Free Republic

Last night, as shivering tourists gathered in Times Square to watch the New Year’s Eve Ball drop, something much more impactful rose across the entire state of New York. Rising from $8.00 per hour to $8.75 per hour on December 31, New York’s minimum wage became the fourth-highest state minimum wage in the nation. Yet advocates continue to call for a higher minimum wage, some even as high as $15 per hour. While many applaud the move as a positive step for New York residents, the minimum wage increase will adversely affect those it is intended to help by eliminating...

Thirty-six states that rely on private managed care programs to provide medical services to all or some of their Medicaid recipients are facing an added ObamaCare tax. According to a report by Milliman consulting actuaries, states that contract with Medicaid managed care plans face up to $15 billion in added costs over 10 years for their share of the law’s tax on private health insurance. States will pay even if they strongly oppose ObamaCare and are refusing to establish health insurance exchanges or expand Medicaid. The health law imposes an annual tax on private health insurance plans – a tax...

Obama plans to talk manufacturing in Detroit ahead of auto show By Khalil AlHajal | kalhajal@mlive.com January 05, 2015 at 1:48 PM DETROIT, MI -- President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak in Michigan on Wednesday and is expected talk about manufacturing jobs, according to the Associated Press. The visit will come days ahead of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which begins with press previews Jan. 12. The president is expected to highlight manufacturing jobs and his decision to bail out the auto industry in a Detroit-area visit before heading to Phoenix the next day to focus...

Moving to quash a conservative GOP insurrection, Assembly Speaker-designee John Hambrick on Saturday harshly rebuked Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, telling her to stop playing “childish games” and undermining him by insisting she’s still Republican majority leader. Hambrick said in an email to Fiore that he had full authority as the elected leader of the Assembly Republican Caucus to remove her as majority leader and as chair of the Assembly Taxation Committee. He said he removed her last month for insubordination and for how she’s handling a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid payroll taxes for her home health care...

Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was just reelected, despite the fact that his state has distinct liberal trends and is far more blue than it is red. How did that happen? Easy; Walker is no casual conservative when it comes to doing what is right for his state and its residents, no matter what their chosen political affiliation. And the thing national Republicans could learn from Walker is that when you stick to conservative principles, good things happen and the people will follow you (remember the “Reagan Democrats?”)

Legislators in the 24 states where Republicans now hold total control plan to push a series of aggressive policy initiatives in the coming year aimed at limiting the power of the federal government and rekindling the culture wars. The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power...

PARIS (AP) — It was supposed to force millionaires to pay tax rates of up to 75 percent: "Cuba without the sun," as described by a critic from the banking industry. Socialist President Francois Hollande's super tax was rejected by a court, rewritten and ultimately netted just a sliver of its projected proceeds. It ends on Wednesday and will not be renewed. And that critic of the tax? He's now Hollande's economy minister, trying mightily to undo the damage to France's image in international business circles. The tax of 75 percent on income earned above one million euros ($1.22 million)...

Minnesota's highway needs can't be met without more tax revenue, Gov. Mark Dayton said Tuesday -- setting him up for a possible clash with the new Republican majority in the House. Dayton is finalizing his 2016-17 budget proposal, which aims to raise what he says is the $6 billion Minnesota's roads need over the next 10 years. The plan calls for a 6.5 percent wholesale surtax on gasoline -- separate from the existing 28.5 cents-per-gallon tax already levied. That means the tax would bring in more money when gas prices increase. "Our transportation systems are getting worse," Dayton said. "Anybody...

The Obama administration announced new rules under Obamacare on Monday that target nonprofit hospitals’ efforts to get paid by their patients.Nonprofit hospitals, which serve a charitable purpose and are often religiously affiliated, will now be subject to strict rules on when and how they can collect payments from customers, thanks to regulations included in the health-care law. As a condition of their tax-exempt status, these hospitals must “take an active role in improving the health of the communities they serve,” Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for tax policy Emily McMahon wrote in a blog post Monday. Under the new IRS...

The favorite government agency of statists, liberals, and progressives is worried that it might not have enough funding to adequately separate Americans from their hard earned money. The IRS commissioner John Koskinen complained to congress that the agency may not have budgeted enough next year to effectively carry out its duties. According to the AP:Budget cuts at the IRS could delay tax refunds, reduce taxpayer services and hurt enforcement efforts, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Thursday.Apparently 11 billion dollars just won’t cut it for the Federal Revenuers. In addition to needing billions of dollars to pay pensions, target conservative non-profits, and...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its Possible Effects on You and Your Tax Return We wanted inform you how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sometimes also referred to as Obamacare, may impact all of us this tax season. The ACA created the new Premium Tax Credit and the Individual Responsibility Payment that may affect your tax return this season. More Complex Tax ReturnsThe entire filing process will be more complicated this year, with every tax return to now include new provisions related to health insurance. This year, many taxpayer returns will contain additional forms related to health care coverage....

