Free Republic

Victoria Nuland, U.S. secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said the U.S. has been internally preparing more financial support to Ukraine.“Senior IMF leadership was in Ukraine this week issuing a public validation of the reform program going forward but also confirming that the program agreed last year is going to need a significant adjustment – that there is a fiscal hole to the tune of $10-15 billion,” Nuland said at the American Enterprise Institute during a discussion examining the Ukrainian revolution one year later.“We expect that the IMF and the World Bank will have to increase their support...

As the end of the legislative year draws near, motorists still wonder: What sort of changes will the Legislature and governor make in the way the state funds its roads and highways? Political observers in Michigan expect some sort of compromise among competing plans passed by the House and Senate, but the specifics are still lacking. According to projections from the state and University of Michigan economists, under the House-passed road plan – which devotes $1 billion more to roads with no tax hike – school funding will increase from $11.5 billion in 2014 to $14.0 billion in 2023. With...

Most people don’t understand how government defined-benefit pension systems operate, which is one of many obstacles to reforming the deeply underfunded systems. Part of the problem is that the methods used in pension funding and accounting are very different from anything a regular person ever faces in their own personal finances. For example, people rarely buy a product, including a financial product, without knowing its cost. But projecting the cost of pension systems requires making various assumptions about the future to decide how much must be contributed to meet defined-benefit pension promises. Making a wrong assumption can put taxpayers on...

As conservatives push back against a bill to fund the government past Dec. 11, Speaker John A. Boehner signaled Thursday that he didn’t expect to make any sizable changes to the so-called “cromnibus” in order to placate voices to the right. “I expect that we’ll have bipartisan support to pass the omnibus,” Boehner told reporters Thursday, in response to a question on whether the Ohio Republican anticipated needing some Democratic votes to pass the bill, and whether that would give Democrats leverage on negotiating riders in the appropriations bill. Conservatives are bashing the cromnibus — which would fund all elements...

President Obama on Tuesday urged the lame-duck Congress to approve roughly $6 billion in emergency funding to fight the deadly Ebola virus, saying “we cannot beat” the disease without a greater financial investment from lawmakers. “The urgency remains. If we are actually going to solve this problem for ourselves, we have to solve it in West Africa as well,” he said after a tour of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. “Let's get it done,” Obama added. “This can't get caught up in normal politics.” Obama's visit to the National Institutes of Health was meant to promote the...

Detroit bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes called on the state to address the underfunding of local government pension benefits in his oral opinion. He stated that the state has a “constitutional, legal and moral obligation to assure that the municipalities in this state adequately fund their pension obligation.” A government’s own employees should not be its largest creditors, nor should retirement benefits they have earned be placed at risk, as happened in Detroit. There are a number of current bills that would help local governments avoid underfunding, and the Legislature should consider passing them. When an employee earns pension benefits, the...

On November 4, voters fired the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, replacing it with a GOP majority that campaigned against Obamacare and big spending. But the Democrats who lost are still running the show. These lame ducks lack the moral authority to govern. They shouldn’t be allowed to do any more than the bare minimum to keep government operating until January, when the new Congress meets. Allowing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to ram through an omnibus spending bill for the coming year, or make other key decisions, would be like letting your ex-spouse keep using your checkbook. One...

Conservative lawmakers are pitching a number of legislative proposals to House speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and other House Republicans in order to avoid passing a long-term funding bill that would provide President Obama with the money he needs to implement his pending administrative amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. “We could essentially be green-lighting it if we do a full omnibus in the lame-duck with everything,” says a House Republicans who signed Representative Matt Salmon’s letter calling for the House to pass a continuing resolution in the lame-duck session that would prohibit Obama from implementing his executive orders. The...

The White House on Wednesday is expected to ask Congress for additional funding to fight Ebola, congressional aides told The Hill. The administration will ask lawmakers to approve $6.2 billion in emergency funding, according to Bloomberg News. Of the total amount requested, $3.1 billion would be allocated toward the Department Health and Human Services (HHS), $2.9 billion would be for the State Department and HHS, and $100 million would be for the Defense Department. House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing confirmed the panel has heard about the request, but members have not yet seen details.

