freeloaders both in the US and in Mexico), one could say that the Obama Administration's single greatest triumph (politically/from their warped viewpoint) could be the systematic, intentional addiction of more people to government entitlements in general... a hideous crime against a society once founded upon rugged individualism. But they're not done yet- just look at the ways 'progressive' scum...

In Europe in particular, “human rights” have become dirty words. For that we have to thank supranational bodies like the European Court of Human Rights, that have given this concept a bad name through a never-ending proliferation of entitlements that often have very little to do with the concept’s original and true meaning. Parts of the European counterjihad have also started systematically attacking the idea of human rights. And there were some who did not sign the Brussels Declaration at the conference of July 2012 because they had problems with its human rights strategy. The phenomenon of so-called “judicial imperialism”,...

The Tea Party Returns By ABBY D. PHILLIP (@abbydphillip) June 21, 2013 Opposition to President Obama's healthcare law catapulted the Tea Party to national prominence three years ago, and now anger over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups may be serving as a tipping point for a Tea Party revival. And in the House of Representatives, where the movement's most ardent supporters reside, their influence is already being felt. Most recently, the Republican-sponsored farm bill failed to pass through the House on Thursday in part due to Republican opposition to funding the food stamps program, now called the...

The Social Security program faces $9.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years, which is up $1 trillion from last year’s projection of $8.6 trillion, according to the latest report from Social Security’s board of trustees. The unfunded liability is the amount that has been promised in benefits to people now alive that will not be funded by the tax revenue the system is expected to take in to pay for those benefits. (The Social Security trustees calculate the unfunded liability for a period of 75 years into the future, from 2012 to 2087). …

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s president announced a $3.2 billion annual increase in cash handouts for the poor, students and pregnant women Wednesday, saying the programs will reach nearly 700,000 additional children, pay their families 35 percent more and encourage consumer spending in what is an election year. Cristina Fernandez said the total cost of the programs will rise to 41 billion pesos, or $7.8 billion a year at the official exchange rate. She called it a powerful boost to consumer demand. ... Earlier Wednesday, the government announced that a price freeze on 500 consumer goods would remain in place...

One of the problems with positive rights though, which conservatives and libertarians tend to point out, is that in order for them to mean anything in practice, someone else will inherently have to provide the means by which they are given. For example, if you have the right to health-care, then a doctor or nurse will have to at some point, render that care. Either the medical practitioner will have to be paid for his or her rendering of care, or he or she will have to be compelled to render it. This is manifestly different from a negative right...