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U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise abruptly ended an online debate over Twitter with freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after the New York Democratic Socialist’s “radical supporters” began referencing the assassination attempt on his life. “Snipe his a–,” one Twitter user wrote, in support of Ocasio-Cortez, Fox News reported, adding that the user went on to deny that the post was a call for violence, writing, “not seeing any violence there sorry.” The user eventually told Fox News the reference was to verbal “sniping.”

New York state lost more residents last year than any other state in the U.S. Newly reported data from the U.S. Census Bureau places New York at the top of the list of just nine states that lost residents between 2017 and 2018. New York lost 48,510 people while Illinois was close with a drop of 45,116 residents. New York is the fourth most populous state in the country, trailing only California, Texas and Florida. As a percentage of total population, New York’s 0.25 percent loss was less significant than that of West Virginia, Illinois, Alaska and Hawaii. But the...

In an interview Thursday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called for a top tax rate of 70 percent, pushing a "Green New Deal" that she admitted is "radical." "You're talking about zero carbon emissions, no use of fossil fuels within 12 years?" CBS correspondent Anderson Cooper asked Ocasio-Cortez in an interview for 60 Minutes. "That is the goal," the newly minted Congresswoman admitted, calling her plan "ambitious." Cooper asked how such a plan could be possible, and Ocasio-Cortez said, "It's going to require a lot of rapid change that we don't even conceive as possible right now." She admitted that...

The government shutdown could delay your tax refund this year, but if you owe the IRS money, then you may still have to pay on time regardless. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service is one of the federal agencies without funding and is being run with one-eighth of its normal staffing as the government shutdown continues. While the IRS does conduct some business during shutdowns, it generally does not issue refunds, answer taxpayer questions outside the filing season or conduct audits. The Treasury Department considers these non-excepted activities during a shutdown and positions that...

Illinois ranked No. 48 in an analysis of the state’s ability to pay all of its bills, including public employers’ pension benefits, according to a new ranking of the states’ fiscal health by Truth in Accounting (TIA). Illinois was found to be short $216.1 billion to pay its bills ... The amount of the state’s shortfall in funding to pay off its bills amounts to $50,800 per taxpayer

While wages have supposedly gone up 3.4% in 2018, taxes and fees are rising at much higher rates. Here's a list of tax and fee increases hitting residents of one of the counties I call home; the list includes taxes/fees raised in 2017 and 2018: 1. Property taxes: between 6.5% and 10%, depending on the property class 2. Gasoline tax (county), from 8.8 cents to 23 cents, phased in over 3 years 3. General excise tax, up 6.3% 4. Garbage fee (commercial): up 27% 5. Sewer fees: up 44% 6. Electricity (base rate): up 7.4% 7. Annual vehicle safety inspection...

As reported in Table IV of the Daily Treasury Statement, the U.S. Treasury collected approximately $21.672 billion in taxes on Christmas Eve, the first business day of the partial federal “shutdown” that began at midnight last Friday. Those Christmas Eve tax collections brought total federal tax revenues for fiscal 2019, which began on Oct. 1, to approximately $666.482 billion. On Friday, Dec. 21, the last day before the partial government shutdown, the Treasury collected approximately $10.876 billion in tax revenues, according to the Treasury statement for that day. That brought total tax collections for fiscal 2019 to approximately $644.811 billion—at...

Since the start of the decade, a million people have moved out of New York. For Andrew Cuomo, that’s not a problem, that’s a victory. It has solidified his party’s hold on power, and it has reshaped the state and its culture in a fashion more congenial to his interests and agenda. ... From the summer of 2017 to the summer of 2018, New York had a net loss in population of more than 48,000. Illinois, another Democrat state, was the second-most abandoned state, with 45,000 net reduction in population. Of the seven other states which had a net loss...

On Friday, December 21, 2018, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), released his 2018 Festivus report, which documented over $114 million in government waste of the American people's tax dollars.

Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said the Republicans 2017 tax cut was an act of “terror.” Moore said, “All the Republicans in that photo you showed standing there on the steps with him a year ago today all looking so slap happy and ah, remember it’s not just Trump, all of the Republicans, all of them, nobody has had the courage to stand up and say this is wrong, this is un-American. This hurts this country. This is— this tax cut in a sense an act of terror because it’s going to make the...

