Free Republic

Donald Trump has outlined his plans for federal taxation should he be elected. "I will make the Trump tax cuts permanent. You know they expire in a year. And we will cut your taxes even more than that," he said in a speech in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 14, 2024. Trump made the direction clear. Lower. But President Biden has also made his plan clear: He wants to wallop Americans with a $5 trillion tax increase. Biden’s written plan calls for a small business tax hike, a corporate tax hike, a capital gains and dividends tax hike, income...

(NewsNation) – The Social Security Administration announced 2024’s cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) just over a month ago, confirming a 3.2% bump in benefits for retirees. Here’s what you need to know. How does the 2024 increase compare to 2023’s? While still one of the largest increases in decades, 2024’s COLA increase of 3.2% is far below the 8.7% bump that recipients were granted in 2023.

So much has changed in just a few days: one week ago people cared about boring stuff like seasonally adjusted payrolls (a product of White House administration propaganda as much as actual data) and the readjusted Consumer Price Index (also a product of White House administration propaganda as much as actual data). Well, nothing like a bank crisis to clear one’s head of goal-seeked data that would make Beijing blush. And also – apparently – there is nothing like a bank crisis to send inflation expectations plummeting. Earlier today, in breach of today’s data vacuum, the NY Fed published its...

SoCal Gas, which supplies natural gas throughout Southern California, warned consumers this weekend that their next bills will be unusually large, blaming what it calls unusually cold winter weather across the nation. In an email to consumers, the company wrote: There’s no easy way to put this: January bills are likely to be higher than usual. An unprecedented cold snap across the nation in part has caused natural gas market prices in the West to more than double between December and January – much higher than expected. As a result, SoCalGas residential customers can expect the typical January bill likely...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has increased his lead over “defund police” Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race, an AARP poll found Thursday. The survey shows Republicans are picking up steam in the 2022 Senate races in which they must hold Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina and reclaim either Arizona, Nevada, Washington State, or Georgia to take back the Senate from Democrats.

Just days after Germany reported the highest inflation in generation (with February headline CPI soaring at a 7.6% annual pace and blowing away all expectations), giving locals a distinctly unpleasant deja vu feeling even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke what few supply chains remained and sent prices even higher into the stratosphere… … on Monday, Germany will take one step toward a return of the dreaded Weimar hyperinflation, when according to the German Retail Association (HDE), consumers should prepare for another wave of price hikes for everyday goods and groceries with Reuters reporting that prices at German retail...

Commodities markets from agriculture to energy to metals have been upended by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as Bloomberg’s index of raw materials is set for the biggest weekly gain in nearly half a century. The invasion has sent commodity prices soaring as western sanctions force Russia into growing isolation. Banks, importers, and shippers avoid Russian exports as traders price in new fears of shortages in energy, grains, and metals, sending the Bloomberg’s gauge of raw materials to its largest weekly gain since 1974. The Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM), which updates at the end of each session, was up 8.6% on...

With BofA predicting that the US is facing a period of “transitory hyperinflation“, one which could last as long as 4 years, as a result of soaring commodity prices in everything from metals to food and beyond, in what increasingly more warn is a stagflationary burst right out of the 1970s playbook…… it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two last month that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale...

Taiwan Semiconductor Is Hiking Chip Prices Up To 20%Here comes even more inflation… Just days after we wrote about how Taiwan Semiconductor was the centerpiece at the middle of the global semiconductor shortage, the company has said they are going to be raising prices by up to 20% next year. The report comes via Chinese media and crossed the wire early on Thursday morning. Earlier this year we reported that semi prices were expected to rise through all of 2021, but recent reports have suggested that production was picking up again. In fact, car chip vendors are now able to...

With the 2021 Colorado regular legislative session concluded, lawmakers have approved tax and fee increases on Coloradans of up to $617 million annually without voter consent. The new revenues are enough to give every schoolteacher in Colorado a $11,343.65 per year raise. The tax and fee increases amount to an average of $430 per year for a family of four. New and Net Revenue.. This session, 83 bills passed by the legislature would increase state revenue. Senate Legislative Council (SLC) included revenue projections for 45 of these in fiscal notes for each. Some fiscal notes provide an estimated range rather...

