Free Republic

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday refused to explain how she intends to pay for her pricey economic plan if Republicans in Congress block her proposed presidential agenda, one of several questions she dodged during her first one-on-one interview with a major news network since becoming the Democratic nominee. “If you can’t raise corporate taxes, or if the GOP takes control of the Senate, where do you get the money to do that? Do you still go for those plans and borrow?” MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Harris about her handout-heavy agenda. “Well, but we’re going to have to raise...

New York's Metro Transit Authority (MTA) was in the news last month for setting a world record for the sheer number of bus and rail patrons who refuse to pay a fare to ride. A full 48% of bus riders had ceased to pay the fare in addition to about 14% of subway riders. Now the MTA has approved a new capital plan, saying it needs $65.4 billion over the next several years to keep the system going.Much of the plan focuses on basic repairs, like upgrading decades-old electrical equipment and repairing elevated subway structures. There’s spending for new turnstiles...

Senate Republicans met Tuesday for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s weekly off-the-record members’ lunch. These meetings, along with regular Wednesday Steering Committee lunches, are among the few regular times when party senators gather in one room to set party policy and messaging. There are few clearer windows into McConnell’s priorities than these lunches, and Tuesday did not disappoint: The RAND Corporation was invited to present its report on military spending and the potential need to raise taxes to increase the military percentage of the country’s GDP. That’s right; that was the priority. It wasn’t the former president and Republican nominee, who...

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) gambit to attach the SAVE Act to a stop-gap spending bill failed in the House on Wednesday after Republicans opposed the bill. The six-month stop-gap spending bill, otherwise known as a continuing resolution (CR), failed 202-220. Fourteen Republicans voted against the legislation and two voted “present,” while three Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is barreling forward with a Wednesday evening vote on a six-month spending bill despite its expected defeat. Johnson announced during the August recess that he would pair the six-month continuing resolution with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, in part to mollify conservatives — many of whom oppose continuing resolutions out of principle. However, once returning to Washington, DC, the speaker appears to have been caught off guard by opposition from multiple corners of the House Republican Conference, including conservatives, leading him to delay...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @RepMTGThis is classic bait and switch that will enrage the base, only one month before the election, when they find out they have been tricked and let down again. The only way to make the SAVE Act a law would be to refuse to pass a CR until the Senate agrees to pass the SAVE Act and Biden agrees to sign it into law. This would force a Gov shutdown on Oct 1 because Biden and Schumer both said they will shutdown the government as they are that adamant against the SAVE Act. Johnson will NOT...

Social Security is among the rare topics that can make Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye, according to a new survey. In Pennsylvania, people on both sides of the aisle agree that it’s time to raise payroll taxes on high-income earners, cut benefits for the wealthiest retirees, and even push the full retirement age from 67 to 68 if that’s what it takes to keep Social Security from running out of cash. A new poll conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program For Public Consultation found majorities from both political parties want to see lawmakers tackle Social Security’s looming...

The Democrats let President Joe Biden back into the wild this week after he disappeared during the Democratic National Convention, hid in California and then napped on the beach in Delaware. It was a nearly three-week absence, and his latest appearance in a key swing state proves why they’re happy to have him missing in action. During an event in Wisconsin, Biden finally admitted that the “Inflation Reduction Act” was deceptively named and didn’t actually reduce inflation. In fact, it increased prices through excess spending and was a giant, corrupt handout to the so-called “green” energy industry. It’s why I’ve...

THORNTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. (WLS) -- A special meeting of the Thornton Township trustees Wednesday night was called off, but that didn't stop supervisor and Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard from addressing the public. She slammed recent actions by trustees to limit spending and enact a new credit card policy. In the absence of the township's five sitting trustees, Henyard's attempt at a special meeting was more like a soliloquy. "I am about to address some things. There will be no comment, no anything, just me addressing you guys to tell you what's going on," she said. "If you want to leave,...

Thornton Township trustees are putting limits on spending for township events by Supervisor Tiffany Henyard’s administration, and enacting rules for use of credit cards by township staff. The actions came during a township board meeting Tuesday that actually started out as two meetings, both held in the township’s South Holland offices but in different rooms on different floors. An ordinance regulating spending for township sponsored events gives township department chiefs a spending cap of $1,000 per week or $10,000 per month, and requires the board to sign off on event budgets before money is committed or spent. A second ordinance...

