Free Republic

WASHINGTON — When it comes to combating global warming, Sen. Lindsey Graham is right where he loves to be — ahead of the curve, in the mix on a major issue, at the table for high-level, bipartisan talks behind closed doors. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is working with Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to craft a climate change bill. They face the dual challenge of overcoming widespread GOP opposition and withstanding relentless attacks by Big Oil and allied energy interests. "Our goal is to create a vision that not only will...

With less than half the doses estimated to be needed likely to actually be available, the government has set rules aimed at directing short supplies to those deemed most vulnerable. As expected, children and pregnant women top the publicized priority list. Unexpectedly, though, it has been disclosed that Wall Street bankers and brokers have also been allocated a share of the scarce supply. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explained that “ordinary people can’t be expected to understand the strategic need for us to keep Wall Street up and running. Missing a single day’s trading because of the flu could cost...

Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years. “Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and...

When the US Constitution was first adopted there was no Federal Income Tax. The Federal government was fortunately limited in the amount of taxes it could take in. One form of taxation was a tax on goods called an excise tax which is still in existence. Another was the Poll tax which is a direct tax on individuals. The Federal Income Tax was added to the US Constitution in 1913. Everyone reading this who has ever had a job knows how it works so I won’t elaborate. For you younger readers, it basically works this way. The Federal government lets...

Some moderate Democrats still are “really anguished” over voting for the energy bill, Rep. Jason Altmire told Fox News, and they “would be reluctant now to vote for health care and take a second vote that might be unpopular in their district.”With Republicans raising the volume of their protests and House Democratic leaders uncertain if they have enough rank-and-file support, some moderate Democrats sense that passing a health care reform bill will be as difficult as the House’s energy bill, which was approved by a slim margin June. That has caused quite a bit of hand-wringing among the Democrats. Some...

Julian Robertson wins one for taxpayers. For every Sunbelt refugee who has tried to leave high tax bills behind in the cold Northeast, Julian Robertson scored a victory this week. By proving that he was outside New York City for half the days in the year 2000, the former hedge-fund titan avoided $27 million in city taxes, thanks to a ruling by New York's tax court. No thanks are due the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, which had ruled he was a resident and therefore liable for the multimillion-dollar tab. In the upside-down world of tax law,...

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000...

Charlie could catch a breakBy DAPHNE RETTER Last Updated: 7:50 AM, November 6, 2009 WASHINGTON -- Rep. Charles Rangel is likely to be cleared on one of a half-dozen ethics charges, it was reported yesterday. Rangel and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus may be exonerated of allegations of rule violations stemming from a 2008 trip to the Caribbean for a conference, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. **SNIP** Members of Congress are barred from accepting multiday trips from companies that employ lobbyists.

Since there was no clue on the website, I had to call. No screwing around and calling the locals here. I called DC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says the purpose of cap and trade is to enrich investment banks..."Attack with what comes up, with what God sends," underscores the need to exploit opportunities to destroy an enemy, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has provided such an opportunity to demolish Barack Obama's cap and trade agenda. It allows our side to totally reverse the focus of cap and trade from protection of the environment, polar ice caps, polar bears, and so on to enrichment of investment banks and similar entities at the expense of the working American. Gillibrand's letter to the Wall Street Journal says...

Tuesday, Bob McDonnell was elected to serve as the 71st Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, defeating state Sen. Creigh Deeds by a margin of 59 – 41 percent. By comparison, President Barack Obama received 53 percent of the vote for in 2008. Sen. Deeds had made clear during the campaign his willingness to raise taxes. On September 23, in a Washington Post Op-Ed entitled “My Transportation Plan”, Deeds said, “As a legislator, I have voted for a number of mechanisms to fund transportation, including a gas tax. And I’ll sign a bipartisan bill with a dedicated funding mechanism for...

... Buried in Nancy Pelosi's health-care bill is a provision that will partially repeal tax indexing for inflation, meaning that as their earnings rise over a lifetime these youngsters can look forward to paying higher rates even if their income gains aren't real. In order to raise enough money to make their plan look like it won't add to the deficit, House Democrats have deliberately not indexed two main tax features of their plan: the $500,000 threshold for the 5.4-percentage-point income tax surcharge; and the payroll level at which small businesses must pay a new 8% tax penalty for not...

