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I've finally come to FR for help understanding this total conundrum. I'll admit, I am completely baffled. This is in regard to these "senior spending cards", or "Medicare allowance cards"."Prepaid food allowance cards". You cannot go 5 minutes on the net (and 2 minutes on my phone) without seeing an ad for one or more variations of these cards. Supposedly, they are prepaid cards which allow you to buy retail stuff. Groceries, OTC meds, consumables, etc; "All seniors over the age of XX are eligible" [this is 100% false] "It pains me to know that many seniors are missing out...

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) has for years been talking about her plan to "make 'em squeal" when it comes to cutting waste in the federal government. Earlier this week, in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy having been tasked with leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Ernst's office put out a press release, "Ernst Lays Out Thanksgiving Menu to Carve up $2 Trillion in Waste."Joni Ernst @SenJoniErnst Reporting for @DOGE duty!🫡 For the last decade, I have been sounding the alarm on waste, fraud, and abuse and am thrilled to build off this work...

During an interview with CBS’s “The Takeout” podcast released on Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) said that the 17 Nobel laureates that the Biden administration used to justify spending in the American Rescue Plan were “17 educated idiots” who told the Biden administration what it wanted to hear because the administration “paid them.” Manchin stated that [relevant remarks begin around 12:05] inflation, immigration, and Afghanistan were the biggest blind spots of the Biden administration and the Harris campaign and addressed inflation first by stating, “I warned of that, and I got criticized, as you recall, they told me they had...

President-elect Donald Trump has said he intends to cut government spending by reasserting the presidential power of impoundment, a move certain to spark a court battle and one that could redefine presidential power for decades to come. Impoundment occurs when the president chooses not to disburse funds authorized by Congress; instead leaving them unspent in the U.S. Treasury.This power is not mentioned in the Constitution but has been employed by presidents since Thomas Jefferson. Congress enacted limits on the practice 50 years ago.Now, Trump intends to challenge the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA), which he believes is unconstitutional.“I will...

If you believe the messaging of the Trump transition, big cuts in U.S. government spending are coming. Announced cabinet appointments include several who are opponents of the mission of the agencies they will soon be heading. A new Department of Government Efficiency is to be created, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, with instructions to take an ax to wasteful programs. But, assuming that some big cuts actually get implemented, you know what inevitably comes next: Because all government spending is (foolishly) counted as a 100% addition to GDP, the cuts first get recorded as a decline in GDP....

(The Center Square) – Billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will take over a new effort to make the government more efficient. President-elect Donald Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, is a government efficiency effort that has turned a public spotlight onto government waste and duplication in a way not done for years. Musk created a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) account on X where he is asking followers for suggestions. Aside from lopping off entire agencies, here are some examples of controversial federal spending that, based on Musk and Ramaswamy’s recent comments, could be in the line...

Many are dancing an Irish jig – even non-Irishmen whom one would not expect to know such dances – over the prospect of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up a new “Grace Commission 2.0” of sorts, cheerfully nicknamed a Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. They intend an 18-month project, hopefully to conclude by our nation’s 250th anniversary, in which they will apply standard American manufacturing cost-cutting techniques such as LEAN and Six Sigma tools, to find out how much fat is in every federal department, bureau and agency, and cut it out as fast as possible. ... However,...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stated that the Biden administration is “trying to help people deal with the consequences of rising prices, whether it’s increasing the SNAP benefit or whether it’s making sure that the child tax credit is available to folks or whether it’s rebuilding the infrastructure of this economy” to fix supply chain issues. Vilsack said, “I think it’s — the key here is that we’re also trying to help people deal with the consequences of rising prices, whether it’s increasing the SNAP benefit or whether it’s making sure that the child...

The Department of Government Efficiency - the DOGE - is an idea whose time has come. In fact, it's an idea whose time came about 1980, but I suppose, better late than never.DOGE co-chiefs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy appear to be wasting no time.The sheer magnitude of government waste is staggering to behold! A deep dive into federal spending reveals some truly jaw-dropping examples of waste that Trump's new DOGE team will tackle: THE NUMBERS ARE STAGGERING: $1.3B sent to dead people $171M in benefits to prisoners….. https://t.co/RXxxXrAXoK— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2024 If it doesn’t advance the...

For a nation that’s supposedly laden with hard-headed common sense and a strong work ethic but is in fact more left-wing than anything else, Germany has slammed into the wall that bedevils similar political philosophies all over: they’ve run out of other people’s money to spend. And with what is so common among nations afflicted with a multi-party political system, their latest coalition government has therefore collapsed, crucified by essentially three factors: immigration (and growing popular resistance thereto), insane socio-economic policies fueled by Green eco-nonsense (e.g. an EV mandate which has led to closure of auto factories and concomitant unemployment),...