How do you think 2015 will be for you? If you’re typical, you’ll be pessimistic; and, if you’re typical, you’ll be wrong. Only 21 percent of Americans agree with the proposition that “life for our children’s generation will be better than it has been for us” — 76 percent disagree. Well, barring some unforeseeable calamity — what Nassim Taleb would call a “black swan,” or Donald Rumsfeld an “unknown unknown” — the 76 percent are mistaken. The next generation of Americans will lead healthier, happier, more fulfilled lives than the present one. That sentence could have been written at any...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Gas prices are finally falling, but those savings might not last long.At least 18 states, including Minnesota, are considering taxing drivers based on distance. Gas prices aren’t the only reason for the idea, since newer cars get better gas mileage. Oregon has a pilot project that will start next year to test the idea. They’re having 5,000 volunteers pay 1.5 cents per mile instead of the 30-cents-per-gallon tax.An electronic device attached to their vehicle will report how far they drive in state.

The Michigan Senate’s plan to find more money for road repairs was a $1.2 billion gas and diesel tax increase. The State House’s response was to shift some current state tax revenue to roads, with no net tax increase. Leaders from both sides came up with a "compromise," which was adopted in the predawn hours of Dec. 19: Increase state taxes and spending by $1.9 billion, of which just $1.2 billion goes to fix the roads, and the rest for other areas. “It appears that everyone was at the table negotiating except the taxpayers,” said Leon Drolet, chair of the...

Like the good people of Arizona, I despise speed cameras. But not because I want reckless driving. Instead, my disdain is based on the fact that governments set up cameras where speed limits are preposterously low in order to generate revenue. And I speak from personal experience.Like the good people of Houston, I also despise red-light cameras.But once again, this isn’t because I want jerks racing through red lights and endangering innocent people. Instead, my opposition is based on the fact that greedy governments – operating recklessly – use such cameras as tools to fleece drivers.Holman Jenkins has a column...

If you're one of the almost 6 million individuals who received a government subsidy toward the health insurance you bought on Healthcare.gov or your state's insurance exchange, then prepare for a possible delay in processing your 2014 tax return and refund. That's because folks who bought subsidized health insurance will receive a new tax form called Form 1095-A Health Insurance Marketplace Statement. The insurance exchanges are supposed to provide these forms. The problem is it's unclear whether the processing steps for this form have been finalized. In the past, whenever new forms and processing procedures aren't finalized and changes are...

On December 9, business reporter Mark Davis posted an article up on the website of the Kansas City Star headlined “About 25 percent of H&R Block customers will ‘confront’ the Affordable Care Act”; the next day it appeared in the wood pulp version of the newspaper. Davis reported on a meeting in New York where H&R Block, the world’s largest tax services provider, told investor’s “that it sees the potential for significant growth in business thanks to the health care reform commonly called Obamacare.” Inasmuch as Block bases “customer bills on the complexity of their returns, such as how many...

Flathead, Lincoln counties could lose millions if Secure Rural Schools is not reauthorized. Congress recently passed a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the United States government in operation, but missing from that bill are the funds that many counties in Montana have come to rely on in their annual budgets. The budget bill dropped $330 million in funding from Secure Rural Schools, a federal program run through the U.S. Forest Service providing funding for counties and schools. Last year, Flathead County received just over $1.6 million in SRS funding; roughly $1,067,000 went toward the county’s road department, and the...

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol The Ghost of Legislative Sessions Past: Wisconsin was in bad shape in 2009. With rising unemployment and a staggering decline in state revenues, experts advised us to brace for the worst. Wisconsin lost nearly 120,000 jobs that year and the state unemployment rate hit a 27-year high of 9.4%. Business morale was down and families were feeling the pinch. Democratic out of control spending by the Democrats and dubious budget accounting practices by the...

In 2014, there are people in America who hate their brown-, black-, red- and olive-skinned neighbors. This bigotry becomes racism and permeates the status quo if it is institutionalized. Racism is found in public schools and the criminal justice system, for example. It creates two separate and unequal societies — one white that works and one black that suffers. People talk about changes the events in Ferguson may bring. The governor appoints a commission to study the issues. Articles appear every day from journalists, educators and politicians decrying the inequality and calling for one school system, a public review board...