Free Republic

Sen. Lindsey Graham may be under fire from conservatives back home in South Carolina. But the Republican got a personal assurance from President Obama yesterday that the White House is supporting his efforts to craft a sweeping Senate energy and global warming bill. “The president told me personally he was very open, that nuclear power would be part of the mix, that clean coal would be part of the mix, that he’s for offshore drilling in a responsible way,” Graham said today in describing his Oval Office meeting with Obama. “But we have to have a price on carbon,...

There's encouraging news on that other Washington effort to force Americans into a government-run system. The White House plan to drive private lenders out of the market for student loans is igniting a backlash on campus and Capitol Hill. the administrators have been afraid to speak as the Department of Education pressured them to drop private lenders and embrace the department's own Direct Lending (DL) program. The pending bill, which has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate, would ban private lenders from making federally guaranteed loans after July 1, 2010. Congress has already enacted regulations in recent...

Three-quarters of Ontarians oppose the looming 13 per cent harmonized sales tax, suggests a new Toronto Star-Angus Reid Public Opinion survey. In troubling news for Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, 70 per cent of the 1,162 people polled said their opinion of the government has worsened due to the HST. The numbers were released on the first day of public hearings into the tax at Queen's Park, where various interest groups converged, and about 300 First Nations peoples held an anti-tax rally on the front lawn and later blocked evening rush-hour traffic on University Ave. and College St.

Even Timmy is slowly realizing that the Administration will need to find a way to deflect Main Steet's anger at Goldman and keep it focused exclusively on Wall Street instead of equating it with Obama et al. The problem is - you make some very serious, tentacled enemies in the process. Geithner also flip flops on his prior position on the transaction tax. While before he was more opposed to the transaction tax than even Marla, his new "windsocked" position on the topic may now provide a challenge even to Nitric Oxide inhibitors. But here is the clincher for the...

In a Dec. 2 letter to New York Fed chair Dennis Hughes, Senators Jim Bunning, R-KY, and David Vitter, R-LA, asked him to explain the workings of the little-known Term Asset-Backed Lending Facility (TALF), which was authorized by the Federal Reserve Board in November 2008. The Fed got $20 billion in TARP funds to back $40 billion of TALF loans made to stimulate the economy. But "there are troubling questions raised by [the] selection of certain participants in the program," the letter said, including Loop Capital, a major donor to the Democratic Party. Noting that taxpayers are much more at...

Even the dullest among us knows that if you spend more than you earn you are going to be in trouble. That’s what’s happening to many Americans today. Some of us have been spending more than we earn for a long time, and the chickens have come home to roost. In fact, this entire economic crisis can be attributed to too many Americans having too much debt. We have maxed out our credit cards (or, in some cases, many credit cards.) We have purchased automobiles or homes on which we can’t make the payments. And we have invested in schemes...

State Sen. Jeffrey Piccola (R-15) warned Penn State University President Graham Spanier in a Dec. 3 letter that constituents are demanding the tax dollars be cut to the school unless it addresses its role in the global warming scandal. Professor Michael Mann, who directs the Penn State's Earth System Science Center, is at the heart of the scam.

Let's say you own a small business. You think you're successful. You're a pillar of your community. Or you're self-employed and doing well.

Government contractors are going to receive a nasty surprise on payments received in 13 months: their payments for goods and services provided will be reduced by 3%, thanks to: IRC SECTION 3402(t), "Required Withholding on Government Payments". That's right, folks. It's not bad enough that vendors have to wait from 30-60 days (or more) to be paid, but their cash flow will be further reduced as the feds want to retain 3% for income taxes. This will simply add more costs and more burdens to businesses throughout the nation. Basically, any federal, state, or local government agency or entity that...

