Free Republic

From “An Open Letter to the People of California”: I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.

RYAN: Then he spent months going around the country impugning people's motives, setting up strawman arguments, basically saying Republicans are for dirty air and dirty water and against people with health insurance, basically, picking a partisan conflict versus going for compromise. But more to the point, Greta, I think it's the rhetoric of class division that is especially destabilizing. This is not the American idea. We believe in a system of upward mobility. We believe in a system to get the hurdles out of people's way so they can rise in society. We don't believe in talking to people like...

The United States tax code is so backward that billionaire investor Warren Buffett pays only 17 percent in income taxes, a rate even lower than that of his secretary. Or so he claims. While I have great respect for Mr. Buffett, and while I agree that our tax code could benefit from major adjustments, Mr. Buffett's statement is misleading. And he knows it. Even worse, when Mr. Buffett implies that wealthier Americans are under-taxed, it gives public officials cover to pursue disastrous policies such as Maryland's failed millionaire's tax, and the pending sales tax on interstate Internet purchases known as...

On all the cables whenever His Majesty deigns to bless us with his presence.The topic is his latest plan to bash Republicans over the economy while actually doing nothing to help the economy.

Ultra-rich people come in a variety of shapes, sizes and ages. But they can generally be divided into two distinct groups when it comes to what they do with their money - there are those who made it and those who inherited it. " Inheritors are far less hungry than the ones who worked for it - Raymond Goss Raymond Goss, investment specialist at Investec, says the first generation with serious money is usually inherently entrepreneurial and entirely focused on wealth creation - they are always on the alert for a great deal and are shrewd and incisive about the...

ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Most Utahns are unaware that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns one of the biggest ranches in the country — and it's nowhere near the Beehive State. Because of its prominent location, millions have seen the ranch without realizing what it was. But managers are opening the curtain; they have a message they want the public to hear. ______________________________ Deseret Ranch From St. Cloud to: Orlando Airport: 10 miles Kennedy Space Center: 15 miles Magic Kingdom: 22 miles ______________________________ The cowboys are up before dawn, but this is not the Old West. They...

Adele has sparked an online backlash over her recent comments surrounding the amount of tax she has to pay. In a recent interview with Q, the 23-year-old ranted about having to hand over 50 percent of her earnings to the tax man. She said (via Metro), "I'm mortified to have to pay 50 percent! [While] I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are s**t and I've gotta give you, like, four million quid -- are you having a laugh?"She added, 'When I got my tax bill in from '19'...

A new Gallup poll reveals that voters who identify as more conservative, do not have college degrees and who make less than $24,000 annually are more likely to support former Alaska governor Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney for president in 2012. Romney, on the other hand, has evidently fared better with voters who describe themselves as “liberals to moderate”, have received degrees of higher learning and who make at least $90,000 a year. The split drives home the challenges facing any would-be GOP candidate: Catering to the party’s base without completely alienating those on the fence, and appealing to voters...

Dan Mitchell of CATO clearly demonstrates why "soaking the rich" doesn't bring in more revenue and doesn't help the poor...

As Democrats scramble to find a new budget course after talks collapsed this week, the California Federation of Teachers is calling for a 1 percent tax hike on the top 1 percent of earners as part of a state budget solution. The union estimates the tax hike would raise an estimated $2.5 billion as the state faces a remaining $15.4 billion deficit, said spokesman Steve Hopcraft. The proposal would hike taxes by 1 percent on personal income above $500,000. CFT represents 120,000 teachers and school employees at all levels, including the University of California. To back its efforts, CFT commissioned...

This past Saturday in Baton Rouge, La. a MoveOn union rally was thrown together to protest Gov. Scott Walkers union legislation in Wisconsin. After the rally was held, a MoveOn coordinator was caught on tape saying the Tea Party is fueled by “class envy” and “racism.” The following is a partial transcript. We’ll call the person who wished to remain anonymous ‘Condor‘ for transcript reasons: MoveOn: My opinion is that, first of all, Tea Partiers tend to be in a wealthier category so even if you don’t currently benefit from it, people don’t want to tax millionaires because everyone believes,...

