Free Republic

Big Government: We almost never agree with President Obama's favorite economist Paul Krugman, but he recently spoke the truth about where Obama's policies are taking the country. It should scare anyone with a pulse. Krugman, after speaking at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., was asked about the debt crisis. After arguing it's no big deal in the near term, Krugman admitted that "Eventually we do have a problem. The population is getting older, health care costs are rising ... . Something is going to have to give." What's that something?

They’re not contributing members. They take away jobs from Americans, leech off the social benefits system and commit a number of crimes besides the whole “illegal entry” deal. Jails tend to be full of illegal aliens for a reason. "Every day, like the rest of us, they go out and try to earn a living. Often they do that in a shadow economy — a place where employers may offer them less than the minimum wage or make them work overtime without extra pay. And when that happens, it’s not just bad for them, it’s bad for the entire economy....

A favorite "progressive" trope is that America's middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s. One version of this claim, made by Robert Reich, President Clinton's labor secretary, is typical: "After three decades of flat wages during which almost all the gains of growth have gone to the very top," he wrote in 2010, "the middle class no longer has the buying power to keep the economy going." This trope is spectacularly wrong. It is true enough that, when adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the average hourly wage of nonsupervisory workers in America has remained about the...

DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the country, and class divisions are as clear as the gate around one community or the grittiness of another. From the footprint of the house to the gleam on the car in the driveway, it is not hard to guess the economic status of the people who live there. Even the landscape is carved up by class. From 15,000 feet up, you can stare down at subdivisions and tract houses, and America’s class lines will stare right back up at you. Manhattan, however, is not like most places. Its 1.6 million residents hide in...

The only way to finance a big European-style state is to have it paid for by massive taxation of everyone, mostly the middle class. Right now, we are avoiding honest debate on this fact. The central issue of our time is the debate over the size and scope of government. Two unpleasant but undeniable mathematical truths limit the feasible policy choices. The recent sound and fury of the fiscal cliff follies in the end signified nothing because the resolution was in fact just a denial of both truths.The first truth is that the current tax rates cannot support the promises...

President Obama -- along with many of the liberal Democrats in Congress -- originally defined “the rich” as couples making more than $250,000 a year. They were very specific and emphatic about how this group of taxpayers needs to pay their “fair share.” Yet, when one of the Senate’s newest -- and one of the most liberal -- members was asked to define what income groups comprise the “middle class,” she simply couldn’t do it. How remarkable: Elizabeth Warren Can't Define What Middle Class Is "It’s not a numbers issue. I know you would expect a very wonky answer from...

It apparently wasn't enough to raise taxes on 77 percent of Americans with the fiscal cliff deal signed into law by auto-pen late last night by President Obama. In a video put out by the White House, President Obama dishonestly explained what the fiscal cliff means and then proceeded to say some Americans still need to "pay their fair share." Obama said there is more he wants to do to reduce our debt in a "balanced way," because after all, the $41 in tax hikes per $1 in spending cuts apparently wasn't enough irresponsibility for him. He gloated over the...

NBC's David Gregory interviewed President Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" Sunday, and a conversation ensued that would have been more fitting for a show called "The President Meets One of His Many Mainstream Media Enablers." Let's take a look at just some of the exchanges and fantasize how different the nation's political and electoral climate might be if the liberal press were doing its job as watchdog instead of taking sides. Obama said, "We're seeing signs of recovery ... in employment numbers improving." Might Gregory have asked Obama how he can continue to put an unrealistically positive spin on...

The last year has been a tough one for conservatives. The hope that four years of failed policy would be enough to repudiate the liberal/progressive ideology of the Obama administration ended when the majority of the American public voted to maintain their entitlements -- so long as someone else paid for them. And the conservative response to the debacle has been for the various factions within the movement to declare war on each other. It's time for conservatives to give serious thought to what they believe and how they can make a more persuasive case that conservative principles offer the...

Washington -- William McGurn, the esteemed Wall Street Journal columnist and soon-to-be editor of the editorial page of the New York Post, has made an interesting observation about the fabulous Bush tax cuts that are about to lapse. They amount to a substantial sum of money for a middle-class family. For the middle class it will be a big deal if they disappear. President Barack Obama has portrayed the Bush tax cuts as a rich person's tax cut, but now he is portraying them as a huge tax break for the middle class. Of a sudden he says do not...