"All he had time for was celebrities, and now suddenly he's acting like he's a populist out there," former President Obama once said. "'Man, I'm going to fight for working people.' ... Come on, man!" And former Vice President Joe Biden said the following at the Democartic National Convention in 2016: "He’s trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give me a break! That’s a bunch of malarkey!” "Malarkey?" I want Joe Biden run in 2020 just so we can hear more of that word. Look, America's poverty rate was lower in President Trump’s first year than...

California community college students could reap the benefits of Democratic dominance in the state Legislature, with lawmakers pushing for the state to cover the cost of two years of tuition for students who commit to enrolling full time right out of high school. During the 2018 midterms, the free-college mantra of Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders became a key campaign promise for liberal candidates in congressional and state races. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom pledged during his own campaign to make the first two years of community college free in California, as did some of his Democratic challengers. “This is about strengthening...

Williamson County commissioners are set to vote Tuesday on an incentive deal that would pay back 65 percent of property taxes to Apple over 15 years so that the tech giant could expand its operations in north Austin. Apple announced Thursday that it would spend $1 billion to build a second campus in Austin and create 5,000 new jobs. The proposed site for the 133-acre building is located on the Williamson County side of the city on an undeveloped property near Parmer Lane and McNeil Road. According to the proposed contract shared by Williamson County Friday, the incentive deal would...

Now that they will be back in the majority in the House of Representatives starting in January, Democrats are looking to ways to make raising taxes on Americans easier. Incoming House Rules Committee chairman Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass) announced he will not be abiding by the formerly bipartisan agreement to require a three-fifths majority to raise income taxes. “It should not be so hard for the government to seize the wealth that collectively belongs to the state,” McGovern said. “The notion that the person who earns an income should have protection against the government taking a bigger slice of it...

France has said it will introduce its own tax on big technology firms from 1 January after EU-wide efforts stalled. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he expected it to bring in €500m (£450m) in 2019. France, along with Germany, had been pushing for the European Commission to agree measures by the end of this year. But it is opposed by countries including Ireland, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland. Earlier this year, the European Commission published proposals for a 3% tax on the revenues of large internet companies with global revenues above €750m (£675m) a year and taxable...

Chicago has won a legal battle allowing its wasteful “amusement tax” to be levied on everyday people. Residents who enjoy gaming will now have to pay a 9 percent tax for streaming services they buy through Playstation. They also have to pay this 9 percent tax on other streaming services for entertainment like Netflix, Spotify, and Hulu. The amusement tax is one of multiple examples of government using its ability to pick the pockets of the populace to select winners and losers in the market while paying its bills with money that citizens often do not realize they are spending....

Following a new FCC ruling, the California Public Utilities Commission has ditched its planned 2019 vote on taxing text messaging. The CPUC revealed on Twitter Friday that it has decided not to go forward with a scheduled January 2019 vote to levy a 'text tax' following the FCC's ruling that text messages were an 'information service' — as opposed to a telecommunications service — meaning that texts aren't eligible for taxation under California state law. The commission's controversial 'text tax' plans involved a per-text surcharge which would help fund programs that provide cell phone services for low-income and disabled people,...

This week, Lawrence Doyle and John Moynihan of DM Income Advisors told the House subcommittee on government operations that they forwarded thousands of documents to the IRS showing that Bill and Hillary Clinton may have neglected to pay taxes on $400 million to $2.5 billion in money they cycled through the Clinton Foundation's so-called charity. Clinton Foundation CEO Kevin Thurm dismissed the allegations as "just another ploy by the vast right-wing conspiracy that has been harassing Bill and Hillary for decades. No one in government has ever seen fit to pursue any indictments for anything that they have done in...

(Bloomberg) -- Obamacare was struck down by a Texas federal judge in a ruling that casts uncertainty on insurance coverage for millions of U.S. residents. The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes just before the end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act,...

The Yellow Vests are planning protests with specific sites given in Paris as the Champs-Elysees at 930am tomorrow (330 am Eastern US). Protesters are set to be at the Palace de l'Opera between 1030am and 1230pm. Another gathering for protest set at the Port Maillot-Gare Saint Lazare at 10am. Protests are set in other cities like Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Nantes. A protest is set for the Mont-Blanc tunnel and there are other locations listed. BFM-TV in France reports that fewer buses have been chartered to bring protesters to Paris tomorrow. 24 journalists in France have filed complaints against police...