Free Republic

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., in February. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) A Congresswoman who is “sick and tired” of drug testing welfare recipients has introduced a bill in Congress that would subject the rich to many of those same requirements. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., unveiled Thursday the Top 1% Accountability Act, which would require those claiming itemized deductions of more than $150,000 on their tax returns to submit to drug tests or file for less generous tax deductions. The proposal is a shot across the bow at Republican governors in states, including Moore’s home state of Wisconsin, that require the...

A letter sent by a Federal Communications Commission commissioner suggests that taxpayers are footing the bill for half a billion dollars in fraudulent "Obamaphone" subsidies. Ajit Pai, the senior Republican commissioner at the FCC, says there may be as many as 4.2 million duplicate recipients of Lifeline Assistance subsidies, also known as the “Obamaphone” program. In a letter to chief executive of Universal Services Administrative Company (USAC), Pai requests an audit of how carrier sub-contractors vet the applications for new subsidies. In the letter, first published by The Hill, Pai says that cell phone carriers may have bypassed a safeguard...

War on Poverty: Everyone who thinks the government “must do more” to help the poor should read the House Republican blueprint on welfare reform. The report is the result of years of work head by Speaker Paul Ryan to reform welfare and improve upward mobility.

"Federal taxpayers are on the hook for nearly $20,000 just to settle each refugee and asylum seeker, who are then immediately eligible for cash welfare, food stamps, housing and medical aid, according to a new report on the "refugee industry."" "The report from the Negative Population Growth Inc. said that the U.S. is currently accepting about 95,000 refugees and asylees. That is in addition to the over 500,000 legal and illegal immigrants coming to the U.S."

Welfare work requirements, defunding of programs . . . and more. It’s just a start, and he says as much. It has to be. It doesn’t mention what to do with ObamaCare or entitlements, so we can expect that he and his colleagues in the House are still working on those and we’ll hear about them soon enough. This stuff is basic blocking and tackling, but that doesn’t mean it’s without value. Paul Ryan told us last week that he’s voting for Donald Trump for precisely this reason: A Republican legislative agenda has no chance if Hillary becomes president. With...

Among the many disturbing signs of our times are conservatives and libertarians of high intelligence and high principles who are advocating government programs that relieve people of the necessity of working to provide their own livelihoods. Generations ago, both religious people and socialists were agreed on the proposition that "he who does not work, neither shall he eat." Both would come to the aid of those unable to work. But the idea that people who simply choose not to work should be supported by money taken from those who are working was rejected across the ideological spectrum. How we got...

Too many social problems are conceived of in terms of what "we" can do for "them." After decades of massive expansions of the welfare state, the answer seems to range from "not very much" to "making matters worse." Undaunted, people in a number of countries are coming up with new proposals that are variations on the theme of government-provided income — which amounts to relieving people from personal responsibility. Yet even some conservatives and libertarians are coming up with proposals for more "efficient" versions of the welfare state — namely direct cash grants for life to virtually all adults, instead...

A woman destroyed a convenience store in the US after being told her benefits card would not be accepted. Shocking footage shows the woman throwing stock from shelves and screaming before being restrained and physically removed from the store.

Can giving people money help solve wealth inequality? Y Combinator, a prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator program for startups, is wading into a new “world changing” project: basic income. On Tuesday, Y Combinator said in a blog post that it would conduct a short pilot study in Oakland, Calif., “a city of great social and economic diversity” that “has both concentrated wealth and considerable inequality.” The accelerator has also hired Elizabeth Rhodes, a PhD in social work and political science from the University of Michigan, where she completed research on health and education in slum communities in Nairobi. Y Combinator defines...

Last week, I almost got my very own Obamaphone—by accident. I own a Tracfone; it is one of those prepay plans. The carrier was upgrading from 2G to 3G, and I was sent a new phone to replace my old one. And then the discovery! My perfectly good Tracfone had been mysteriously transformed into an Obamaphone. I might have had a tax payer-provided phone with free monthly minutes and unlimited text messaging for life! Plus a whole lot of free Internet access too! That’s how close I came to my very own Obamaphone. [snip] It’s a testament to the efficiency...