Last month, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, J.D. Vance said he worried about the U.S. government bond market in the early stages of a Trump presidency. Because of Biden-Harris spending, the U.S. is adding about $2 trillion to the national debt every year, he said, and “The only thing that makes that serviceable is that interest rates are still pretty low.” If interest rates go much higher, say to 8 percent, “that can become a huge spiral that could take down the finances of this country.” Vance said that international investors and foreign countries — beneficiaries of globalization —...

IMF paper warns of 'savings tax' and mass write-offs as West's debt hits 200-year high ... Debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will require a wave of haircuts, warns IMF paper. The paper said policy elites in the West are still clinging to the illusion that rich countries can chip away at their debts with a blend of austerity cuts and growth. – UK Telegraph Dominant Social Theme: The West is out of control and only taxes can save it. Free-Market Analysis: The UK Telegraph has discovered that the IMF wants to inflict...

SUNNY HOSTIN: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?KAMALA HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.Photo via Flickr by Kevin Krejci – Our National Debt – CC BY 2.0.On Friday, the Treasury Department released a report showing the kind of impact Harris is talking about. If nothing else does, it should cost her the election.The latest monthly Treasury report shows spending and revenues for the full fiscal year 2024, which ended in...

Lawmakers’ unabated desire to spend money we don’t have jeopardizes our national security — and our future.The cliché holds that a picture is worth a thousand words. But a recent chart from the Congressional Budget Office is worth nearly 2,000,000,000,000 (that’s two trillion) words. It illustrates the size of the budget deficits Washington continues to run, year in, year out.The downward trend of the chart, which shows budget deficits for 2023 and the fiscal year that ended on September 30, echoes the downward trend of our nation’s fiscal trajectory, as lawmakers’ unabated desire to spend money we don’t have jeopardizes...

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday refused to explain how she intends to pay for her pricey economic plan if Republicans in Congress block her proposed presidential agenda, one of several questions she dodged during her first one-on-one interview with a major news network since becoming the Democratic nominee. “If you can’t raise corporate taxes, or if the GOP takes control of the Senate, where do you get the money to do that? Do you still go for those plans and borrow?” MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Harris about her handout-heavy agenda. “Well, but we’re going to have to raise...

New York's Metro Transit Authority (MTA) was in the news last month for setting a world record for the sheer number of bus and rail patrons who refuse to pay a fare to ride. A full 48% of bus riders had ceased to pay the fare in addition to about 14% of subway riders. Now the MTA has approved a new capital plan, saying it needs $65.4 billion over the next several years to keep the system going.Much of the plan focuses on basic repairs, like upgrading decades-old electrical equipment and repairing elevated subway structures. There’s spending for new turnstiles...

Senate Republicans met Tuesday for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s weekly off-the-record members’ lunch. These meetings, along with regular Wednesday Steering Committee lunches, are among the few regular times when party senators gather in one room to set party policy and messaging. There are few clearer windows into McConnell’s priorities than these lunches, and Tuesday did not disappoint: The RAND Corporation was invited to present its report on military spending and the potential need to raise taxes to increase the military percentage of the country’s GDP. That’s right; that was the priority. It wasn’t the former president and Republican nominee, who...

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) gambit to attach the SAVE Act to a stop-gap spending bill failed in the House on Wednesday after Republicans opposed the bill. The six-month stop-gap spending bill, otherwise known as a continuing resolution (CR), failed 202-220. Fourteen Republicans voted against the legislation and two voted “present,” while three Democrats voted in favor of the bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is barreling forward with a Wednesday evening vote on a six-month spending bill despite its expected defeat. Johnson announced during the August recess that he would pair the six-month continuing resolution with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, in part to mollify conservatives — many of whom oppose continuing resolutions out of principle. However, once returning to Washington, DC, the speaker appears to have been caught off guard by opposition from multiple corners of the House Republican Conference, including conservatives, leading him to delay...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @RepMTGThis is classic bait and switch that will enrage the base, only one month before the election, when they find out they have been tricked and let down again. The only way to make the SAVE Act a law would be to refuse to pass a CR until the Senate agrees to pass the SAVE Act and Biden agrees to sign it into law. This would force a Gov shutdown on Oct 1 because Biden and Schumer both said they will shutdown the government as they are that adamant against the SAVE Act. Johnson will NOT...