Free Republic

President Biden loves to demonize his opponents like Republicans over spending and the Federal budget. Biden argued that his budget won’t increase taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year and will ultimately cut the deficit by $2 trillion over the next decade. The president has yet to release his budget plan but has promised to do so by March 9. Of course, Biden ignores “the inflation tax” which is crippling American households (negative REAL hourly earnings growth for 22 straight months). And while he won’t raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 (he doesn’t have the authority),...

President Biden posed a challenge to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday amid rising tensions surrounding the debate over raising the federal debt ceiling: "Show me your budget and I'll show you mine." Biden made the remarks while responding to a question from CNN about what his message to McCarthy would be during the upcoming meeting between the two, expected to be held Wednesday at the White House. McCarthy ...

Despite polticians like President Biden cheerleading his great economic accomplishments and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dipping into Social Security to fund the Federal government (much like Biden’s dipping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve), there are serious problems facing America’s middle class and low-wage workers. Inflation is still brutal (but slowing) and REAL weekly earnings growth has been negative for 21 straight months (meaning that Biden’s bragging about wage growth has been destroyed by the inflation created by his energy policies and massive spending sprees). Personal spending rate YoY has plunged -53.5% to cope with inflation. To quote Joe Biden (Chauncy...

In March of 1962 JFK observed that “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Sixty years later his words resonate. We are seeing the foundations laid for a revolution. Whether that revolution is peaceful or violent remains to be seen. With virtually every society over time power becomes accumulated into the hands of the few elites. Those elites in turn run the nation as their personal fiefdoms where they utilize the machinery of the state to enrich themselves, accumulate power and use trifles to appease the exponentially larger population of serfs they rule over. This reality...

Dozens of House Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the debt ceiling, which would allow the government to borrow without any limit set by Congress. The federal government hit the $31.381 trillion debt ceiling last week, and House Republicans are pushing for commitments to cut back on the record growth in federal spending before agreeing to allow more borrowing. But Democrats accuse Republicans of setting up the possibility of prohibiting a debt ceiling hike, which would make the government unable to fund all of its current obligations.

Newly-minted US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a daunting task: trying to avoid a US debt default. As I have discussed many times before, nothing has been the same since the US housing bubble and near-collapse of the banking system that produced an expensive bailout of seemingly all financial institutions. After 2008, Federal spending has gone out of control. The budgetary hawks (or pigeons) in the US House of Representatives (with Pelosi, Boehner, Ryan then Pelosi again) went on Federal spending sprees of epic proportions. The Manhattan Institute has a nice chart showing the explosion in the Federal budget since...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday unveiled a 2023 state budget proposal that includes significant cuts to climate investments — even as a relentless storm system battered California’s coast. California is now facing an estimated budget gap of $22.5 billion for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which the governor attributed to declines in both withholding and capital gains taxes. EQUILIBRIUM & SUSTAINABILITY Newsom’s 2023 budget proposal includes climate cuts, to tackle fiscal shortfalls BY SHARON UDASIN - 01/10/23 2:57 PM ET SHARE TWEET FILE – California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivers a speech after taking the oath of office on Friday, Jan....

The power of the House of Representatives rests in the power of the purse and the Article I, Section 7 provision that "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." The budgeting process needs reform. Budgets should be crafted long in advance insomuch as possible. Haste does indeed make waste. Basic operating budgets by department that contain clearly needed constitutional funding acceptable by both the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats should be enacted into law several months in advance of the start of a fiscal year. The federal government should never face a widespread shutdown...

South Carolina GOP Rep. Ralph Norman says California Rep. Kevin McCarthy will only get support to become Speaker of the House from Republicans who currently oppose him if he can reach agreement with them regarding congressional spending. "I guess a miracle could happen," Rep. Norman answered when asked if McCarthy could do anything to get Republicans who oppose him to vote for him.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year again: It's time to give thanks for all the reckless government spending about to be pushed through the House and Senate. And in honor of our perfect money-hungry government elites, Rand Paul recorded his very own rendition of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." https://twitter.com/i/status/1605341754458525702

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Congress continued to conduct its final pieces of business before the holiday break, lawmakers warned that a total government shutdown could ensue if an agreement to send an additional package of tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine is not made by Friday. "This situation is dire," Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said to reporters gathered at the U.S. Capitol. "Our government is facing a shutdown, and the only way to avoid it is for us to send $45 billion to Ukraine by the end of the week. Life as we know it in the United...

