Free Republic

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is handing out $500 vouchers to migrants so they can enjoy haircuts, massages and other self-care benefits, despite the city's budget plunging nearly $50 million short. Applicants who are 'low-income, isolated queer and trans migrants, asylum seekers and refugees' are prioritized for the 'wellness allowance.' The initiative, called 'Boston Matters', was created by OUTnewcomers, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ+ migrants in Boston alongside the Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement, Mass Daily News reported. Applicants get $250 to $500 toward 'non-clinical care' completely funded by the city agency, which is run by the Democrat's administration. They...

Instead of taxing the rich, Mayor Zohran Mamdani could fill nearly half of NYC’s projected $5.4 billion budget gap by simply collecting unpaid taxes and fines from deadbeats. As of Feb. 28, the city was sitting on $1.1 billion in uncollected property taxes, according to the city Comptroller’s Office. And it has also been unable to collect another $1.3 billion in Environmental Control Board fines usually issued for construction, zoning, and safety code violations, the Finance Department said. In all, the uncollected taxes and fines total an astounding $2.4 billion. That’s 44% of the amount Mamdani claims he needs to...

On March 18, 2026, the House of Representatives voted on H.J. Res. 139, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. The roll call was 211-207. Every Republican voted yes. Every Democrat voted no, save one — a defection that will presumably not be celebrated at the next caucus retreat. Under suspension of the rules, passage required 291 votes. The final count was 80 votes short. This is not a near miss. It is a structural diagnosis rendered as a procedural vote.AdvertisementThe same week, gross national debt crossed $39 trillion — $39,016,762,910,245.14 on March 17. That milestone arrived five months...

ALBANY – State lawmakers will blow past Wednesday’s deadline to pass Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $263 billion budget plan, as negotiations drag on over her push to delay green energy mandates and her bid to lower car insurance premiums. Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate passed a one-week stopgap measure Tuesday keeping the government funded through next week amid the largely-stalled discussions between Hochul and legislative leaders. “We’re still at the beginning of the middle, as it turns out,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) said, using a stale Albany adage to indicate the discussions have not moved much since...

The Trump Administration has been clear that its national defense strategy is to defend the homeland and deter China. To achieve these goals, the new funding made available in the FY 2027 defense budget should be focused on expanding capacity across the services—especially in sea power and airpower with large procurement orders for existing programs and investments in next-generation capabilities like the B-21 and F-47. America’s long-neglected strategic deterrent needs funding to defend the homeland, to include necessary support for programs like the Sentinel missile and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. New spending needs to prioritize the Indo-Pacific and the Western...

We have long heard about the financial plights of solidly blue states. Places like New York and California have the highest taxes and the highest costs of living in the country. But there is a new blue state story where Democrats refuse to back off their ideological insistence that high taxes will get their state to the fiscal promised land. That place is Massachusetts. Massachusetts is on the verge of a financial implosion. The reason: Massachusetts Democrats' grand plan to replace the state's taxpayers with migrants is not the grand plan they expected it would be, and the state is...

Comptroller Mark Levine said Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to draw down $1.2 billion in reserves to balance the budget could make things even worse for taxpayers when it’s time to cook up next year’s spending plan. “You do not want to be draining the reserves when the economy is otherwise good,” Levine said Sunday on CBS 2 New York’s “The Point with Marcia Kramer.” Raiding $1.2 billion next year and $2.6 billion over the next two years as the Mamdani administration plans would leave the city flatfooted if the economy goes south. “It’s going to leave us more vulnerable next...

Hundreds of TSA officers have quit over the federal budget battle that left them working without pay –fueling hours-long flight delays and Department of Homeland Security videos blaming Dems for the travel nightmare. More than 300 TSA officers have tossed in the towel since the shutdown began Feb. 14, while a slew of other workers have been taking unscheduled absences, CBS News reported, citing internal TSA statistics. Hobby Airport in Houston saw 53% of its TSA officers call out March 8 and 47% the next day, while other airports have seen double-digit call-out averages since the shutdown started. John F....

In just the first five months of the new fiscal year, the federal government has already spent more than $3 trillion – more than it spent in all of 2009 – $1 trillion of which it had to borrow. And what is all this money going toward? The federal government was told 15 years ago to take a full, annual inventory of everything it does. It’s never been able to get that done. “Each year, the federal government spends trillions of dollars on federal programs that support the American people and address policy goals,” notes the Government Accountability Office in...

One year after Elon Musk began an unprecedented attempt to eliminate swaths of the federal government, newly released deposition videos are providing a never-before-seen look at two of the people responsible for the largest mass termination of federal grants in the National Endowment for the Humanities' history. In lengthy depositions, two DOGE employees -- Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh -- defended the effort to cut "useless agencies" as part of DOGE's attempt to reduce the federal deficit. "You don't regret that people might have lost important income ... to support their lives?" an attorney asked Cavanaugh about the grant cancellations....