(snip) “Why did I do this? I want my time to count. I want to be seen as someone who can solve a hard problem by working with my colleagues across the aisle. I want to do something that matters. I can’t think of a better use of my time than to work with Democrats and Republicans to break our dependency on foreign oil, to create jobs for our next generation of Americans that will never go to China. And yes, leave behind a cleaner planet.” (snip)

AN ancient bridge over the River Thames in England has sold for nearly $1.7 million at auction. The high price tag ... is down to a special act of Parliament which means the new owner can collect a tax free toll from those crossing the river. There is one drawback. Local people want to scrap the toll, saying it amounts to 'highway robbery'.

The Essence and Future of Texas vs. California by Tory Gattis 11/21/2009 I know there have been a lot of articles and references to Texas vs. California recently in this blog, but, well, there's a new one with some genuinely new contributions to the argument ("America's Future: California vs. Texas", Trends magazine, hat tip to Jeff). And it says some nice things about Houston too, so how can I pass on it? The beginning of the article is here - including an overview of both states' situations - but here are some key additional excerpts: ...Both the Brookings Institution and...

The House votes 224-199 to cancel a one-year repeal of the estate tax, set to begin next month, and instead permanently extends the current tax, with a top rate of 45 percent on estates larger than $3.5 million.

This is very important, and those who are concerned that Democrats are going to use the power of the federal government to bailout the struggling and flailing newspaper industry in America should recognize the inherit weakness within Waxman (and fellow Democrats) arguments and strategy to save the liberal newspaper industry in America. Waxman and fellow Democrats say that "quality journalism" is essential to a Democracy, and therefore they must bailout the newspaper industry, given that the media is shifting to online platforms. The flaw in Waxman and fellow Democrats arguments is that they (intentionally or not) use a Strawman: they...

Pols ponder tangle with aging Rep. Rangel: Ethics issues cloud future of once-unbeatable congressmanBY David Saltonstall DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT Friday, November 27th 2009, 4:00 AM For years, just raising the possibility of a primary challenge against Rep. Charlie Rangel was like a third rail in Harlem politics - touch it at your peril. But with a flurry of ethics charges and old age bearing down on Rangel, the 79-year-old Harlem legend already has one announced challenger and several others circling around his reelection bid next year. "After 40 years in office, I just think it is fair to ask...

Fort Mill, S.C. – "I'm living the American dream," said Jack Sheppard. "I've got the No. 1 product in America." That would be guns, and the 42-year-old Sheppard, owner of Aim Right Guns & Ammo, is an expert. At his shop on Main Street in this small South Carolina town just over the state line from Charlotte, N.C., business was brisk. It was a Black Friday bonanza. For the second year, the 48 hours starting at 12:01 a.m. the Friday after Thanksgiving marked what's called "Second Amendment Weekend," at least by the Republican state legislator who sponsored the bill. To...

The City of San Francisco is hard up for cash, so they’ve decided to steal it from the Archdiocese of San Francisco because they can – nakedly, in broad daylight, without the slightest plausible legal pretense. The Church is openly hated and condemned in San Francisco for its support of Proposition 8 and its defense of human sexual morality in general. The City can steal from the Archdiocese because the City needs the money and because it makes the citizenry happy to stick it to the evil Catholic Church.Here’s some backstory from a previous post: When you sell a piece...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senators on Tuesday gave a boost to next week's global environmental summit in Copenhagen, with a senior Democrat advocating more U.S. funding of climate change efforts by poor nations and a key Republican calling for quick action on a U.S. climate bill. Democratic Senator John Kerry, a leading advocate of climate control legislation in Congress, recommended that the Obama administration include $3 billion in next year's budget to help fund efforts to address global warming. This year's funding is about one third that amount. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the few Republicans willing to negotiate with...

A classic example of why I don't believe any of the snake oil sales pitch about health care costs. Maybe when you print money all day, it becomes easier to spend. A Republican congressman is taking a hard look at a program in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that would give hundreds of senior employees $75 gift cards in exchange for their printers, which the government already owns. "It's absurd and demeaning that managers would offer employees gift cards for the simple act of returning office property," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said...