Critical Thinking Without Knowledge Maureen Tabor, June 25, 2010 I had a student last year who wrote me his life story. When he was a little boy, he knew he could do anything. His parents loved him, he loved life, and when he grew up he knew he wanted to “be a CEO.” Then he got to the University. There he learned that he could not be a CEO because he was “a minority.” He learned that the whole world would be against him, that he was a victim, and that he had to devote his life to “helping others.”...

The gorgeous and lovley Ivanka Trump is interviewed on Fox News: She's asked: How do think this President is doing? "I'm fearful for my grandchildren.....America wants to hear about jobs, not anti-business rhetoric"

Bush did everything bad for America but one thing he did good, never betrayed his neo con extremists who got him the Whitehouse by hook or crook. Republicans are rejoicing and Democrats reeling in the wake of Scott Brown's stunning triumph in a special Massachusetts Senate election, a devastating Democratic defeat that triggered soul-searching within President Barack Obama's party. You do not have to find the reasons. It is obvious even to a tenth grader. Those who voted for the Democrats and President Obama have understood that after all said and done, neo cons control America through their financial powers...

It's unprecedented for the nation to be outraged about corporate pay, right? Not exactly: In the 1930s, as the Depression gripped the nation, furor about compensation rose to fever pitch, and Washington applied shears to salaries. In an article soon to be published in the University of Richmond Law Review, Harwell Wells, an assistant professor of law at Temple University, says the decade exposed "deep tensions" about the issue. A big difference between then and now is that the 1930s fury was directed not at financial institutions but rather at "excessive" payers among industrial and consumer companies -- like Bethlehem...

I’ve been playing “Bailout Wars,” a new iPhone game from French publisher Gameloft that is themed around the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The game features cash-hungry bankers attempting to raid the White House for bailout cash and it’s up to the player to stop them. That involves tapping the bankers, allowing you to fling them around, hold them and shake them, and even double tapping to blow them up. Given the pace of the onslaught, however, that is not enough. Players earn gold for each banker they successfully kill, which eventually can be used to purchase and upgrade a sniper,...

for example, from his rant against big bottled water: "... the huge soda companies decided to sell you bottled water which is from the same source as tap water, but guess what? when you sell it as natural and in a bottle, it's unregulated. at least tap water is regulated." this from a guy who is currently fined up to his eye balls as a result of pimping unregulated natural supplements for every disease imagineable, while blasting regulated big pharma. shameless.

Not since the 1930's and FDR have the politics of class envy, class warfare, resentment, and covetousness been used with such effectiveness than during the current health care debate. Barack Obama, the czar of many czars, is the self-appointed Class Envy Czar. It's the same Democrat party which preaches that, "you can't legislate morality," that is now describing passing health care reform as even being a "moral obligation." The same party that sermonizes the principle of "separation of church and state," now desperately invokes the Bible to try to hustle their socialized medicine message.

Wow. Morgan Stanley revealed today that it had set aside 72 percent of its second-quarter revenue for compensation and benefits. This might just be a new record. The average compensation for Wall Street firms hovered around 48 percent his decade, according to Bloomberg. Many thought that compensation on Wall Street might actually diminish thanks to government bailouts. But instead firms have been increasing the share of revenues that they pay themselves. So what's behind it. Bloomberg quotes Morgan Stanley's chief financial officer pointing to "the war for talent." The only problem is that the casualties in this war seem to...

GOP Briefing Room Exclusive Content Why the Rich Will Get Richer Under Obama By Victor J. Massad Victor J, Massad, Ph.D. is a semi-retired professor of marketing & business at a Pennsylvania college. The Google search “spread the wealth around” yields 221 thousand results, nearly all of which discuss then-candidate Barack Obama’s most candid moment in the 2009 presidential election campaign. What Obama said was this: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. When you spread the wealth...