Free Republic

Yesterday, the Senate narrowly voted (51-48) to raise taxes on 1.2 million small businesses, which will likely kill more than 700,000 jobs at a time when nearly 13 million Americans are out of work. Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Jim Webb (D-VA) joined all Republicans in bipartisan opposition to the tax hike. This is President Obama’s economic plan. This is what he asked Congress to do. And he recently told a fundraising crowd that his economic plan has been working. “Just like we’ve tried [Republicans'] plan, we tried our plan—and it worked,” he said. But Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner,...

Geithner Admits Obama Was Part of Congress that Caused Economic Woes Daniel Halper March 28, 2012 11:58 AM At a hearing today on Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner blamed members of Congress (before 2008) for the economic troubles: When Geithner is reminded by a member of Congress that President Obama was a member of that congressional body, he's forced to admit, "Oh, I see you're point. That's a good point. He was a senator for two years. You're right." The member of Congress then says, "He had an opportunity to be part of the solution." Geithner replies, "That's true."

A Republican bid to fast-track the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline was defeated by Senate Democrats on Thursday in a vote to amend the chamber's highway funding bill.

President Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu uttered the kind of Washington gaffe that consists of telling the truth when inconvenient. According to Politico, Chu admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices. Chu, along with the Obama administration, regards the spike in gas prices as a feature rather than a bug. High gas prices provide an incentive for alternate energy technology, a priority for the White House, and a decrease in reliance on oil for energy. The Heritage Foundation points out that hammering the American consumer with high gas prices to...

President Obama's proposed 2013 budget contains a decade-long surge of tax hikes that, if approved, would affect everything from income to investment to inheritance. The budget blueprint contains roughly $2 trillion in new taxes and fees. When other tax cuts and credits are counted, the net impact from the proposals is still about $1.5 trillion. Though Republicans already are mounting a vigorous campaign against the proposal, many of the tax provisions still could become law unless Congress takes action to stop them. ,,,, But the budget also imposes various fees, such as a hike in the airline "security fee," as...

Geithner: Tax hikes must be part of budgetBy Peter Schroeder - 02/14/12 01:18 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told skeptical Republican senators Tuesday that it is simply not possible to correct the nation’s fiscal problems without raising taxes. Geithner defended President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal before the Senate Finance Committee and said the plan is the only option he sees for helping the economy and addressing the deficit without hurting the middle class. "I do not see how you get there if you are unable ... to contemplate and to embrace modest increases in revenue through tax reform," Geithner...

A west Georgia business owner’s sign that he is not hiring until President Obama leaves office is going viral, according to a local Georgia television station. "New Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone," read the company’s signs on the side of its trucks, according to the station, 11Alive. "Can't afford it," explained the employer, Bill Looman. "I've got people that I want to hire now, but I just can't afford it. And I don't foresee that I'll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C." Looman's company is U.S. Cranes, LLC. He said...

For supercommittee, failure was an optionBy KEITH CHROSTOWSKI - The Kansas City Star Updated: 2011-11-22 Well, they’ve blown it. Failure was an option. The 12 supercommittee senators and representatives announced Monday they couldn’t come up with a spending, taxing and deficit reduction package. Thanks for wrecking everyone’s Thanksgiving. The stakes for the long-term health of the economy have just grown more dire. America’s reputation for leadership has just taken another hit. An agreement would have provided a bracing contrast to the struggles in Europe over the debt crisis there. It would prove to the world that the United States can...

For Immediate Release: Monday, November 21, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) today made the following statement after an announcement by co-chairs Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R- Texas) that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was unable to reach an agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion:“I'm deeply disappointed with this outcome. We all are. This was an historic moment to do something big, bold, and balanced that demanded shared sacrifice to put our country first. Everyone worked hard and everyone wanted success.“It’s too easy just to...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) on Wednesday called for the redistribution of America's riches and hammered the wealthy for benefitting from a war effort fought by the poor and middle class. Citing statistics that show 1 percent of Americans now own 42 percent of the nation's wealth, the lawmaker representing Harlem said: "There is something wrong with that formula." Rangel offered no specific remedy for adjusting those figures during his comments on the House floor, but argued further that the wealthiest one percent have the added benefit of not needing to get involved in military service. "Why is it that we...