Lowe's cut its annual profit and sales forecasts on Tuesday, echoing bigger rival Home Depot's concerns of a slim chance of a recovery in home improvement demand this year. The U.S. Federal Reserve was expected to cut interest rates earlier this year, but insufficient proof of easing inflation thus far has kept the rates high, which is affecting home sales, and consequently demand for expensive renovation projects. "We're seeing significant implications ... people aren't moving nearly as often as they typically do because current mortgage rates are so much higher," said CEO Marvin Ellison on a post-earnings call. Lowe's expects...

Kamala Harris was in Pennsylvania on Sunday. We reported earlier on some of her remarks, including a word salad about democracy. Kamala word salads are so back: "Our election is about understanding the importance of this beautiful country of ours in terms of what we stand for around the globe as a democracy. As a democracy, we know there's a duality to the nature of democracy. On the one hand, incredible strength when it is in tact. What it does for its people to protect and defend their rights. Incredibly strong. And incredibly fragile."pic.twitter.com/GeMmgVESFk— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 18, 2024Number...

Home Depot on Tuesday noted that consumers are not spending large amounts on home improvement projects this year, amid uncertainty about the country's economy. The home improvement giant was at the top of its game during the COVID-19 pandemic because consumers were stuck at home and decided to focus on home renovations and other home improvement projects. But now that the pandemic has passed, sales on building materials, lumber and construction-related equipment are lower, according to CNN. “The underlying long-term fundamentals supporting home improvement demand are strong," Ted Decker, Home Depot’s CEO, said in a news release. “[But] during the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is zeroing in on the policy goals closest to his heart now that he’s no longer seeking a second term and will visit New Orleans on Tuesday to promote his administration’s “moonshot” initiative aiming at dramatically reducing cancer deaths. The president and first lady Jill Biden will tour medical facilities, then, at Tulane University, will help announce $150 million in awards from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Those will support eight teams of researchers around the country working on ways to help surgeons more successfully remove tumors for people facing cancer. The...

An advocacy group led by former Vice President Mike Pence is urging lawmakers to consider a laundry list of spending reforms to confront the growing national debt. Advancing American Freedom, in an 8-page document obtained by The Hill, issued what it called a “guide to cutting federal spending,” a three-step plan that comes as the national debt recently surpassed $35 trillion. “After decades of ignoring the significance of profligate federal spending, the consequences are finally starting to catch up to us,” the document states. “As has been the case, the problem is not a lack of revenue, but rather a...

One of the Biden/Harris administration's signature programs is marketed as 'Build Back Better," but there is a slight problem: it has built basically nothing despite spending billions of dollars.It's the policy equivalent of burning a stack of $100 bills a mile high. Except, to a certain extent, it isn't. What they are doing is transferring those billions to leftist activist groups whose main job is making our lives miserable. There are many examples to choose from, and the Washington Free Beacon has yet another featured today. REPORT: Kamala Harris Touted a $5B Electric School Bus Program. Three Years Later, It's...

Persistently high government spending under the Biden administration propped up U.S. economic growth in the second quarter of 2023, economists told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.8% in the second quarter of 2024, far higher than economists’ expectations of 2.1%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). However, a significant portion of the recorded growth in the quarter was driven by government spending, both directly through a rise in government expenditures and indirectly through growth in sectors that benefit heavily from taxpayer dollars, according to economists who spoke to the DCNF. “Government spending...

At the beginning of Joe Biden’s term, former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers correctly predicted that inflation would worsen if Democrats got their way with massive spending. But now, Summers is no different than Paul Krugman or Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, as he’s “predicting” a disaster and massive debt and deficits if Republicans are elected and their policies are implemented. From Bloomberg News comes this report:Summers Says GOP Fiscal Plans Set US Up for ‘Liz Truss Moment’Republican politicians are setting the US up for a ‘Liz Truss moment’ by promoting policies that would widen fiscal deficits and weaken the dollar,...

Like Bidenflation? How about hyperinflation?That's what's on tap with Kamala Harris's tax-bigger, spend-bigger agenda, which Axios outlined this morning:Vice President Kamala Harris has used her first days as Democrats' likely nominee for president to make it clear that she'll pursue big — and expensive — parts of Joe Biden's domestic agenda that never made it across the finish line.Why it matters: Harris is signaling that even as Democrats play defense on Biden's mixed economic record, she's eager to go on offense for the next four years.Her plans include pushing for nearly $2 trillion to establish universal pre-K education and improve...

The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.$35 trillion USD.Trillion with a 'T.' That's an unfathomable number. It's meaningless to most people. We simply can't comprehend a number that big.Let's try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt. Of course, a lot of people don't pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953...