For all the opposition to Kevin McCarthy becoming Speaker of the House, he sure is doing the kinds of things to gain support from those with a skeptical eye.Initially, I wasn’t a fan of McCarthy following up a subpar election performance with a promotion, but it quickly became apparent that there is no alternate path. No other viable Republican who could gain enough support stepped up to the plate, and continuing to hold things up would only benefit Democrats at this point, who have floated the idea of electing a “unity candidate.”With that said, even though it appears McCarthy has...

- President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to prevent severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States. - The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan. - The funds come from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package signed into law in 2021. - Biden traveled to Ohio in July to highlight the final rules for the pension relief program. Before Thursday, the program had awarded aid to...

Eight million Britons will be paying the higher rate of tax and two million the 45p rate within five years after Jeremy Hunt's brutal 'stealth raid'. The scale of the pain set to be caused by 'fiscal drag' was laid bare as experts digested the implications of the Chancellor's bombshell Autumn Statement. The respected IFS think-tank pointed out that the tax burden is set to reach a new post-war peak, and will be the equivalent of £100billion a year higher by 2027-28 than it has been for most of the past 70 years.

Jeremy Hunt is unveiling a pre-Christmas nightmare of tax hikes and spending cuts today as he scrambles to shore up the government's books. In a brutal Autumn Statement, the Chancellor warned Britons the country must make 'sacrifices' to weather turmoil at home and abroad. Mr Hunt said he was announcing a plan to 'rebuild' the finances and deal with 'global' problems, but would be 'compassionate' and show 'British values'.

The U.S. federal budget deficit fell by half for the 2022 financial year as once-aggressive pandemic relief spending dried up and receipts surged, the Treasury Department said on Friday. The gap between what the government spent and what it collected tumbled to $1.375 trillion at the end of September, down from the 2021 deficit of $2.776 trillion. "Today’s joint budget statement provides further evidence of our historic economic recovery, driven by our vaccination effort and the American Rescue Plan," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. "It also demonstrates President Biden’s commitment to strengthening our nation’s fiscal health." Deficits...

Jeremy Hunt took a wrecking ball to 'lame duck' Liz Truss's economic policies today in a desperate bid to calm the markets - as Tories warn she must be gone in days. The new Chancellor said he was propping up 'confidence' with an extraordinary dismantling of 'almost all' the disastrous mini-Budget, two weeks ahead of schedule and barely three days after he was parachuted into the job. He 'indefinitely' ditched plans to knock 1p off the basic rate of tax from April, one of the PM's flagship measures, as well as torching dividends cuts, the freeze on alcohol duty and...

The devolved governments of the UK want an urgent meeting with Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to discuss immediate action to reverse the damaging effects of the mini-budget. In a joint letter, the finance ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are warning that the government's spending plans are a "huge gamble" that will mean another decade of austerity. It comes as one of Liz Truss's closest political allies doubled down on the government's economic policy, with warnings that major cuts in public spending are to come. Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke, who is among the prime minister's inner circle, told The...

Congress has complied with the Biden administration’s request to include $12 billion for Ukraine in its stopgap funding bill, Reuters reported Monday. GOP senators remained divided over whether to support the funding request in the continuing resolution, a funding bill that needs to be passed by Sept. 30 to avert a government shutdown, CNN reported on Sept. 19. However, a source familiar with the ongoing negotiations said Congress had agreed to $12 billion in aid on top of the $4o billion authorized in May, Reuters reported. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas told CNN the funding package would contain a...

This, from a 21-year-old female, was in the Waco Tribune Herald in Waco, Texas on November 18, 2010 (maybe…I haven’t checked it; but it sounds good anyway!). "Put me in charge . . . " Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza… …then get a job. Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do...