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At least five terrorists involved in the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks were receiving welfare benefits from the state, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing local authorities. Belgian financial investigators looking into the terrorist attacks found that Salah Abdeslam, charged with taking part in the Paris assaults, had collected €19,000 ($21,000) in welfare payments, which were stopped just a few weeks before the attacks were carried out in the French capital in November, WSJ reports. However, Abdeslam should not have been receiving payments as he partly owned a bar, which he was managing at the time. Belgian officials say this made...

Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks. ENLARGE At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate. The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all, according to people familiar with the case. At the time, he...

Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks. At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate. The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all, according to people familiar with the case. At the time, he was...

The state of Michigan will write more than $1 billion in subsidy checks this year to favored businesses selected by politicians and government economic development officials. These are dollars paid by Michigan taxpayers, which the state then redistributes to corporate beneficiaries. The subsidy checks are styled as "refundable tax credits," and a significant portion of them were approved during a subsidy binge in the last two years of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration, in 2009 and 2010. Each company has its own agreement with the state, and many of the agreements call for tax breaks and cash payments for as...

Politicians have admitted that Germany’s recent migrant influx is set to cost taxpayers at least €30 billion a year. In addition to forking out for the day-to-day living costs and of more migrants, the German government will sharply increase spending on its police and security services after an unprecedented influx of migrants entered the country.

Two recent news stories highlight how pernicious the welfare state has become in America today. The first was an announcement by the feds that food stamps can be used to have groceries delivered right to a recipient’s door. Service with a smile. The Obama administration says it is too much of a hardship for those on welfare to actually travel to the grocery store. What’s next? Cooking the meal for them? If only the DMV would do home deliveries for drivers licenses.The second story was about the hullabaloo over a proposal by Maine governor Paul LePage to prohibit food stamp...

Tyler Durden July 30, 2016 Excerpted from David Stockman's forthcoming book "Trumped! A Nation On The Brink... And How To Bring It Back" Because the main street economy is failing, the nation’s entitlement rolls have exploded. About 110 million citizens now receive some form of means tested benefits. When social security is included, more than 160 million citizens get checks from Washington. The total cost is now $3 trillion per year and rising rapidly. America’s entitlements sector, in fact, is the sixth biggest economy in the world.Yet in a society that is rapidly aging to the tune of 10,000 baby...

Roger Bauer, Resides in an apartment in Orem Utah just 30 minutes from Salt Lake City where he works as an arc welder. Roger beings his mornings bright and early before the sun rises where he fashions a quick breakfast in his kitchenette. A recent convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of latter Day Saints, he forgoes coffee and tea that he once would have had and instead enjoy a glass of orange juice or a smoothie if one is available. He goes to work just as dawn is breaking over Provo Peak and the Aspen groove hills. He...

Mamaw encouraged me to get a job—she told me that it would be good for me and that I needed to learn the value of a dollar. When her encouragement fell on deaf ears, she then demanded that I get a job, and so I did, as a cashier at Dillman’s, a local grocery store. Working as a cashier turned me into an amateur sociologist. A frenetic stress animated so many of our customers. One of our neighbors would walk in and yell at me for the smallest of transgressions—not smiling at her, or bagging the groceries too heavy one...

Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has thrown his political weight behind indexing welfare payments to inflation. Speaking at MacGill Summer School in Donegal, the Dublin TD struck a socially aware tone throughout his speech — referring to the period of economic downturn as “Ireland’s lost decade” and bemoaning a stalling in living standards. “Were it not for social welfare payments over half of the country would be at risk of poverty,” he said, before he emphasized the need to “protect the value of these payments now and into the future”. “I believe this can best be done by indexing...

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that 750,000 additional working families are now eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – or SNAP– which helps fight hunger among working New Yorkers.

Factories such as Tarter Industries are having problems meeting current production needs because of a critical shortage of workers. And, expansion plans for 2017 may have to be put on hold if workers cannot be found, said Travis Cox, vice president and general manager for Tarter Industries. “Lack of workers is now my No. 1 inhibiting growth factor, bar none,” said Cox. “My last shortage report shows we are about 75-80 people under full budget head count. That’s just trying to keep up, not growing and expanding.” Cox said TI is aggressively searching within two counties on each side of...