The EU would have “the second most powerful military” in the world if its members pooled its resources, insisted the co-director of the Institute of Studies on Conflict and Humanitarian Action in an interview with EurActiv Spain. “If we added the capabilities we have in the EU together, we would automatically become the second most powerful military force on Earth and the reason we aren’t is because there is no political will. This is because each national government would rather be the head of a mouse rather than the tail of a lion,” said Jesús Núñez, a conflict analyst. …

A report from the state House Fiscal Agency shows that there has been a steady decline in the number of police officers in Michigan, falling 15.4 percent from 1990 to 2015. The report does not go into why this is, but here’s one theory: Pension underfunding is crowding out government spending, including hiring decisions. Consider that the state police retirement system now costs between 57 percent and 63 percent of the Michigan State Police’s total payroll. It is not because the benefits are lavish. It is because the state is trying to pay for promises that it made in the...

Even though the official unemployment rate fell below 5%, most of us who live in the real world know better: there are still an estimated 30 million Americans who have either given up looking for work or are underemployed. According to the latest Pew Research, the American middle class has shrunk for the first time in decades and is no longer the economic majority. In the mean time, the number of low-income Americans is rising. Who should we blame for this economic reality? Many point their fingers at immigrants. Maybe you have heard this saying, “When you point one finger,...

Millennials are more open to idea of slavery reparations: Study shows majority of young people think African Americans should be compensated for ancestors' suffering **SNIP** Baby boomers between ages 51-69 are similar, with a 79-17 per cent margin against reparations. The numbers start changing when it comes to Generation Xers, with Americans between the ages of 35-50 breaking 73 per cent to 25 per cent against reparations. The biggest shift comes with millennials, with a majority — 51 per cent — saying that reparations should be paid or they were unsure of whether reparations should be paid.

Immigrants are supposed to be beneficial to the U.S. — so much so that federal law requires them to prove they won’t end up on the public dole if they are legally admitted. But it’s a stricture honored more in the breach than in compliance, according to statistics obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which found that of the millions of legal immigrants living in the U.S. and collecting welfare or other public benefits, only a single person was kicked out of the country over the last three years for becoming a public burden. That seems to fly...

Any home where at least one person receives food stamps will be eligible for the new program, called Access from AT&T. The offering is part of an agreement AT&T (T, Tech30) made with the FCC as part of last year's DirectTV merger and will be available until 2020. The company is the latest to offer discounted internet to low-income households in the United States, joining Comcast (CCV), Google Fiber, and some local government and nonprofit. These programs help close the so-called "digital divide" for families who would otherwise be forced to rely on school connections or cell phones. A lack...

I suppose that I ought to offer a cliché alert with this post, because the lessons from Kansas and Delaware are obvious to anyone other than a progressive. Yet, those lessons are still not put into practice in most places in this country, so please forgive me for praising innovation in applying a rudimentary understanding of human nature to government policies regarding the poor. The first cliché to be cited is the old one about federalism constituting the laboratory of democracy. Maybe it is trite, but I really wish my state, California, would pay attention to what Delaware and Kansas...

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton spent a great deal of time debating the merits of raising the minimum wage at the last Democratic debate on April 14. Sanders, ever the radical, stood behind the popular $15 minimum wage figure that will soon take hold in California and New York. Clinton, who's long pushed for $12, updated her position in support of $15 figure. Both could be misguided. While raising the minimum wage does make sense on paper — working people need to make more to survive than they can on today's minimum wage, so we should give them more money...

Stan Druckenmiller ... when I look at the current picture of expected tax revenues combined with benefits promised to future generations, this is the most unsustainable situation I have seen ever in my career. The disaster that Druckenmiller sees coming for the United States is all about changing demographics and entitlement spending. They don’t add up to a sustainable situation. In 1940, entitlement payments, which include everything from disability payments to Social Security to Medicare, amounted to just over 20% of annual government spending in the United States. Today, entitlement spending has swelled to nearly 70% of the annual federal...

Bernie Sanders thinks the U.S. should look to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries to "learn what they have accomplished for their working people." The Vermont senator has said so repeatedly throughout his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, prompting GOP rival Marco Rubio to say, "I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president—of Sweden." As a native of Sweden, I must admit this makes me Feel the Bern a bit. Sanders is right: America would benefit hugely from modeling her economic and social policies after her Scandinavian sisters. But Sanders should be careful what he wishes for. When...