Here is a really fascinating series of tweets from Commissioner Tony Peraica as he participated in the latest Cook County Board meeting. Today (Dec. 1) Board President Todd Stroger tried to cajole the board into upholding his veto of the roll back of his implementation of the highest tax rate in the country. Peraica is against the tax and since the State Legislature ended the four-fifths rule, lowering it to three-fifths to overturn the president's veto, the fight was on. Anyway, here are the tweets that Peraica posted during the debate and they are a fascinating peak inside a board...

The Obama health care initiative will be the biggest unfunded federal mandate on the states in history. It will force dozens of states, particularly in the South, to abandon their low tax ways and to move toward dramatically higher rates of taxation. It may even force Florida and Texas to impose an income tax! In the Senate version of the bill, states must expand their Medicaid eligibility to cover everyone with an income that is 133% of the poverty level. The House bill brings it up to 150%. But a host of states have kept their state taxes low precisely...

American International Group says it has slashed the amount of money it owes the government by $25 billion after moving two subsidiaries into special holding units ahead of their planned spinoffs or sale. How could this be? Didn't a Sanford Bernstein analyst just discover that AIG had a new $11 billion hole in its balance sheet? As it turns out AIG has reduced its debt to taxpayers without paying back a dime of the money it borrowed. Instead, it is just engaging in accounting chicannery to transfer the obligations to a pair of companies it is spinning off. The government...

MONTGOMERY — A federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s property tax system as unconstitutional because the system allegedly denies blacks their civil right to an adequate education would increase state taxes on property nine times if the suit is successful.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government's policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry........ The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September. Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.

During this "Great Recession", unemployment has risen from under 5% at the beginning of the recession in December of 2007 to more than double that rate to reach its highest level so far in October of 10.2%. This is the second highest unemployment rate in the postwar period, surpassed only by the 10.8% rate in December of 1982. In light of such rather dismal employment figures, it is not surprising that the President will have a "jobs summit" in a few days to consider how to improve the employment market. Posner correctly indicates that the unemployment rate understates the employment...

The Climate and Health Council, a collaboration of worldwide health organizations including the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine, believes there is a direct link between climate change and better health. Their controversial plan would see GPs and nurses give out advice to their patients on how to lower their carbon footprint. The Council believes that climate change “threatens to radically undermine the health of all peoples”. It believes health professionals are ideally placed to promote change because “we have ethical responsibility…..as well as the capacity to influence people and our...

(snip) "I think it's time for us to start looking at this seriously," said Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon), who has been lobbying behind the scenes for the tax since the board's retreat this past summer. He said a meals tax would bring in about as much as a property tax increase of 5 cents per $100 of assessed value and would be spread over a larger group of people. "The best thing to say to a room full of people is that even though we're in a tough time and a recession, you still go out to eat,"...

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine emerged from a closed-door meeting with his top economic advisers Monday, saying that to offset a projected budget shortfall next year, he may have to raise taxes -- a prospect quickly dismissed by Gov.-elect Robert F. McDonnell. After meeting with his Advisory Council on Revenue Estimates, Mr. Kaine said he won't take anything off the table when it comes to fulfilling his responsibility to protect the state's AAA bond rating, providing Virginians with necessary services and keeping the state competitive to attract business. The purpose of the meeting was to set revenue projections that will be...

MONTGOMERY | A federal lawsuit challenging Alabama’s property tax system as unconstitutional because the system allegedly denies blacks their right to an adequate education would increase state taxes on property nine times if the suit is successful. The lawsuit was filed last year in federal court in Huntsville for public school students in Lawrence and Sumter counties. It alleges Alabama’s property tax system is unconstitutional because it was allegedly designed by whites after the Civil War to underfund schools and deny blacks adequate education. he lawsuit challenges provisions of Alabama’s constitution and seeks an end to the state’s property taxation...

We are at the mercy of economic "experts." These practitioners of the "dismal science" are managing large sectors of our economy in accordance with theories learned in Ivy League Universities. They have assured us that the lessons learned from the Great Depression will prevent another such occurrence. The problem is that every forecast by an economic expert can be matched by an equal and opposite forecast. Often these conflicting forecasts are made by the same individual. Economist Howard S. Katz provides an explanation for this situation in his book, The Paper Aristocracy: "Modern economics claims to be a science. This...