A month into the partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — thanks in no small part to separating DHS funding from the rest of the government combined with an unwillingness to address Senate filibuster rules — there have been two Islamist terror attacks on U.S. soil in Austin, Texas and New York City as the war in Iran rages on. Founded in 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 by al Qaeda, who boarded jets to fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security’s purposes...

One of CNN’s most notorious TV egoists surprises viewers every once in awhile by displaying a modicum of common sense in the face of leftist politicians running economies into the mud. His recent repudiation of blue city spending is no exception. CNN host Fareed Zakaria actually ripped how Democrat strongholds like New York City were “out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off fiscal problems to some future day,” in an X post promoting a February 23 segment of Fareed Zakaria GPS. In a stunning display of red-pilling, Zakaria directly called out the newly minted communist...

This week Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) testified in the Kentucky House of Representatives on behalf of a resolution of the states asking Congress to submit a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution to the states for ratification. This inspired Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky) to identify DeSantis as the worst governor in the country in response to a question by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." "First of all, the very idea of another governor barging into my state in an effort to get them to approve something I don't support is intrusive," Beshear explained. "Second, forcing the federal government...

One of the first tasks that a new Mayor has in New York City after taking office is to present a budget. Given that an annual New York City budget is well north of $100 billion, you would think that this is a serious undertaking. But our new Mayor is the 34-year-old play-acting college socialist Zohran Mamdani. How does he handle the task? Mamdani kicked the process of with a press conference at City Hall on January 28. Here is a transcript and video of his remarks. Excerpt: I want to speak directly to New Yorkers, who have for too...

On the eve of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first preliminary budget rollout, Gov. Kathy Hochul handed him what amounted to a $1.5 billion gift card, courtesy of state taxpayers. On Tuesday, the mayor thanked the governor for the promised new state aid — by handing her a ticking political bomb. Despite the added money, Mamdani said, the city faces a “historic” $5.4 billion budget gap — which can only be closed by proceeding along what the mayor characterized as two “paths.” Path one, he said, would be for the state to give the city authority to “raise [income] taxes on the...

Follow live updates on New York City politics as Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a record $127 billion budget proposal Tuesday. The eye-popping amount — that one insider called “insanity” — is up around $11 billion from the current year. The socialist city leader’s plan includes a whopping 9.5% proposed property tax hike on New Yorkers, which he claims would be a “last resort” — while allocating another $1.2 billion for migrants. Mamdani, 34, unveiled his preliminary budget from the Blue Room at NYC City Hall this afternoon. Get the latest news, analysis and more from our local politics reporters with...

The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion funding deal to end the four-day partial government shutdown Tuesday, sending it to President Trump’s desk for his expected signature. Lawmakers voted 217-214 to pass the compromise funding package, which cleared the Senate late Friday and keeps about 97% of the government operating through Sept. 30. Now Congress faces a 10-day scramble to negotiate a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security before its key agencies run out of cash Feb. 13, a timeline Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described as “an impossibility.” *** The GOP holdouts were mainly miffed...

What to know about the partial government shutdown:President Trump signed a massive funding bill to end the partial government shutdown on Tuesday, bringing an end to the standoff after four days with a new fight over immigration on the horizon.The House voted earlier in the day to approve the package by a vote of 217 to 214, with 21 Republicans and 21 Democrats crossing the aisle. Getting the bill across the finish line presented some challenges earlier in the day for Speaker Mike Johnson, who ultimately convinced a handful of GOP holdouts to advance the measure for a final vote.The...

Bill passes 217-214 despite GOP opposition over election integrity provisions and DHS funding concerns Twenty-one Republicans broke with President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday evening in an attempt to derail a $1.2 trillion spending bill to end a government shutdown, citing concerns that the legislation didn’t do enough to advance GOP priorities.Among a range of reasons, lawmakers argued the bill needed to include provisions shoring up election integrity, come with full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and eliminate Democrat-requested earmarks.The lawmakers that voted against the measure included:Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.,...

Maybe the UN can sell Dictator Scouts cookies as we stop footing its bills. The BBC reported, “The United Nations is at risk of ‘imminent financial collapse’ due to member states not paying their fees, the body’s head has warned. “António Guterres said the UN faced a financial crisis which was ‘deepening, threatening program delivery,’ and that money could run out by July. “He wrote in a letter to all 193 member states that they had to honor their mandatory payments or overhaul the organisation’s financial rules to avoid collapse. “It comes after the UN’s largest contributor, the U.S., refused...