Free Republic

LAS VEGAS (AP) — MGM Resorts International announced the sale Tuesday of two casinos that will significantly alter its portfolio of Las Vegas Strip properties and offer up cash. The Las Vegas-based company said it is selling the Circus Circus hotel-casino for $825 million to Treasure Island casino owner Phil Ruffin. The company also sold the Bellagio for $4.25 billion.

Two weeks before our local spring election, I received a personal postcard in the mail, encouraging me to vote Yes on the upcoming Library referendum, for the good of our community… for the good of our children. I certainly like the public library. As a writer, I’ve used it to research issues… as an actor, I’ve used it to search for scripts… as a reader, I’ve used it to feed my various fiction habits (I used to go in for comic crime like Gregory McDonald and Donald Westlake, then as I aged, I gravitated more toward fantasy and sci fi....

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is proposing what some opponents are calling a draconian gas tax increase to fix the state’s crumbling road infrastructure. Whitmer’s budget proposal will include a 45-cent gas tax increase, which would be phased in over three separate intervals, the governor’s spokeswoman Tiffany Brown told reporters Monday. The rate would begin increasing in October, hit its second phase in April 2020, and ease into its final phase by the end of that year. The increase is expected to generate roughly $2 billion a year in additional revenue for roads, according to media reports. Whitmer, a Democrat...

President Donald Trump is reportedly open to raising the federal tax on gasoline and diesel by 25 cents to pay for the White House's infrastructure plan. The current taxes, which have not been raised in nearly 25 years, are 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel. At least some Republican lawmakers and many conservative groups are opposed to hiking the federal fuel levy.

At a measly 17 cents a gallon, Missouri’s fuel tax is woefully inadequate to fund the state’s growing need for transportation-infrastructure improvements. The more the system deteriorates, the worse our state’s business climate will become. Gov. Eric Greitens could put some muscle into his determination to attract business and generate more jobs by embracing a long-overdue fuel tax increase. The Missouri 21st Century Transportation Task Force, created by the Legislature and approved by the governor last year, proposes to boost the tax by a dime, and by 12 cents for diesel, which is only about half of what’s needed to...

President Trump has been willing to accept almost anything to close the deal on his giant tax cut bill before Christmas, including staying mum about a measure that would allow illegal immigrants to pocket the more generous child tax credit included in the package. Illegal immigrants have been collecting the payoff from the “refundable” tax credit for years because of an IRS interpretation of how the rule was drafted. The Republican-controlled Congress this fall had a chance to correct that in the tax code overhaul that in the Senate version doubled the child tax credit to $2,000 and expanded eligibility.

An increase in federal taxes on fuel would significantly help fund repairs for highway infrastructure along Interstate 95 in Newark, N.J., Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D) said amid Congress’ consideration of tax reform legislation. “Improving I-95 will boost the economy by shortening commutes, making cargo transport more efficient and improving highway safety,” Payne said Nov. 30, adding the I-95 stretch, or the Turnpike as it is known in the state, has been underfunded due to deficits in the Highway Trust Fund over the years. The intricate network of ports, railways, highways and an international airport in the state’s largest city...

Congressional analysts are estimating that the Republican Senate tax bill would increase taxes in 2019 for some 13.8 million U.S. households earning less than $200,000 a year. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation provided the analysis Monday as the Senate’s tax-writing committee begins work on its version of the tax overhaul bill. The legislation, promoted as a boon to the middle class, would steeply cut corporate taxes, double the standard deduction, and limit or repeal completely the federal deduction for state and local property and income taxes. The analysis of the Senate plan says 13.8 million households, or about 10...

Point #1Like a broken record, Republican promotors of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act insist that by raising the 2018 standard deduction for single filers from $6,500 to $12,200, for couples from $13,000 to $24,400, and by lowering selective tax rates, that their plan will usher in a huge tax cut for the middle-class. It, in fact, does no such thing. Whenever challenged with the reality that their proposal will result in a tax increase on many of their constituents, they exclaim, “Yes, but we are doubling the standard deduction!” Yet, not one of them ever mentions that they are,...

Ask Matt Labash, who says the GOP should have called its tax reform measure the "Robbing Peter to Pay Apple Act." Dear Matt, Republicans have called their tax bill “The Tax Cut and Jobs Act.” President Trump wanted to call it “The Cut, Cut, Cut Act” (And here we thought his specialty was branding.) What would you have named it? H.R. Block I’d be fine with calling it “The Republicans Pissing Down Your Leg While Telling You That You’re Bathing In A Warm Mineral Spring Act.” Or maybe “The Robbing Peter to Pay Apple Act.” (In this scenario, you,...