Asked during last night’s Republican debate about whether his campaign was downplaying his health care plan, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney replied, “I love it.” While praising the plan as a model of bipartisanship — and citing support for it from both Ted Kennedy and the Heritage Foundation — Romney failed to tell viewers what was in the plan. It’s worth reminding people, therefore, that the plan Romney loves: Imposes an unprecedented individual mandate, requiring everyone in Massachusetts to purchase a government-designated insurance product or face thousands of dollars in tax penalties. Significantly increased Medicaid eligibility and provided taxpayer-funded subsidies...

Next time you run into a group of Democrats, offer to splash water on their faces. They've spent 2009 in a dream state, and it's time they wake up. They're convinced that they can subsidize health insurance for millions of people while also "bending the cost curve" of health care spending. They want to sign us up for the political equivalent of one of those three-step "eat more to lose weight" diets. Step one: Pile on the expenditures, regulations, taxes, and fees. Step two: Close your eyes. Step three: Pray it all works out in the end. Sorry, it won't....

Well, it's not quite as bad as Paul Krugman critiquing the Fox Business Network, but a little troubling because tax dollars are being spent to undertake such an effort. A Nov. 27 post by incoming White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer on the The White House Blog attempted to fact check a Nov. 27 column by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, proving the left-wing noise machine isn't the only shop in Washington, D.C. criticizing conservative voices (h/t Amanda Carpenter of The Washington Times). "In today's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer takes great pains to paint a bleak picture of health care...

Apparently, Arnold Schwarzenegger owes the IRS a total of over $79K from 2004 and 2005.

Today Americans for Tax Reform, a non-profit taxpayer advocacy group, gave the first ever “Richard Rich Backstabber Award,” to current California State Senator and newly appointed Lt. Governor, Abel Maldonado. For those unfamiliar with Rich and why Abel Maldonado should be bestowed with an award in his name, Rich was Lord Chancellor during the reign of Henry the VI of England and Solicitor General under Henry the VIII. Rich is best known for perjuring himself in order to secure a death sentence for Saint Thomas More (who happens to be the patron saint of those who work in politics and...

This week ABC 7's Chuck Goudie aired a report made in conjunction with the Better Government Association that explored the efficacy of the Illinois Township and what they discovered is just more waste and ripoffs of the Illinois taxpayer. Townships were originally created for two main purposes: raising taxes to take care of roads in unincorporated areas and to provide temporary aid to the poor. Unfortunately the I-Team and the BGA have discovered that this extra layer of government is collecting large amounts of taxes, spending only a fraction on the two purposes for which they were created, and banking...

Brazil's president said Thursday that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich Western nations have caused much more past environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rain forest. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made the comments just before an Amazon summit in which delegates signed a declaration calling for financial help from the industrial world to halt the deforestation that causes global warming. "I don't want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree," Silva said. "We want to...

Hundreds of patients may have died needlessly at an NHS hospital due to appalling standards of care, a damning report has found. Poor nursing care, filthy wards and lack of leadership ... Among the worst failings discovered by the Care Quality Commission were a lack of basic nursing skills, curtains spattered with blood on wards, mould in vital equipment and patients being left in A&E for up to ten hours. Concerns about death rates at the foundation hospital trust were first raised a year ago, but an internal investigation failed to find anything wrong and managers dismissed the concerns. But...

New Geography, the online magazine created by Joel Kotkin and others with a special focus on demographics and trends, has been tracking the implosion of California in an interesting way: by comparing it to Texas. Texas and California are America’s two most populous states, together numbering approximately 55 million people, which is only about 6 million less than the United Kingdom, where I live. California, as everyone knows, has a coolness factor that Texas cannot match. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and wine. Say no more. But, unless one has been living in a cave, everyone knows that the cool state is...

