Free Republic

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these, but here it goes: As of October 2025, Democrats in the Senate are using the filibuster to block a Republican bill that would temporarily fund the government, triggering a government shutdown. This is meant to pressure Republicans to negotiate on health care and other policy demands. Given that Republicans control both the White House and Congress, Democrats are using the filibuster to provide them a measure of leverage in budget negotiations. Democrats are demanding an extension of enhanced subsidies for health care plans under the ACA, aka "ObamaCare" which...

America's fiscal need for entitlement reform is pushing the discussion about Social Security inexorably toward "means testing," a policy both the left and the right have long avoided. Both sides realize that means testing, namely reducing or eliminating payments from the program to higher income senior citizens, would recast Social Security from its current perception by citizens as a retirement program to one of outright redistribution or welfare. Many Americans see Social Security as a savings plan, albeit a coerced one, and a recent poll by the AARP (which certainly knows how to write poll questions geared to suggest as...

Politics: The president had hardly put down his pen after signing the tax cut Wednesday when class warfare broke out again. As usual, the demagoguery doesn't comport with reality.According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a hard-left Washington think tank, many families whose yearly incomes are between $10,500 and $26,625 — a number that's nearly 12 million — won't be getting the additional $400 per-child tax credit that was part of the tax cut.While we're not challenging the findings, we object to the misleading nature of the argument. A significant fact is being left out.The Tax Foundation tells...