Free Republic

Former President Donald Trump is set to announce his new plan to bolster the US Border Patrol with 10,000 new agents who will be given raises and bonuses to keep them on the force, according to his campaign team. The Republican presidential candidate, who will speak at a rally in Prescott, Arizona Sunday afternoon, vows to ask Congress for the funds to hire 10,000 new agents to patrol across America’s borders. Trump’s plan reportedly includes giving the agents an immediate 10% raise, as well as a $10,000 retention and signing bonus, his team said. The plan would increase the number...

It has been more than 40 years since Congress found common ground on Social Security and implemented a series of necessary reforms. Over that time, the discussion of Social Security has devolved into a shouting match, an exchange of emotionally charged hyperbole in which sound bites have become more important than stone cold facts.This environment is great for politicians who wish to duck and weave the issue with impunity, less so for the rest of us, because nothing gets done and the problem gets worse. Voters need to think about the role they play in the do-nothing politics of Washington,...

Cradle-to-Grave: Kamala Vows to Help Young Couples Buy 'Cribs and Car Seats' With Taxpayer Funds........ She trying to out do Santa Claus!......... 1:11 Video at link..................

The United States plans to announce more than $8 billion worth of military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's visit to Washington, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

Congressional leaders announced a bipartisan agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that is expected to be approved and sent to the White House this week to head off a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1. The House is set to vote early this week on a three-month continuing resolution that will fund the government at the current fiscal year’s spending levels until Dec. 20. The bill does not include the controversial Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act that doomed its predecessor, and trims some extra spending that the previous version included, too. House Speaker...

Concerning the recent House funding plan: Was it that Schumer bring the SAVE Act to the floor of the Senate to allow Senators to vote on it? Or, was the plan simply to allow Republicans to talk about the SAVE Act and how much Democrats don’t want to protect Americans from illegal immigration, whether it’s the fentanyl pouring across our border, terrorists and criminal gang members flooding the nation, or preventing illegal aliens from voting in our elections? Let’s analyze the recent failure of the Continuing Resolution + SAVE plan to see if we can tease out what the plan...

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates Wednesday by the biggest amount in 16 years. The 50 percentage points reduction will make borrowing money less expensive, taking some of the pressure off consumers' wallets. Today's cut brings benchmark borrowing costs down to between 4.75 percent and 5 percent.

Republicans in the House of Representatives will unveil details of a fiscal year 2003 budget Wednesday that includes nearly $399 billion for national defense, the largest increase in 20 years. But that budget will not be balanced, or maybe it will. House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) says the budgetary commitment to national defense answers a question on the mind of many Americans. "Our country has been attacked and we are at war," Nussle said Tuesday at a press conference to preview the budget. "Americans are asking, 'Is our country safe? Is my family safe?' and our budget answers...

Ramstein Air Base, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rarely attends the security summits organized by his Western partners in person, but on Friday, he paid his first visit to the sprawling Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared in his opening remarks of the latest such meeting that "it is a critical moment" in the war ignited by Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion. The gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group comes days after Zelenskyy's nation suffered its single worst attack of the year, when two ballistic missiles slammed into a military academy in...

POTTERVILLE, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday that if he is elected, his administration would not only protect access to in-vitro fertilization but would also have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service for American women who need it. "We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," Trump said before adding, "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay." Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance...

The growing undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. will lower the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars over the next decade, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO’s projections are based on the net sum of economic activity generated, taxes paid and benefits allotted to the immigrant groups included in the study. The nonpartisan agency estimates a net population increase of 8.7 million such immigrants between 2021 and 2026, averaging an increase of 1.7 million people per year above the pre-2020 average annual net immigration of 200,000. CBO based its projections on the economic effects that...

The federal government ran another big deficit in June, as the national debt inches closer to $35 trillion.$35 trillion USD.Trillion with a 'T.' That's an unfathomable number. It's meaningless to most people. We simply can't comprehend a number that big.Let's try to put the $34.9 trillion national debt into perspective.According to the National Debt Clock, every American citizen would have to write a check for $103,565 to pay off the national debt. Of course, a lot of people don't pay taxes. That means the taxpayer burden is much higher. Every U.S. taxpayer would have to write a check for $266,953...