A new poll shows that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney now has a less than 50 percent favorability rating among Republican voters. Public Policy Polling has released its monthly 2012 survey, which finds that while 65 percent of Republicans have a favorable opinion of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and 75 percent have a favorable opinion of former GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, only 48 percent view Mitt Romney favorably. Romney's popularity has fallen 19 points in the poll since May. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling says the healthcare plan that Romney passed in Massachusetts when he was governor...

congress is proposing to fund Obamacare is by putting a cap on Flexible Spending Medical Accounts. If you are not familiar with those accounts, they allow you to take pre-tax funds from every paycheck into an account managed by your company (or your company's vendor), that you can remove on a tax free basis to pay for uncovered medical bills. This has been a particularly useful program in my family as I have two children with learning disabilities as well as chronic physical conditions (one with scoliosis the other with JRA). At various times in their lives each has required...

A new federal rewards program dishes out cash to people who turn in friends, relatives and employers for fudging their tax returns. For 24 years Vincent A. Spondello toiled away as an accountant for a group of related companies known as Monex, a large Newport Beach, Calif. precious metals dealer. A trusted employee, he prepared tax returns and was given such tasks as overseeing the destruction of old corporate documents. It turns out that some records that were supposedly destroyed he took home instead. In May Spondello sent 25 boxes of original Monex papers to the Internal Revenue Service--documents that...

Happy Thanksgiving ...!?As you finalize your Thanksgiving plans, be sure to reserve a seat at your table for an extra guest: Uncle Sam. Have you ever asked yourself how much of the cost of your Thanksgiving feast is owed to the fact that the government takes a big bite at it in hidden taxes? The Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and the Center for Fiscal Accountability have calculated just how big that government “tax bite” for Thanksgiving is, and it clocks in at a whopping 40.91 percent....

Of all of the insanity that has come out of our current democrat/communist congress, this has to really take the cake. These dangerous loons have been spending us into oblivion for quite some time. The spending has been beyond irresponsible, it borders on treason. This is a bi-partisan effort, by the way. Both parties are out of control, but the democrat/communist party is now out there where the busses don’t run. We all know the far left loons that infect Congress, and the nation as a whole, hate our military, despise it, actually. The left’s contempt for our military is...

WASHINGTON — Americans could pay billions of dollars more in new taxes for a few years before they're likely to see significant change in the nation's health care system under legislation that Congress is considering. Some analysts said that's not necessarily bad. Delaying major health care changes until at least 2013, as the pending Senate and House of Representatives bills would do, would give the government sufficient money and time to get things right.

For the first time ever, Arizona needs to borrow money to pay its bills. State Treasurer Dean Martin estimates the state will need to borrow $700 million to get it through revenue shortfalls through June 30. As of Tuesday, Martin said the state went over $500 million in IOUs .

"Does anybody have any evidence (concrete example from a period of our history) that taxes stifle development? Just one??" Saw this question posted on FB and was curious if there are concrete examples of taxes hurting development. If there are I am sure someone on FR can help. Thanks

Senate Democrats' health care bill would create a new marriage penalty by imposing a tax on individuals who make $200,000 annually but hitting married couples making just $50,000 more. That's one of 17 new taxes imposed by the bill, which also creates a levy on elective plastic surgery - some call it "botax" - and places a 40 percent excise tax on those who have generous health care plans. "If you have insurance, you get taxed. If you don't have insurance, you get taxed. If you need a life-saving medical device, you get taxed. If you need prescription medicines, you...

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact. In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck...

ReGaining Reagan Sarah Carlsruh, November 23, 2009 Today, there are “far too many people saying ‘let’s move beyond Reagan,’” lamented Steve Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan and keynote speaker at Accuracy in Academia’s November 5th Author’s Night. Reagan stuck to an unwavering and enduring set of ideals. Yet, liberals are trying to present a distorted picture of Reagan and make him into a proto-liberal, said Hayward. Some liberals embrace the 2nd Term Reagan as a man of peace, call his foreign policy “pretty good” while condemning the Reagan of domestic policy. In contrast, Hayward insisted that “it was...