Free Republic

On a cool spring day at the Capitol, Toni Atkins delivered a series of blows unlike anything the tobacco industry had ever felt in California. Then speaker of the Assembly, the San Diego Democrat had been a lame duck for the last six months since the house elected Anthony Rendon to replace her. It was a Thursday morning in March and her final session as speaker, a tenure that lasted just shy of a year and 10 months. In a series of quick votes, the Assembly passed six smoking bills, the most significant of which raised the age to buy...

The Obama administration has proposed a $10.25 tax on the production of crude oil. While not yet formally introduced as legislation, the tax would be positioned as a “tax on big oil,” and opposition to it could be portrayed as “defending big oil.” Of course, that is nonsense on a stick. As an added cost, it would be passed on to consumers at the gas pump, or heating oil truck, not to mention adding to the costs of everything made of feedstock, from Saran Wrap to spatulas.

For more than 20 years, the Government Accountability Office has been warning that the varioius Social Security funds would go broke in a matter of decades unless something is done to shore up the program. Unfortunately, there are limited options when trying to address this crisis. You can employ a combination of raising the retirement age and/or increase the FICA tax. Other than that, you're rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. But President Obama – who is fully aware of the threat of insolvency – is now proposing that Social Security benefits be increased and wants the "rich"...

For over a decade, local governments in Michigan have been complaining they need more money from state taxpayers. A recent push by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans is only the most recent example. That is what they say, but how they act suggests their fiscal complaints are exaggerated. For example, providing post-retirement health care benefits to employees is an expense that should be the first to go if there is a real financial problem. Many local governments in Michigan pay for retired employees’ health insurance costs, a type of benefit that is rare in the private sector. Unlike pension promises,...

The latest auction in California's cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gases fell sharply below expectations, as buyers purchased just 2% of the carbon credits whose sale funds a variety of state programs -- notably, the proposed high-speed rail project. The quarterly auction, conducted May 18 and announced Wednesday, will provide just $10 million for state programs, including $2.5 million for the bullet train. The rail authority had been expecting about $150 million. Whatever prompted the lack of buyers, the auction is a stark example of the uncertainty and risk of relying on actively-traded carbon credits to build the bullet train. The...

Seattle and King County officials have stopped several migrants with suitcases full of American dollars leaving the United States. All of the suspects carrying the suitcases full of cash were on welfare. KING5 reported: “ Travelers pulling suitcases full of cash started showing up at Sea-Tac Airport last year holding tickets for flights headed out of the United States. The people carrying the cash didn’t hide the fact from Customs. Just the opposite, they reported it. Anyone traveling out of the United States is required to declare any amount over $10,000 and fill out a one-page federal form. These reports...

The New York state senate is poised to eliminate New Yorkers’ so-called “tampon tax.” Feminine hygiene products are currently taxed as “luxury items” in New York, but a new bill could result in their reclassification as tax-exempt necessities, instead. The Republican-run senate passed the bill unanimously on Monday (April 11) after it had passed the state assembly in March, also with full support from lawmakers. The bill now goes to the state’s governor Andrew Cuomo, a father of three daughters, who has said in the past that the tax should be repealed. “It is a way of providing some tax...

A new study shows Connecticut is in the top ten for paycheck-to-paycheck living. People everywhere have to pay rents or mortgages, groceries and utilities. But those bills vary from state to state. When everything's paid, a study by the website GoBankingRate shows, not a lot is left in Connecticut. Moving from Maine, Sandra Champlin said she learned quickly that her money doesn't get her as far in Connecticut as it did there. “Rent is higher in Connecticut,” said Champlin, who now lives in Rockville. She added that rent a few hundred more in Connecticut than Maine. Champlin said she wasn't...

DES MOINES, Iowa, January 19, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton "would like to see Planned Parenthood even get more funding." Speaking to Fusion's Anna Holmes after the Iowa Brown & Black Forum, Clinton – who has been endorsed by the embattled abortion giant – clarified that she opposes defunding "because, often times, it is both the first and the last resort for health care." Planned Parenthood has been under fire for conducting possibly illegal abortions to allegedly profit off baby parts – which is also illegal – as well as alleged fraud. Its affiliates have also...