While federal and state agencies institute new policies and procedures in light of Ebola making an appearance in the U.S., the White House has called for a suspension on research involving other viruses with deadly potential for the time being. On Friday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced its moratorium on funding new “gain-of-function” research, saying it plans to further assess its risks and benefits. It also called for a voluntary stop on current research in this field. “Because the deliberative process launching today will aim to address key questions about the risks and benefits of...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Judith White, who runs a research lab at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, submitted a proposal to the National Institutes of Health to test potential countermeasures against Ebola in March — just as Liberia was confirming its first two cases of the deadly virus. The project, a collaboration of the university, the Army and a drug company, showed promising early results: Mice injected with two compounds — one used in a drug to treat female infertility, the other found in a breast cancer drug — showed immunity to Ebola. But a few months later, not...

The pitch was intriguing: U.S. health officials wanted to fast-track trials for an Ebola vaccine and sounded the call for volunteers. Charles Sullivan called up the hotline on a whim, figuring the National Institutes of Health already had filled its queue and wouldn’t need him. But he was accepted for three rounds of shots of a deactivated virus, a year’s worth of blood analysis and a $900 check for his trouble. The clinical trial went well, and the vaccine seemed promising. A decade later, the country is still waiting for a vaccine amid a worldwide Ebola outbreak, and Mr. Sullivan...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent more than $39 million on obese lesbians, origami condoms, texting drunks, and dozens of other projects that could have been scrapped in favor of developing an Ebola vaccine. “Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready,” said NIH Director Francis Collins, blaming budget cuts for his agency’s failure to develop a vaccine for the deadly virus. However, the Washington Free Beacon has uncovered $39,643,352 worth...

... What’s particularly interesting about this discussion, then, is that nobody has even discussed the fact that the federal government not ten years ago created and funded a brand new office in the Health and Human Services Department specifically to coordinate preparation for and response to public health threats like Ebola. The woman who heads that office, and reports directly to the HHS secretary, has been mysteriously invisible from the public handling of this threat. And she’s still on the job even though three years ago she was embroiled in a huge scandal of funneling a major stream of funding...

A new survey of communities from the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan shows an uptick in the percent that say they are better able to meet their fiscal needs. This is good as it generally tracks with an improving state economy, but there are some warning signs ahead. The survey notes, “For the first time in six years, more Michigan communities report that they are better able to meet their fiscal needs this year than those who say they are less able to do so.” (See chart nearby.) Local government property tax revenue...

A new Mark Schauer for governor political advertisement features four teachers from four different school districts who claim that Gov. Rick Snyder has cut funding to their districts. But in fact, on a per-student basis, all four districts actually received more taxpayer money in 2013-14 than they did in 2010-2011, which was the last budget approved by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The ad features seven teachers but only four specifically cite lower funding. For months Schauer, who is the Democratic candidate for the state’s top office, has claimed that Gov. Snyder cut funding to public schools. This claim has been refuted...

Federal taxpayer funds continue to flow to a slew of U.S. universities that are spending the cash on programs that promote anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American viewpoints, according to a large group of Jewish and civil rights organizations that are now pushing Congress to rectify what they call a systemic problem. Taxpayer funds have been allocated to universities under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (HEA) since 1965. However, Congress and the Education Department have exerted little oversight, leading these funds to be spent on biased educational programs that promote radical views about Israel and even America, according to the...

Mufid A. Elfgeeh, a 30-year-old man who owns a food store in upstate New York, has been arrested and charged with funding Islamic terrorist group ISIS, attempting to send jihadists to fight with them in Syria and even plotted to gun down U.S. troops, according to Federal authorities. The Democrat & Chronicle reports that Elfgeeh is the nephew of Abad Elfgeeh, an ice-cream shop owner who was arrested in Brooklyn in 2003, after being accused of being deeply involved in a terrorism network. Authorities alleged that Abad Elfgeeh funneled millions of dollars to his homeland of Yemen and had links...

Thursday at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health hearing titled, “Combating the Ebola Threat,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said he will be requesting funding for a "pandemic." Smith said, "This is unprecedented. Many people are not cooperating with efforts to contain the disease. There is an information gap. Despite the efforts through cell phone and radio to get the message out, there is a learning curve. as we consider what to do to meet this health challenge, I suggest we get funding levels for pandemic preparedness. This is for congress and the executive branch, in a restricted...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service's tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it. The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget. The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency's scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency's failure...