Free Republic

President Joe Biden will forgive $39 billion in student debt for 804,000 Americans - two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his $430 billion relief plan because it was unconstitutional. The president has continued his push to wipe billions in student debt, despite anger from taxpayers and Americans who have never been to college. The landmark Supreme Court decision dealt his plan a huge blow, but the White House has vowed to plow ahead to get widespread relief. Critics slammed the 'absurd' announcement and called it a 'slap in the face to taxpayers'. David Williams, President of the Taxpayers...

Finance ministers from the G7 group of leading economies are confident of striking a deal on taxing multinational companies at their meeting in London. The agreement is expected to include a global minimum rate of corporation tax. It would target tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft. German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the deal would "change the world". He said a 15% rate would help pay back debts that have built up during the pandemic - and that he was "absolutely confident" there would be an agreement. "If we agree on the minimum taxation for corporates, this will help...

After passing an Obama-backed education bill that undermines parental rights and state and local control over schools under the guise of making every student “succeed,” Congress is plotting its next unconstitutional “education” scheme: a bill to fund psychological testing and profiling of your child, and the data-mining to go with it. Under the scheme, which already sailed through the U.S. Senate late last year, schools would vacuum up huge amounts of data on students, including information on their “social and emotional learning,” attitudes, values, beliefs, and more. That data will then be shared with basically everyone, including Big Brother in...

When the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass a Senate bill to avoid the fiscal cliff around 10:45 PM on Tuesday, it violated its pledge to allow three days for the public to read the legislation, a promise House Republicans made to voters before the 2010 elections. … In its Pledge to America document, House Republicans promised: “We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. No more hiding legislative language from the minority...

The U.S. Senate voted 89-8 to approve legislation to avoid the fiscal cliff despite having only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and budget score. Multiple Senate sources have confirmed to CNSNews.com that senators received the bill at approximately 1:36 AM on Jan. 1, 2013—a mere three minutes before they voted to approve it at 1:39 AM. …

Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget. The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed. Never before -- since the creation of the Congressional budget process -- has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose...

BACKSTORY At a Little Rock restaurant, after Mr. Clinton was elected president, Emanuel ticked off a list of disloyal Democrats and other political enemies, stabs the table with his knife screaming, ''Dead!'' ''Dead!'' ''Dead!'' after each name. Seven months after moving into the West Wing as Obama's COS, Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House COS in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on comes a high degree of risk. As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to become a figure of consequence in his own right if...