Every U.S. citizen now owes roughly $100,000 in federal debt. That is the grim news from the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO data show that federal debt has been growing at an unsustainable rate for decades and will continue to do so in coming years. At some point, the United States will hit a fiscal cliff, when lack of confidence in the ability of the federal government to repay the debt will result in sharply higher interest rates and default. We are in the final years of our debt crisis. Congress is simply unable to...

Just when you think things couldn’t get worse on the fiscal front, Washington once again manages to exceed expectations. One couldn’t help but get that impression from the latest update to the nation’s (poor) budget situation.The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released revised estimates of the nation’s budget and economic outlook over the coming years. While the prior version of the document, released in February, didn’t exactly show a fiscally responsible federal government, the intervening four months saw lawmakers digging taxpayers — that’s you and me — into an even deeper hole.More Spending by Congress and BidenOverall, CBO increased the...

The Congressional Budget Office reports the 2024 budget deficit will near $2 trillion.. In 2024, the federal budget deficit is estimated to reach nearly $2 trillion, according to new projections released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week. In February, the agency predicted that the deficit would only be $1.58 trillion. However, spending increases have caused the projected deficit to increase by $400 billion, a staggering 27 percent hike. According to the CBO, 80 percent of the spike in the deficit can be blamed on four sources of government spending. The largest source, responsible for $145 billion of the...

The Congressional Budget Office revealed on Tuesday that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year is expected to hit $1.9 trillion, marking a 27% increase of $400 billion from their earlier February estimate. "Most of the spike in the fiscal 2024 deficit stems from four factors that are expected to boost projected spending," CNN explains. "The largest is a $145 billion increase due to changes the Biden administration made to student loan repayment plans and a new, proposed forgiveness program that would waive some accrued interest for millions of borrowers. The latter has yet to be finalized but could...

here’s a new report out by the Congressional Budget Office with an updated projection of the federal deficit for the 2024 fiscal year—in February, the office calculated we as a nation would be an additional $1.5 trillion in the red, but now that number has jumped 27% to $1.9 trillion, or a additional $400 billion.The CBO report identified several factors impacting this increase, with Cadaver Joe’s vote-buying student loan “forgiveness” scheme accounting for the “largest” portion of it. Here are the details, from a CNN report:Most of the spike in the fiscal 2024 deficit stems from four factors that are...

So much for Biden’s bragging that “he” cut the US budget deficit by half. Actually, Biden regularly confuses the national debt with the national deficit. Last week, the Treasury reported that in May, the US government collected $323.6 billion in tax receipts, it spent more than double that, or some $670 billion… … resulting in a May budget deficit of $347 billion – about $100 billion more than consensus expected – and the second biggest May deficit on record, with only the Covid crisis peak of May 2020 higher. As a result of the blowout May deficit, the cumulative fiscal...

President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a 10-year security agreement Thursday that they hailed as a milestone in relations between their countries, but that alone was not enough to stop Zelenskyy from wondering how much longer he could count on America's support. Zelenskyy also said his country “urgently” needed additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainians and the nation's infrastructure from Russia's continued bombardment. The leaders signed the agreement on the sidelines of the annual Group of Seven summit, held this year in Italy, and Biden said the goal "is to strengthen Ukraine's defense and deterrence capabilities.”...

Too much debt should be the theme song for the US! Both for consumers and the Feral government (not a typo!) Consumer credit increased by +$6.403 billion in April, much softer than consensus estimate of +$10 billion … more notable, however, was March data, given initial read of +$6.274 billion was revised down to -$1.099 billion. Not to mention $13 trillion in mortgage debt (1-4 unit housing), but at least that is backed by property. Unlike The Feral government who borrows/prints with only a promise. Consumer Debt Hits $17.69 TRILLION. US national debt stands at $34.8+ trillion. And growing awfully...