Free Republic

For months, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been saying that $5.6 billion in additional federal funds through the Biden administration’s stimulus program won’t come close to addressing all of the state’s road and bridge needs. Now, a national online research organization agrees, at least on money for needed bridge work. InMyArea Research released a report last week that claims the $26.2 billion in stimulus funds for bridges nationwide over the next five years falls an estimated $7.3 billion short of the amount needed just to upgrade bridges rated in poor condition. Pennsylvania’s allocation of $1.63 billion for bridges is...

Glenn Fine, who had been the acting Pentagon inspector general, was informed Monday that he was being replaced by Sean W. O’Donnell, currently the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency. Fine is a career official... “Mr. Fine is no longer on the pandemic response accountability committee,” Defense Department spokeswoman Dwrena K. Allen said in a statement. He will, however, continue to serve in his current position of principal deputy inspector general at the Pentagon. The $2 trillion coronavirus emergency spending law created several layers of oversight, including a Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which is supposed to be overseen by...

The U.S. government’s historic $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid relief package recently approved by Congress is highly vulnerable to fraud and abuse, oversight experts and veteran watchdogs who investigated abuse of the government’s financial system bailout more than a decade ago told ABC News. The size of the unprecedented relief package – in the scale of spending and the number of businesses eligible for funds – will make it difficult to verify the information from each applicant, and how they plan to use their money. “Everybody’s acceptance of some or a lot of fraud is going to have to be high,...

The Federal Reserve has offered more than $3 trillion in loans and asset purchases in recent weeks to stop the U.S. financial system from seizing up, but it has not yet directly helped large swaths of the real economy: companies, municipalities and other borrowers with less than perfect credit. That is partly because America’s central bank is not allowed to take much credit risk itself, and loans to lower-rated borrowers have a higher chance of losses. The risk is exacerbated by the spread of coronavirus which have brought economic activity to a screeching halt. To alleviate that constraint, the U.S....

The helicopters are dumping money out the door. You will pay for it down the road, one way or another. Might as well get a piece. And in fairness......some of you really do need it. This event is unprecedented, at least within living memory. We will cover: - $350 BILLION LOANS YOU DON'T HAVE PAY BACK - If You Apply for certain loans, you get $10k In 3 Days. If You Don't Get Approved That $10k Advance Gets Forgiven. - Avoid Penalties on Retirement Fund Withdraws; Can Put Money Back In - 10 BILLION OF DISASTER LOANS - Defer Your...

The numbers speak for themselves. Rather than "give" 6,000.00 per person to the individuals to use as they see fit, Washington demands their cut: 1,000.00 back (maybe) IF you have less than 90,000.00 income limit, otherwise nothing. And the rest going to the people the Washington political class selects and the democrat's ABCNNBCBS press corpse approves! 2 trillion is roughly 1/10 of the entire US economy. How will they spend all of that in two months?

Total absurdity of a "Virus Bill" listed: Here's a review of what's in this stimulus package.. Courtesy of Dave Wukawitz ✅Here’s what’s in the stimulus deal. $100,000,000 to NASA, because, who knows why. $20,000,000,000 to the USPS, because why the hell not $300,000,000 to the Endowment for the Arts / because why not $300,000,000 for the Endowment for the Humanities/ because no one even knew that was a thing $15,000,000 for Veterans Employment Training / for when the GI Bill isn't enough $435,000,000 for mental health support / thats a lot of suicide hotlines $30,000,000,000 for the Department of Education...

When will I get my check? Checks are supposed to be produced “as rapidly as possible,” but it’s been suggested that could take up to two months. If you use direct deposit, it will be faster. How big will my check be? Checks will be $1,200 per adult - or $2,400 for married couples filing jointly - and an additional $500 per child. Today In: Taxes Are there income limits on checks? The amount of the checks would start to phaseout for those earning more than $75,000 ($150,000 for joint returns and $112,500 for heads of household). This is adjusted...

Note that lack of commitment to putting the bill up for a vote. Pelosi blew up the negotiations over the weekend by demanding consideration of her own pork-riddled $2.5 trillion plan. That was seen as perhaps a negotiating ploy to get Chuck Schumer more leverage — and it appears to have worked. Schumer went on CNN this morning to claim victory for Democrats with this agreement, and pledged that aid would immediately get to Americans because of their skillful negotiations to improve the CARES Act. Now, Pelosi seems to be signaling that she won’t abide by Schumer’s agreement on the...