Fannie Mae is asking for an additional $15 billion in government aid after posting another big loss in the third quarter as taxpayers' bill from the housing market bust keeps getting bigger. The mortgage finance company, seized by federal regulators in September 2008, posted a quarterly loss of $19.76 billion, or $3.47 per share. The loss includes $883 million in dividends paid to the Treasury Department and compares with a loss of $29.41 billion, or $13 per share, in the year-ago period. The results were driven by $22 billion in credit losses as the company continued to build its reserves...

Political Winds Shifting? Perhaps. Two Democrats - governors - were ousted. Why? Taxes, lack of jobs, in short: It's the economy stupid! The fiscal side of the picture is done. Those who are looking for some sort of fiscal stimulative posture out of DC? Forget about it. We had three of those (at least) which have been announced, and they have done nothing. Now here's the challenge: The American People have had it with the job loss and with the vast and fast deterioration of their personal balance sheets and, more importantly, their cash-flow statements. But these problems were...

Yesterday's election showed many cracks developing in the alliance that put the Democrats into power just one year ago. Independent voters were the most obvious but there were others, while still voting democratic young and urban voters were not motivated to come out for Obama's candidates, especially in New Jersey the state where the POTUS invested the most time and political capital. The other group shifting away from the Obama coalition is suburbia. Already facing growing property taxes, they see a federal government with no inclination to curb spending and the higher taxes the deficits will bring. According to Karl...

Even as a Senate global-warming bill remained in limbo with Democrats refusing to delay a committee vote until an economic analysis was completed, hopes rose for a potential bipartisan compromise. The Senate, meanwhile, appears to be moving away from the bill, authored by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., which would require a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and would have the government sell the right to emit carbon dioxide. Even as Boxer conducted an unusual one-sided hearing on her bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Kerry, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and...

All young Americans need to wake up and pay attention. You are being sold out by the federal government. Your future will be bleak indeed if you do not heed my warning. You are being sold down the river on so many fronts that I cannot list them all in this short article, but I will attempt to give you a small glimpse of what your future holds if you do not stand up. You need to get informed NOW. You need to speak up and let your voices be heard....or become a working slave to support the federal addiction...

On Sunday, CIT filed for bankruptcy, meaning that $2.3 billion in taxpayer money is probably lost. That means that each American threw about $8 down the CIT rat hole. Unfortunately, that could just be the start of losing big bucks on TARP "investments" in troubled financial companies. We took the top ten bailout recipients, from AIG to PNC, and divided the amount Uncle Sam threw at them by the number of Americans (308.84 million and counting). Then we used a highly scientific guess to determine your chances of getting it back. It ain't pretty. Here's How Much Each Bailout Cost...

Return to the Article November 3, 2009Why Middle Class Tax Hikes Are ComingBy Josh Barro During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama famously pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 or families making less than $250,000. With this pledge, he offered over 95% of the electorate something for nothing: you'll get expanded government services, and somebody else will pay for it. The pitch worked, and he became the first winning presidential candidate in a generation whose platform explicitly contained tax hikes. Unfortunately for those who bought in, massive federal deficits will make it impossible for Obama to...

Lies, Tax Fraud and DeceitMy theory is that Alan Grayson is a liar, a fraud, and a tax-cheat. Who is this guy? How did he really obtain his wealth? It’s certainly worth further investigation in light of the following.Summary: Roll Call lists Alan Grayson’s largest asset is a claim against Derivium Capital, the now bankrupt Ponzi scheme, in the amount of $34 million. Central Florida Politics lists Alan Grayson as the Derivium Capital scams most frequent customer. Roll Call lists Grayson’s net worth at $31.12 million. Grayson’s only other asset is said to be a trust fund worth $5...