Fiscal Cliff Means 50% Tax Rates For The Middle Class Politics / TaxesDec 07, 2012 - 08:12 AM By: Money Morning Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: If I didn't know any better, I'd think there's a small but growing group of people in Washington who think it would actually be good if we temporarily went over the fiscal cliff. I say that because I am seeing a smattering of articles recently suggesting that somehow going over the cliff "won't be all that bad" or that we're "really just talking about cuts that need to happen in the first place." President Obama seems...

There's a lot to be said for talking about the Constitution, economic theory and what's best for the country. However, one place we conservatives have slipped in recent years is framing our policies in a way that answers the very first question on the mind of most voters, "How does this benefit me?" That needs to change. Conservatism is an ideology that benefits everyone, but it's particularly helpful to middle class Americans. If we want to bring more of those voters to the Right, we have to do a better job of explaining to them exactly how we're going to...

Last week, I was exiting my neighborhood Starbucks when I happened to overhear a middle-aged man talking to a younger man who appeared to be his son. "It matters what you wear," the older man told the younger, whose clothes reflected a cross of grunge and goth. "When you go out with your friends on the weekend, you can dress one way; when you are going to a job, it matters what you wear." While many might argue that appearance should not matter, we know in reality that it does. Expectations vary by subculture. What is acceptable for a musician...

This week, when speaking at children's toy K'NEX factory in Pennsylvania, President Obama urged the House of Representatives merely to pass what Harry Reid's Senate has passed and send him the bill. The Senate has already passed a bill to keep income taxes from going up on middle-class families. That’s already passed the Senate. Your member of Congress like Allyson and Chaka, other Democrats in the House, they're ready to go. They're ready to vote on that same thing. And if we can just get a few House Republicans on board, we can pass the bill in the House. It...

One of the key questions lurking in the "fiscal cliff" talks — though well below the public's radar — is what happens to the alternative minimum tax — or AMT. Implemented in 1969 to make sure upper-income Americans pay their share of taxes, the AMT has increasingly snared more middle-income Americans over the years because it was never indexed for inflation. During the 2011 tax year for example, the higher tax hit single taxpayers with incomes as low as $48,450 and joint filers making only $74,450. But millions more Americans could be subject to the AMT in their 2012 returns...

The conventional wisdom has emerged that in order to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," politicians in Washington must agree to some method of tax increases ("revenue") -- which will be real, even if low taxes are not the cause of our ills -- alongside some kind of promise of spending restraint on entitlement programs, which is our problem, and which no one believes Washington will restrain. The American left and our "objective" journalists -- same thing, I know -- are not helping the nation balance its budget. As usual, these partisan hacks are obsessed with tearing the Republican coalition apart,...

If federal tax cuts that are under review are not extended, Michigan residents could end up paying the equivalent of double their state income tax rate, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation looked at the alternative minimum tax (which includes the child tax credit), the Bush tax cuts (which refers to changes to the tax codes that lowered income tax rates) and the 2 percent tax cut to employee-side social security payroll taxes that all expire at the end of the year. The tax cuts are part of the so-called “fiscal cliff” debate. Michigan residents...

Obama has staked out a very dogmatic and inflexible position on class-warfare tax hikes and he obviously wants all of us to think only the “rich” will be impacted. I think it’s foolish to penalize investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners and other upper-income taxpayers. What nation, after all, has ever prospered by placing obstacles in front of those who create jobs? France? Don’t make me laugh.But I’m also amazed that anyone believes Obama isn’t going to screw the middle class as well. The simple reality is that there aren’t enough rich people to finance big government.There are some honest folks...

New Yorkers love to complain about how expensive their city is, but a new study reveals that the Big Apple is more affordable for middle class families than places like Cincinnati, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, or Portland, Oregon. New York is the tenth most affordable major city for middle-income homes -- thanks to high median incomes and the city's expansive transportation system, according to a report by the Center for Housing Policy and Center for Neighborhood Technology. New York wasn't the only surprise on the list. The most affordable city, according to the study, was Washington, DC, which is another notoriously...

Generations of Valerie Magee's family, from her grandparents to her children, have deepened their roots in the black middle class, finding a pathway to prosperity through college education and the support of family members.