WASHINGTON – Republicans have a lot riding on tax reform — including campaign contributions. The failure by the GOP-led government to score a significant legislative victory in the year since President Trump was elected has caused some Republican donors to close their wallets. “I’ve just reached my breaking point with it,” said Dan Eberhart, CEO of Canary LLC, an oilfield services company. “Do something for goodness sakes.” In protest, he’s stopped sending donations to the National Republican Senate Committee – the main fundraising campaign for Senate Republicans. Instead he’s been meeting with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, about courting...

WASHINGTON - The Republican effort to overhaul the tax code suffered a bruising setback over the weekend when a powerful corporate interest group came out against the proposal just days ahead of House leaders' planned release of the legislation to the public. President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are casting the measure as a once-in-a-generation rewrite of the federal tax code, one they say will stimulate the economy, create millions of jobs and give voters a reason to stick with their party in next year's midterm elections. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,...

According to White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, “Very few people itemize. I think it’s around 20% of people that actually itemize. Those things will be offset by other tax credits that are part of this plan…”Ms. Sanders would be correct, if she was referring to households earning less than $50,000 per year, a figure which barely skirts the middle-class. However, as you can see in the chart below, 41.7% of households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 itemize. The figure jumps to 58.5% for those earning $75,000 to $100,000, and rises to 78.8% for those earning between $100,000 to $200,000....

The cost of driving in Pennsylvania is going up on two fronts in the new year. First, the state tax on wholesale motor fuels will increase Jan. 1 — 8 cents for gasoline and nearly 11 cents for diesel fuel. Those costs are expected to be passed on to retail prices at the pump. A week later, tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will increase for the ninth year in a row, this time by 6 percent. The change will increase the cost of a trip from Ohio to New Jersey from $48.90 to $51.85 for cash and from $34.93 to...

BRASILIA— Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff raced on Wednesday to defuse a rebellion by legislators upset about her budget austerity plans and her handling of a corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras. Rousseff met with legislative leaders from her coalition after they unexpectedly threw out a presidential decree that would have raised payroll taxes and helped close a gaping hole in Brazil's budget. “This is very serious for Rousseff,” said political analyst Gabriel Petrus of Brasilia-based consultancy Barral M Jorge Associates. “It looks as if there is no political stability on top of the economic crisis.” The economic impact of...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has disclosed that his record property tax hike plan entails significant cuts for nearly 300,000 homeowners, leaving Chicago businesses predicting they will face hikes of up to 50 percent. The second-term mayor last week proposed a $544 million property tax increase, the city's biggest ever, to help fix one of the worst-funded city pension systems in America ... Emanuel's office, which has said one in four dollars of the tax hike would come from the city's central business district, did not contest the 50-percent figure. But a mayoral aide insisted Emanuel's plan is his best effort...

Puerto Rico is $72 billion in debt, and it will take a painful process to bring the island's finances back from the brink. It's a massive debt load for such a small territory, and the problem can really be traced to one issue — bad tax policy. After Puerto Rico let one tax break for manufacturers expire almost a decade ago, manufacturers started shutting down operations on the island. That caused a spike in unemployment. On top of that, business-friendly tax policies for some of the companies that remained allowed multinational giants to pay tax rates of little more than...

Most folks probably think of the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank as just that – a bank that finances major highway and bridge projects. S.C. Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston and a member of the Infrastructure Bank (STIB) Board of Directors, described the bank, created by the Legislature in 1997, as a “funding arm” in a recent (Charleston) Post & Courier story. But in addition to providing funding to the state Department of Transportation and local governments, STIB in recent years also has assumed the role of a general contractor or project manager, paying millions of dollars directly to certain companies for...

Donald Trump is finally showing us more of his economic plan beyond the "Make America Great Again" slogan on his red hat. America has now learned: -- He wants to tax the rich more and the middle class less. -- He wants to lower corporate taxes. -- He wants to cut government spending and stop raising the debt ceiling. "The hedge fund people make a lot of money and they pay very little tax," Trump said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg. "I want to lower taxes for the middle class." In short, Trump is willing to raise taxes on...

Cook County Board today cleared the way for President Toni Preckwinkle's plan to raise the county's sales tax a penny on the dollar, mostly for pensions. The action came when the board's Finance Committee, which includes all board members, voted 9 to 7 to 1 to send the $474 million a year tax hike to the full board, which will consider it later today. The key votes came from Commissioner Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat who voted "yes," and suburban Republican Elizabeth Gorman, who cast a "present" ballot and who is widely rumored to soon be headed to a new,...