I'm tired of liberals talking about "cleaning up Republican messes."  For progressives, they sure regress a lot... California, Michigan, and now New York have shown us that taxing and spending destroys jobs, kills economic growth, and eventually leads worn out taxpayers to flee the state. The two headed beast of government bureaucracy and liberal social programs ends up destroying its master. It's a Joke, but it's True Politicians who blather on about "cleaning up Republican messes" would do well to recall this oldie but goody: An old bull and his young son stood atop a hillock, looking down upon a...

Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas. Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times: In America's federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a "package deal" that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with...

Budget Committee Senator Says Freeze Was Mismanaged. Gov. Bill Ritter promised a hiring freeze last year to help bridge the budget gap, but a CALL7 investigation found that as many as 2,300 employees were hired during the “freeze.” “We have taken a number of steps to shore up our fiscal house: imposing a hiring freeze, stopping several new construction projects and halting non-essential spending requests,” Ritter said in his January 2009 State of the State speech. But a CALL7 investigation found that the number of state employees increased during Ritter’s hiring freeze, and Ritter’s top staff, who were tasked with...

Republicans followed through this morning on their threat to boycott a Senate committee's work this week on a sweeping climate change bill. The only one to show up, AP reports, was George Voinovich of Ohio, the ranking Republican on the environment committee, and he only attended to explain why the GOP is staying away. He said the tactic "is not a ruse" to block the bill, but reflects concern that the full economic impact of the bill has not been studied or made clear. Many Republicans deride the cap-and-trade system at the heart of the legislation's heart as a job...

New Mexicans should brace for tax increases in 2010, Gov. Bill Richardson warned Monday. "It's inevitable," Richardson told a news conference in the state Capitol. "It's very painful." Richardson ruled out tax hikes during a recent special legislative session called to deal with a projected $650 million state deficit for this year. His remarks Monday represented his strongest words to date on the likelihood of increasing taxes during the regular session that begins in January. Reaction to Richardson's remarks were mixed. Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, agreed with Richardson and said tax loopholes should be closely scrutinized. "We should remember that...

For the past decade a large coterie of pundits, prognosticators and their media camp followers have insisted that growth in America would be concentrated in places hip and cool, largely the bluish regions of the country. Since the onset of the recession, which has hit many once-thriving Sun Belt hot spots, this chorus has grown bolder. The Wall Street Journal, for example, recently identified the "Next Youth-Magnet Cities" as drawn from the old "hip and cool" collection of yore: Seattle, Portland, Washington, New York and Austin, Texas. It's not just the young who will flock to the blue meccas, but...

Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare plan presumes that about 8-14 million American workers will pay fines rather than buy health insurance. Unless they do, there’s a $167-billion hole in her financing plan...Like the rest of us, this group would face higher-than-ever insurance prices under Pelosi’s proposed bill. Pelosi, President Obama, and others claim they will make coverage cheaper, yet the official projection relies upon millions who would prefer to pay fines rather than join their system. In some cases the individuals would pay the penalty; in others their employers would pay... The plan is built around a major contradiction. Only if it...

In this video clip, commerce secretary Gary Locke says that "if there is to be another stimulus -- and that’s being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress -- it needs to be very targeted, very specific and we need to be very mindful of the deficit as well.In other words, with unemployment not improving after the first $787 billion was spent, and since at this point nothing matters since America will never be able to realistically service its debt, with mid-term elections coming up, and Obama's rating plummeting even despite an...

I nearly fell out of my chair as I read this New York Times headline: "Democrats Push for Plan to Cut Deficit." From the headline alone, I couldn't tell whether this was before, during or after they supported President Barack Obama's intentional, exponential escalation of the deficit to $1.4 trillion. That's simply immeasurable chutzpah. But just in case you're ready to be taken in yet again by these fair-weather deficit watchdogs, the first sentence of the Times article reveals their true -- and true to form -- motive. "Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and...

Last week, Bill O’Reilly had me on The Factor to talk about the health care bills. He correctly pointed out that a public plan might obliterate private alternatives. But I was puzzled by the reason he gave: " A taxpayer funded company would have a huge advantage because profit motive is nonexistent." I understand the logic. Last quarter, insurance companies averaged a 2% profit... In theory, a non-profit government insurance company would be able sell insurance for 2% less... But that’s not how the economics work out in real life. The quest for profit actually lowers costs. In categories where...