SEATTLE (AP) - The owner of one of Seattle's few gun stores says he's moving his business to avoid paying a new tax. The Seattle Times reports (http://bit.ly/1TEelfU ) that the city tax on firearm and ammunition sales took effect January 1. Precise Shooter owner Sergey Solyanik says he stopped selling guns and ammo in Seattle and is already close to signing a lease in Lynnwood.

U.S. health care spending last year grew at the fastest pace since President Barack Obama took office, driven by expanded coverage under his namesake law and by zooming prescription drug costs, the government said Wednesday. After five years of historically low growth, national health expenditures increased by 5.3 percent in 2014, reaching $3 trillion, or $9,523 for every man, woman and child. That followed a 2.9 percent increase for 2013. Such seemingly small percentage shifts resonate when the total is $3 trillion. The report by nonpartisan experts at the Department of Health and Human Services is an annual snapshot of...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) announced Tuesday morning that VDOT will extend the 95 Express Lanes two miles farther south, in an effort to fix the bottleneck where these HOT lanes merge back with the regular lanes of I-95.Anyone driving south on I-95 from the D.C. area Tuesday or Wednesday will realize why the governor’s announcement on WTOP radio is important. Both the regular lanes and the express lanes can be backed up for miles at peak periods where the two sets of lanes merge near Garrisonville Road in Stafford County.McAuliffe said the express lanes will be extended under an...

Europe's handling of its refugee crisis has led to much criticism and left even more to be desired, but until now Europe's general population was largely on the side of the misplaced migrants who are trying to reestablish their lives away from the daily horrors of the middle east, all in the name of a Qatari gas pipeline. Just today, the Globe and Mail reported that French public opinion has swung dramatically to majority support for an intake of more migrants from war zones like Syria, a new poll showed as the country welcomed further busloads of asylum seekers...

Three gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, sued the city of Seattle on Monday over its adoption of a so-called "gun violence tax," a tax on firearms and ammunition designed to help offset the financial toll of gun violence. The complaint was filed Monday in King County Superior Court by the NRA, the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, along with two gun owners and two gun shops. It called the tax legally unenforceable because Washington state prohibits local governments from adopting laws related to firearms unless those local ordinances are specifically authorized by...

In reverse order of probability: (5) oil severance tax, (4) Sales tax on services, (3) split property tax rolls (separate rates for homeowners than businesses), (2) cigarette tax, (1) Extension of Prop30.

Greece joins Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe on the latest to be in debt to the International Monetary Fund. As Athenians rallied underneath thunderclouds to show their support for keeping Greece in the eurozone of single currency nations, their broke government defaulted on a $2.2-billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. At midnight on Tuesday, Greece joined Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe as countries in arrears to the IMF. Also at midnight, the bailout assistance package that began in February 2012 formally expired, leaving Greece without access to any emergency finances. In Washington, the IMF acknowledged that Greece had failed to meet...

How many DNC Govs set up failed , un needed Health Care Exchanges?

Sen. Chuck Schumer outlined a path Tuesday for Hillary Clinton to enact a carbon tax if the Democrats prevail in the 2016 elections. Schumer said that a Clinton presidency and the return of his party to the Senate majority in 2017 could pave the way for lawmakers to enact a carbon tax to help fund the government. The mere suggestion of a new fee on the emissions blamed for climate change, however, could become a political headache for Clinton and other Democrats, and it’s routinely dismissed by Republicans. Schumer also vowed that Democrats would successfully defend President Barack Obama’s landmark...

Corporations, individuals and the federal government continue to rack up debt at a rate that is far faster than the overall rate of economic growth. We are literally drowning in red ink from sea to shining sea, and yet we just can’t help ourselves. Consumer credit has doubled since the year 2000. Student loan debt has doubled over the course of the past decade. Business debt has doubled since 2006. And of course the debt of the federal government has doubled since 2007. Anyone that believes that this is “sustainable” in any way, shape or form is crazy. We have...

A major new report from the nonprofit Coalition on Homelessness investigates how criminalizing homelessness in San Francisco has only exacerbated the crisis. Much like America’s War on Drugs, the city’s crackdown on homelessness has been a costly failure, leaving in its wake people who feel victimized by the very system that’s supposed to help them. The report’s title, “Punishing the Poorest,” neatly sums up city policy. “Since 1981, San Francisco has passed more local measures to criminalize sleeping, sitting, or panhandling in public spaces than any other city in California,” the report states. In fact, San Francisco has 23 state...