Children growing up in single-parent households are nearly five times more likely to depend on welfare payments, a study revealed Wednesday. Germany’s 2.3 million children being raised in single-parent households are disproportionately at risk of poverty. A study done by the Bertelsmann Foundation said that more than a third of single-parent families (37.6 percent) were dependent on Hartz IV social benefits. Only 7.6 percent of two-parent households are dependent on the payments. […] One in five families in Germany are single-parent households. …

Robin Chase and Martin Ford explain why at a White House roundtable. Automation is going to make universal basic income a necessity sooner rather than later, a White House panel discussed today. Technology entrepreneur and Zipcar founder Robin Chase and author Martin Ford (Rise of the Robots) today during a Facebook Live discussion with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. “We need to start thinking about universal basic income,” Chase said, referring to the concept of a base-level of income each person would get just for being alive. “If people had that platform, that basic minimum, we could be...

Things are not going all that well for Ron Duncan.Duncan, 62, who made $3.4 million last year as CEO of GCI, the cable and communications firm that dominates Alaska, has had recent troubles with mouthy executives and new competition from Japan. More seriously, GCI lost $26 million in 2015, nearly $9 million in the fourth quarter alone – after which he said, paraphrasing Custer no doubt: “We finished 2015 on strong operational footing, which sets us up to capitalize on opportunities in 2016.”But his real problem will come when the Alaska legislature declines to continue to fund his gravy train....

Podcaster and blogger Sonnie Johnson was having a pretty good time with this year’s BET Awards until Jesse Williams took the stage, as she told SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily.“He gives this speech, a Black Lives Matter speech, and I wrote a responding article on Breitbart.com, entitled ‘OK, Do You Want to Talk About Freedom Now?’” Johnson said. (The current title of the article was expanded to include both Johnson and Williams’ names; it may be read here.) As Johnson pointed out, Jesse Williams has “a white mother and a black father – and that...

Gov. Chris Christie rejected legislation Thursday that would have raised monthly welfare benefits for the first time in 30 years, and would have restored $7.5 million in grants for women's clinics which he eliminated when he first took office in 2010. In veto statements released just before 10 p.m. — two hours before the start of the new fiscal year — the governor said his actions "protected taxpayers" from the "irresponsible" spending by the Democrats who control the Legislature. "Unfortunately, the Legislature has continued its annual ritual of attempting to pass additional unbudgeted spending for selected interests," according to Christie's...

A Mississippi state representative suggested that a woman buy her family's diabetes medication after she wrote to him to ask for help with increasing difficulties obtaining Medicaid assistance. Richland resident Nicole Nichols wrote to the Mississippi House of Representatives Monday morning to voice her concern that children with Type 1 diabetes "aren't getting the necessary diabetes supplies and meds they need to stay healthy." "We have recently begun having a lot of problems with Medicaid/CHIPS coverage of the essential diabetes supplies needed, not only to keep our kids healthy, but to literally keep them alive," Nichols wrote to Mississippi lawmakers....

Michigan will collect more taxes next year, but not as much as predicted a few months ago, leaving members of the Legislature looking at a sizable gap between what they want to spend and the money available to pay for it. The most constructive and efficient way to balance the budget is to eliminate the state’s corporate welfare programs and supporting bureaucracy. The budget the Legislature enacted for fiscal year 2016 included almost $178 million in six major items over which the Michigan Economic Development Corporation controls. Cutting this would not only help balance the budget, but could improve Michigan’s...

Maine Gov. Paul LePage may have considered a proposal to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy candy and sodas to be a sweet one, but the Obama administration disagrees. The friction between the Republican governor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reignited a debate after the Obama administration denied LePage’s request to put restrictions on what can be purchased with food stamps. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, LePage said: “It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks.” In an interview with The Daily Signal, LePage’s health...