Striking a contrast to the Trump administration, Democrats behind Joe Biden's campaign believe higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations will not slow economic recovery, planning "significant income redistribution" as soon as 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported. Democrats want to store the taxes on the wealthy and corporations in order to bring more revenue for government spending in the wake of coronavirus impact payments and bailouts, per the report. "It's all the more important to protect the retirement and security of working [people] and make sure the wealthy pay their fair share," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who would become...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Drivers across Oklahoma can expect to pay more on some turnpikes next year. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority voted to increase the tolls of some routes by 2.5 percent in January. Experts predict that the increase will cost drivers between 5 cents and 10 cents more on their trip. As you may remember, tolls were increased on the state’s turnpikes in March by about 12 percent. At that time, turnpike officials warned that rates would increase again in 2018 and in 2019. Officials say another 2.5 percent increase is expected in 2019.

If you live in the Bay Area, you’ll be hearing a lot about Senate Bill 595 over the next year or so. If you’re a regular user of any of the region’s seven state-owned toll bridges — that’s all of them, except the Golden Gate Bridge — you’ll want to pay close attention. SB 595, which won final passage Thursday and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature, provides for a vote in the nine Bay Area counties next year to raise bridge tolls by as much as $3. If the Bay Area Toll Authority, the agency that oversees the bridges,...

The last two major income tax rate reductions were in the 1960s and 1980s. Here are the results of those cuts and their effect on revenue collection. Federal revenue in 1960 = $92.5 Federal revenue in 1968 = $153.0 Over a 50% increase in revenue! Federal revenue in 1980 = $517.5 Federal revenue in 1989 = $909.0 Over a 70% increase in revenue! So the FACTS show that cutting taxes in the 60's and 80's increased federal tax revenue. Now you know the truth.

MIAMI - Drivers throughout South Florida have said no matter where their daily commute takes them, they feel they're spending more money, more often on tolls. Local 10 News spoke to several drivers who said the tolls are another expense and don't necessarily help them reach their destination any faster. "Three hundred to four hundred (dollars) a month," Maribel Masvidal estimated she spends commuting from Homestead to her job in South Miami. "A lot of money that could be used on other things for my family." Masvidal said that commute can take her up to two hours one way on...

It’s no surprise that the commuters and commercial truck-drivers who regularly slog across the George Washington Bridge are not happy with the news: Starting Sunday, auto motorists using cash will have to pay $15 to cross, a trip that until recently cost half that. They are the drivers from North Jersey and beyond who help make it the world’s busiest motor-vehicle bridge. And they are the same drivers who now must pay one of the most expensive tolls in the country. On Saturday afternoon, motorists were given a chance to vent, and they were more than willing to step up....

June 05--Minnesotans got a shock Thursday when the state's health insurers proposed "eye-popping" rate increases for people who buy health insurance on the individual market -- premium increases as high as 70 percent. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Mark Dayton condemned the increases as "outrageous" and suggested they should be scaled back. Republicans saw them as reason to criticize the state-run portion of that market, MNsure. Here's the background about these premium increases, why they're happening and what they mean: What's proposed? Federal law requires health insurers to disclose any premium increases above 10 percent. Those were released Wednesday, and in Minnesota, there...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Scientists are virtually certain that California will be rocked by a strong earthquake in the next 30 years. Now they say the risk of a mega-quake is more likely than previously thought. The chance of a magnitude-8 quake striking the state in the next three decades jumped to 7 percent from 4.7 percent, mainly because scientists took into account the possibility that several faults can shake at once, releasing seismic energy that results in greater destruction. While the risk of a mega-quake is higher than past estimates, it's more likely — greater than 99 percent chance...

Economics minister and Jewish Home leader says Israel cannot ‘sit idly by’ while world allows Iran to be 6 weeks from the bomb Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) said Saturday that a “bad deal” with Iran on curbing its nuclear program would “increase the need for Israeli [military] action.” “If there will be a deal which would allow Iran to have the ability to ‘break out’ and build a bomb within six weeks, we cannot sit idly by in this situation and we will examine all the options,” Bennett told Channel 2 Saturday evening.

Across North Carolina, thousands of people have been shocked in recent weeks to find out their health insurance plans will be canceled at the end of the year – and premiums for comparable coverage could increase sharply. One of them is George Schwab of Charlotte, who pays $228 a month for his family’s $10,000 deductible plan from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. In a Sept. 23 letter, Blue Cross notified him that his current plan doesn’t meet benefit requirements outlined in the Affordable Care Act and suggested a comparable plan for $1,208 a month – $980 more...