Video at site We had professor William Black on TechTicker this morning. A former regulator who handled the S&L resolution, Prof. Black remains appalled at how this latest round of bailouts has been handled. Case in point? CIT Group. Once again, the white knight who stepped in to save the company--the U.S. taxpayer--gets completely hosed. It didn't have to be this way, says Prof. Black. And the man responsible is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Peter Gorenstein: Another one of the nation's largest lenders has filed for bankruptcy. On the brink for months, CIT filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday....

So a liberal democrat lets the truth slip out while on a trip to Pakistan. So we tax everything in the US that moves and doesn't move, ehh, Hillary? AND HOW'S THAT BEEN WORKING FOR US YOU COMMIE B1TCH??? Ripping another country for NOT taxing every last breath out of their bodies? My God, that even offended Joe Biden, but not for admitting the truth. See Joe was promised HE'D be the guy in the administration to to say the moronic quotes and take the pressure off Obama. Here's the bill. Send Obama, Hillary and Joe one to brighten their...

Taxation: Compulsive Failure Sarah Carlsruh, November 2, 2009 Leslie Carbone spoke on October 15th at Accuracy in Academia’s Author’s Night on her book Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform. Her book, she began, discusses “how the federal government is uncritically, if not compulsively, making things worse through its wealth-spreading fiscal policies.” Referring to the Constitution, Carbone stated that the main purpose of a government is to ensure peoples’ rights and that progressive taxation—taking a person’s money “simply because they have acquired more than another”—violates those rights. Such policy, she said, is an “affront to justice.” Her book outlined...

Soda, pop, cola, soft drink — whatever you call it, it is one of the worst beverages that you could be drinking for your health. As the debate for whether to put a tax on the sale of soft drinks continues, you should know how they affect your body so that you can make an informed choice on your own. Soft drinks are hard on your health Soft drinks contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients. However, it is what they do contain that is the problem: caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars — or worse, sugar substitutes — and...

SMALL businesses have the highest hopes for health reform, but they'd be big losers under the bills Con gress is debating. For more than 20 years, small-business owners have listed health costs as their No. 1 concern. But leading "reform" bills would make things worse -- ballooning expenses for firms that now offer insurance and slamming companies that can't afford the benefit. The 1,990-page bill the House leadership unveiled Thursday would impose a dizzying barrage of new regulations on employers, and force them to either provide government-specified health insurance or pay a penalty of up to 8 percent of their...

On Thursday, in an effort to convince Pakistan to raise taxes on its impoverished masses, Secretary of State Clinton told government officials the United States enforces confiscatory taxation on the American people. Clinton told senior Pakistani newspaper editors in Lahore, “The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world. We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she proudly proclaimed. Hillary Clinton Proclaims “We Tax Everything in the USA”

Once upon a time, within my living memory, families were able to survive on the wages of one breadwinner. Now it takes two people working to make ends meet and it seems to be getting harder all the time. Could anyone tell us why this is happening? Why has the cost of living grown in the past several decades? How does bad government policies effect the cost of living?

Asked repeatedly on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether this means taxes will rise, Geithner avoided giving specifics.

Faced with anxiety in financial markets about the huge federal deficit and the potential for it to become an electoral liability for Democrats, the White House and Congressional leaders are weighing options for narrowing the gap, including a bipartisan commission that could force tax increases and spending cuts. But even the idea of a panel to bridge the partisan divide has run into partisan objections. Many Democrats, including in the White House, are loath to cede such far-reaching decisions to a commission and doubt Republicans’ willingness to compromise. And most Republicans remain adamantly opposed to tax increases, leaving the prospects...