President Donald Trump Tuesday said he was the person who canceled the deal to pass coronavirus legislation in excess of $2 trillion after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi included "a lot of things" that had nothing to do with people who have been put out of work because of closures over the spreading coronavirus epidemic. "I canceled the deal," he said in a Fox News virtual town hall. "I said, 'I'm not going to send that deal.' Nancy Pelosi came and put a lot of things in the deal that had nothing to do with the workers, that has to do...

WASHINGTON -- How can a president fix more roads and bridges without any new money to spend? President Barack Obama's answer Thursday was to announce new initiatives to encourage private-sector investment in the nation's infrastructure, including the creation of a "one-stop shop" at the Department of Transportation to forge partnerships between state and local governments, and public and private developers and investors. Stymied by Republican lawmakers who refuse to go along with Obama's call for vast new spending on the nation's infrastructure, the president is spending the week trying to demonstrate that he can still find ways to stop big...

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Saturday that Americans need to be ready to "pay their fair share" to narrow the U.S. deficit, previewing his proposals to Congress that are expected to include more taxes on the rich. In his weekly radio and video address, the Democrat said his $447 billion jobs plan that features tax breaks for workers and small businesses, plus funds for public works projects and schools, "will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for." "On Monday, I'll lay out my plan for how we'll do that -- how we'll...

President Obama said Monday that the jobs plan he will unveil next week will include ideas with bipartisan appeal. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said his proposals will "put more money in the pockets of working families and middle-class families." The president's plan, to be unveiled after Labor Day, is expected to include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people familiar with White House deliberations. Though he did not offer such specifics in his remarks, Obama said his proposals...

A tax-cut compromise between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans – a harbinger of a new era of divided government in Washington – cleared the House around midnight Friday, sending the $858 billion bill to the president’s desk. The bill, which passed 277 to 148, provides a two-year extension for all tax cuts that were due to expire Dec. 31 – including for families earning more than $250,000 a year — and extends unemployment insurance benefits through next year. It also sets estate tax rates at 35 percent, with an exemption on the first $5 million. In the end, the...

Economists from J.P. Morgan believe that poor sales are more responsible for small business woes than a lack of available lending. Economists Bruce Kasman and Robert Mellman of J.P. Morgan point to data from the U.S. Department of Labor that indicates small business cut losses in half in the second quarter of 2009 as a sign that small business concern may be misdirected, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a report released this week, the National Federation of Independent Business indicates that their problems arise more from poor sales than anything else. An actor that Kasman and Mellman believe...

The jobs legislation would also extend highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year and pump $20 billion into them in time for the construction season. Economists say the tax breaks could create perhaps 250,000 jobs.

Boston (AP) - A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded "Benedict Brown" for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration. Like the four other GOP senators who joined him, the man who won the late Democrat Edward Kennedy's seat says it's about jobs, not party politics. And that may be good politics, too. The four other GOP senators who broke ranks -- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher "Kit" Bond of Missouri -- also...

The number-three Democrat in the House on Wednesday threw cold water on the idea of a second, jobs-focused stimulus. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said that the party may not pursue specific legislation to accomplish their goals on employment, and might focus instead on front-loading spending in bills Democrats had previously planned to move. "Now we are trying to get the economy stabilized and grow the economy," Clyburn said during an interview on MSNBC. "And that's what we're trying to do as we move forward, is to move in regular order." "I don't think we need to do anything...

Republicans introduced in both the House and the Senate yesterday a bill entitled the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009. This breathtakingly simple energy stimulus bill introduced by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) would accelerate offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and force the government to streamline the environmental and regulatory burdens that could otherwise block energy development for years. At a press conference yesterday, Vitter and Bishop explained that this bill would be a literal “threefer”: it creates tens of thousands of jobs, helps reduce dependency on foreign...

I've just learned that a group of Republican lawmakers plans to introduce a second stimulus bill, which they call the "No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009." Members of the group, whose leaders include Rep. John Shadegg in the House and Sen. David Vitter in the Senate, have tried to come up with a plan that, in their estimation, would create two million new jobs, reduce the cost of energy, especially for lower-income Americans, make the U.S. less energy dependent, and not add to the national debt. To do this, the plan would, among other things, speed up leasing for oil...