Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Almost six in 10 Americans do not want another federal government shutdown over the Republican refusal to allow unauthorized immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country, according to a poll released Monday. With the current temporary spending bill set to expire Thursday, 59 percent in the Monmouth Poll said it would be unacceptable for congressional Democrats to oppose a budget deal even if the so-called dreamers remain in limbo for now. Just 36 percent said it would be acceptable for the Democrats to do so. (Snip) " By 82 percent to 14 percent,...

From the moment President Trump took office, many Democrat politicians, celebrities, and media mavens have worked to stop anything Trump. Democrats, hoping to capitalize on the anti-Trump excitement in their base, staged a coordinated "Summer of Resistance" across the country aimed at countering the agenda of President Trump and the GOP-led Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi kicked off the effort at a rally in Dallas saying, "This Trump complained, “I hope that Democrats will stop the obstruction and resistance – in fact that’s what they have, they have a sign ‘resist, resist’ - they want to resist everything,...

Every major policy overhaul has unanticipated consequences, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will be no exception. One tantalizing possibility for this one: The Republican tax overhaul helps Democrats in the midterm and 2020 elections by bringing forward the date at which a few critical states — Georgia and possibly even Texas — flip from red to blue. How might this happen? It stems from the new caps on the home mortgage interest and state and local tax deductions. Restrictions on building have pushed up the costs of housing in expensive coastal blue-state cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles...

Congressional Republicans once bracing for the possibility of a Democratic “tsunami” in this year’s elections now appear on the offensive -- bolstered by new polls suggesting Americans like their recent tax cuts, and the opportunity to pounce on Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi remark about the bonuses and paycheck increases amounting to “crumbs.” “Nancy Pelosi has stayed in the spotlight. Her 'crumbs' comment is something I think we can use pretty effectively,” Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said at this week’s GOP policy retreat at the Greenbrier resort, in West Virginia. To be sure,...

New Jersey residents could be forced to give their hard-earned tax dollars to the nation’s largest abortion chain for the first time in eight years. The state Senate passed legislation Thursday to send $7.5 million to Planned Parenthood and other groups that do abortions in the state, NorthJersey.com reports. The legislation now moves to the state Assembly. Pro-abortion Gov. Phil Murphy promised to sign it. The bill would reverse decisions by former Gov. Chris Christie to block $7.5 million tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business. Christie, who is pro-life, vetoed Planned Parenthood funding numerous times and...

The ad marks a sharp public shift to the right in Ives’ campaign. Ives had been gaining attention following a debate with Rauner at the Chicago Tribune last week. And her sharp critiques of the governor were used in a digital ad by Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker. “Thank you for legislation that lets me use the girls’ bathroom,” says a man in the new ad, dressed in a woman’s red dress. That targeted a House bill Rauner signed into law which allows transgender citizens to change their gender designation without going through gender reassignment or gender confirmation surgery. “Thank...

Has anybody here used an online tax service to file their taxes?

I'mn trying to find a website that breaks down how much blacks receive, as a community, compared with the taxes they pay, as a community. I did have a figure of approximately $21 trillion dollars since the end of the Civil War, but I can't substantiate that. Mathwise, it's not a lot when you break that number by the number of blacks that have lived, or living, since 1865 and spread it over 150 years. It works out to be only about perhaps $2,000/yr, so it's a credible number. I just can't support it.

SEATTLE – When President Trump was candidate Trump, he called climate change a hoax. Since taking the Oval Office, he’s said very little about greenhouse gasses and their impact on the planet. But he did issue a statement that he plans to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to reduce emissions as a way to stop global warming. But West Coast states are driving in the opposite direction, with designs of erecting a green wall built on taxing carbon. “This is both an economic benefit for the state of Washington and a job creator,” said...

UPS is putting its savings from the upcoming tax cuts to use in a slightly different way than other Georgia-based companies.The United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) said Thursday that the money is going toward boosting more than $12 billion in investments to "expand the company’s Smart Logistics Network, significantly increase pension funding, and position the company to further enhance shareowner value."“This $12 billion investment program is an outgrowth of the opportunity for tax savings created by the Tax and Jobs Act,” said David Abney, UPS Chairman and CEO, in a news release. “We will increase network investments and accelerate pension...

I tried to post an article from a source not allowed at FR, but search for other sources to this story. UPS is purchasing 14 Boeing 747's to add to its fleet. A big deal.