The federal government reported Friday that Colorado created or saved 8,094 jobs through grants, loans and contracts funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Problem is, the figure is wrong, according to an analysis of recovery.gov data by The Denver Post. Although a Colorado Springs Head Start program reported it had created or preserved 269 jobs, the real number was three, according to an interview with a program manager. And although the largest private contract in the state funded with stimulus dollars was estimated at $166 million, the number was off by tens of millions, apparently because of a...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday. We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

... [T]he signature domestic issue in President Obama’s first year in office — health care reform — is shaping up to be the antithesis of President Reagan’s supply-side economics. The starting point for Ronald Reagan was the idea that people respond to incentives. The incentives that he most worried about were those provided by the tax system. According to his budget director, David A. Stockman, Mr. Reagan would regale the staff with stories of how he, as an actor, used to alter his work schedule in response to the tax code. “You could only make four pictures, and then you...

Our lawmakers have a trick for you this Halloween. Starting Sunday 10% more will be withheld from paychecks to cover the states $1.7 billion shortfall in the budget. They say it isn't a tax increase, it's just an interest free loan that we will recover in April when we file our taxes. Gee thanks guys, we all feel much better now. "California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks," by Shane Goldmacher and W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times The provision is one of numerous maneuvers state lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved in the summer to paper over the...

The shotgun wedding is officially off. You guys will dump on him as a johnny-come-lately, but (a) his support for Scozzafava was always strategic, driven more by stopping the Democrats next year than stopping Hoffman and (b) as her most prominent Republican supporter, this is the most important endorsement Hoffman could have right now aside from Scozzafava’s (or maybe Snowe’s or Collins’s). Yes, it's kind of Allahpundit's job to dampen any news that puts smiles on the faces of hardcore conservatives. Rabid Hot Air readers (like myself) know that's just sort of what he does. I'm not dumping on Newt...

KPMG has released its annual global survey of corporate tax systems. For the 10th consecutive year, the average corporate tax rate fell, and it is now down to 25.5 percent — and just 23.2 percent in the European Union! In the United States, unfortunately, the corporate tax rates remains stuck at about 40 percent. Only one developed nation, Japan, has a more punitive regime. That’s something to keep in mind the next time a politician complains that jobs are going to China, where the corporate tax rate is 25 percent.

Rangel: Ethics talks unrelated to personal finance issuesBy Paul Kane Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 30, 2009; 11:37 AM House ethics committee investigators have interviewed Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee whose personal finances have been under investigation for more than a year, a committee document from July reveals. Committee staff met with Rangel in late July. In an interview with The Washington Post, the lawmaker said the meeting concerned only a recent trip to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten that he and four members of the Congressional Black Caucus took...

Weary of news stories that legislative support for health-care reform is all but dead, Democratic leaders have been seizing every handy podium to declare that "the votes are almost there," "there is 90 percent agreement" on a proposal, "we are now prepared to move forward" and so on. In fact, even among Dems, there's nothing close to agreement on the major issues that have held up reform so far. Here's a primer on where the gaps between Democrats are wide: Individual Mandate: This should've been low-hanging fruit. Democrats agreed on a mandate early in the process. But it became increasingly...

Federal income tax rates would have to be nearly tripled across the income spectrum if Congress were to close the deficit in fiscal year 2010, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Instead of taxing joint filers with rates ranging from 10 percent to 35 percent, tax rates would have to start at 27.2 percent and reach up to 95.2 percent.

Investigators Searching DIA Clerk's Bank Account For Missing Taxi Fees. Denver police are investigating the embezzlement of $170,000 from Denver International Airport taxi fees. A search warrant obtained by 7NEWS shows the scam went undetected for nearly two years. At least 16 cash collections made by DIA Ground Transportation Department workers between November 2007 and late June 2009 vanished en route from that agency to the airport finance department without making it to the bank. The probe was triggered when a random DIA internal audit found a $10,000 collection missing in June, sources told 7News. Police said they were alerted...

BREAKING: Comprehensive List of Taxes In House Democrat Health Bill From Ryan Ellis on Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:20 PM H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" has been introduced--all 1990 pages of it. This gargantuan beast contains thirteen new tax hikes. Here they all are, with description and page number (PDF version): *** Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by...