<p>Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in -- but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.</p> <p>Some drummers -- incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday -- are threatening to splinter off.</p>

First lady Michelle Obama's family trip to South Africa and Botswana in June cost taxpayers well over $424,000, according to new accounting based on Air Force manifests obtained by Judicial Watch, a taxpayer watchdog group. The use of Air Force aircraft alone for the June 21-27 trip cost $424,142, said the group, and that doesn't include the food, lodging, and ground transportation for the 21 family and staff members. Judicial Watch said it based the jet costs on the Pentagon's hourly rates for the C-32A aircraft used for the trip. The documents don't give exact cost calculations, which is typical...

While we're fighting with our own, the queen is out there flaunting her wealth again while Americans "eat their peas."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday dialed up its aid to the beleaguered U.S. economy, launching an effort to put more downward pressure on long-term interest rates over time and help the battered housing sector. The Fed said it would launch a new $400 billion program that will tilt its $2.85 trillion balance sheet more heavily to longer-term securities by selling shorter-term notes and using those funds to purchase longer-dated Treasuries. It will now also reinvest proceeds from maturing mortgage and agency bonds back into the mortgage market, an acknowledgement of just how weak conditions in the sector...

He’s got a deficit-reduction package that can’t clear the House, thanks to massive new tax hikes that everyone knows are a deal-killer. He has a jobs package that can’t clear the Senate. What’s a President to do? Threaten a veto: President Obama warned he will veto any deficit plan brought to him by Congress that wasn’t ‘balanced’ between taxes and spending cuts.‘We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable,’ Obama said Monday morning, speaking from the Rose Garden.He rejected accusations that tax increases for the wealthy was ‘class warfare’.The president argued,...

Before it had even started in earnest, the much-maligned vacation became a PR nightmare, after it emerged this morning that he and his wife took separate government jets to Martha's Vineyard just hours apart. Michelle Obama​ was revealed to have arrived at the Massachusetts retreat, only 500 miles from Washington, four hours before her husband yesterday. ... The extra transport to get the the First Lady to the island for only a few more hours of vacation time will have cost taxpayers thousands in additional expenses. The costs related to Mrs Obama’s solo trip mainly include the flight on the...

With his approval rating dropping to historic lows, unemployment at an epic high and the Dow closing in the gutter, President Barack Obama is cutting his losses and taking a few days off. The president will be staying with his family at the Blue Heron Farm, a sprawling, $50,000-per-week estate with plenty of room for staff and Secret Service agents accompanying him on the trip. Mr Obama boarded Air Force One with First Dog Bo on Thursday as a new poll showed a startling loss in the commander-in-chief's favourability before he heads to Martha's Vineyard.

At a time when many more cash-strapped Americans are stuck at home instead of vacationing at the beach, President Obama next week will lead an entourage of several dozens to exclusive Martha's Vineyard island at a cost of millions to taxpayers. While technically he is paying for his estimated $50,000 a week rental of the 28-acre beachfront Blue Heron Farm in woodsy Chilmark, the dozens of U.S. Secret Service agents, communications officials, top aides, drivers, and U.S. Coast Guard personnel with him will be covered by taxpayers as with every other presidentialvacations. His 11-day stay will require the Coast Guard...

Senate Democrats are charging taxpayers for a trip to Hawaii, The Daily Caller has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday. The committee’s oversight field hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday at 9 a.m. at the Maui Beach Hotel, will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.” Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government, which first discovered the hearing, told TheDC it’s unbelievable that Hill staffers talking about fiscal responsibility would waste money on a trip to Maui....

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are betting their political futures on the hope that the American electorate is ignorant and forgetful, and hence the memo has gone out to functionaries hither and yon, from David Axelrod to John Kerry: This is to be called the “tea-party downgrade.” That this is said with straight faces bespeaks either an unshakable contempt for the mind of the American voter or an as-yet unplumbed capacity for Democratic self-delusion. Let us revisit the facts. The original debt-ceiling deal put forward by the Democrats totaled $0.00 in debt reduction. This would have fallen approximately $4...