A Republican congressman says the U.S. government should significantly raise the gas tax in order to fund President Donald Trump's ambitious infrastructure plan. Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania told Bloomberg TV that the tax should be increased by 15 cents per gallon of gasoline. The current rate is 18.4 cents, and hasn't seen a hike since 1993. Shuster said Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat in West Virginia that for the average American, a 15-cent increase would equal the cost of 'a cup of coffee a week that they might have to forgo.' 'Or if you're a Starbucks person, half...

By now you probably know that the 2017 Tax Act significantly limited the deduction of state and local taxes against your federal income. For most Americans -- particularly ones in low-tax states or states with no income taxes -- these new rules will have little effect on your life. For high-income individuals in high-tax states, they will suffer dearly from this policy. There has been speculation of how many will relocate. How bad will the impact be to the states they are leaving? That is another question. We do not know how many people will leave states like New York,...

1) Liberals care much more about policies that make them feel good about themselves than they do about policies that actually make life better for people. 2) That person in politics being compared to Hitler is really not very much like Hitler at all. 3) The bigger government gets, the worse it serves the people. 4) While they are in office, all Republican Presidents will be portrayed by the Left as either evil, crazy, racist, stupid or some combination thereof. 5) For every actual racist act and comment in politics, there are 500 people being falsely called bigots because Democrats...

It is essential for any nation that wishes to thrive and compete on the world stage to have a successful and flourishing aerospace industry, centered on the capability of putting humans and payloads into space affordably and frequently. This is a bipartisan position held by elected officials from both American political parties since the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957...Unfortunately, since the beginning of the 21st century the U.S. government has struggled to create and maintain a viable launch industry. Even as the government terminated the Space Shuttle program, with its ability to place and return humans and...

Oh irony of ironies. How beautiful you can be! Less than a week after Univision smeared the Trump tax cuts, the owner of that broadcasting network, Haim Saban, has announced that he will be giving $1000 bonuses to his employees due to those same tax cuts. In fact, as we shall see, Saban very specifically credited those same tax cuts as the reason for the bonuses. To get a full appreciation of the irony involved let us first look at what a Univision anchor said about the Trump tax cuts as reported by the MRC Latino Staff on January 27...

House Republicans will lean heavily on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her comment that the GOP tax cut amounts to just "crumbs" for people in their quest to retain the majority this year.In an interview with reporters on Thursday, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, who runs the House campaign arm, said the top Democrat is helping Republicans politically with her own well-publicized criticisms of the GOP. Most recently, she called the Republican tax reform plan “Armageddon,” and said the $1,000 bonuses some companies awarded as a result of corporate tax cuts are “crumbs.”“Her crumbs comment,” Stivers said....

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is being shunned by members of her own party for downplaying the benefits of tax reform. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) informed Pelosi that $1,000 bonuses were not "chump change."Crowley wondered whether those employers had already planned to dole out bonuses, despite the tax reform package. But, it's quite the coincidence when dozens of other companies have suddenly invested massively in their workforces after the vote. Boeing, AT&T, Darden Restaurant Group, Apple, and Starbucks to name a few.Yet, Pelosi continues to be a broken record. The employee bonuses are "crumbs" compared to the rewards large corporations...

2 min Pelosi meltdown video at link. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosispeaks to CNN's Chris Cuomo onJan. 29, 2018. (Photo: Screen grab/CNN) (CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) went on CNN Monday night to express her fury at Republicans on the House intelligence committee who voted to release a classified memo dealing with the ongoing Russia investigation. She accused Republicans of "dangerously and recklessly dealing with intelligence" to "cover up" the Russia investigation. She said the four-page memo, written by Republicans on the House intelligence committee, is false, a "total misrepresentation," a threat to national security, and on...

The Democrats are like characters in a Bill Murray movie. They keep reliving the same day, trapped in the rhythms and routines of campaign 2016. They persist in the rhetoric, tropes, gestures, figures, and policies that delivered the presidency, the Congress, and the bulk of statehouses and governor's mansions to the Republican Party. What they can't escape is identity politics—the slicing and dicing of the electorate by race, sex, orientation, gender identity, country of origin, dietary preference, what have you. Meanwhile President Trump has run off with the most saleable of the Democrats' old issues and the foundations of their...