Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Is the highest-paid mayor in the United States broke? With just over a month left in his second and final term, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will leave office in June reportedly without a place to live or a car of his own to drive, according to a report published Thursday. Jill Stewart, L.A. Weekly’s managing editor, told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO that Villaraigosa faces an uncertain political – and financial – future when he steps down June 30. In order to maintain his current lifestyle, which includes frequent cross-country travel, a mayoral mansion at the taxpayer-supported Getty House,...

Opponents hope Rick Perry’s spending record as governor may be his Achilles’ heel. During the debate at the Reagan Library last week, the Romney campaign blasted out an e-mail to reporters entitled, “Perry’s Record on Spending,” with an ominous warning that “under Perry’s leadership, total state spending has increased by an average of nearly 17 percent each budget cycle.” Keep Conservatives United, a PAC supporting Michele Bachmann’s candidacy, released a TV ad earlier this month charging Perry with “doubl[ing] spending in a decade.” But factor in inflation and Texas’ population boom, and the uptick in spending becomes significantly more reasonable....

Why Cut Spending to Save Money, and Then Raise Taxes to Give Iresponsible Politicians More Money to Spend??? Why give more money to those who've proven they are totally incapable of handling it responsibly? It makes no sense. First, we are told the nation has a crisis of spending. Billions upon billions of it is entirely stupid spending. We are paying for everything from boondoggle research to bribes in Afghanistan to Auntie Leon's sex change operation to politicians' fake "working vacations" in exotic lands (with exotic golf courses.) Because of all that ridiculous spending, we are told we need to...

One by one, gleaming motorcades pulled up outside of a white-columned home on a farm just outside this city, each depositing the wife of a foreign leader here for an economic summit. Inside, Michelle Obama waited for her first turn as international hostess. It was up to her to show a good time to counterparts from around the globe while President Barack Obama and the other world leaders debated the world's fiscal mess. Guests were led to a patio of the home, owned by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the local philanthropist and wife of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the former Democratic...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Nick Rahall (D., W.Va.) is island-hopping this week in the Pacific. Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) is tweeting from Kenya. Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) is preparing for a three-week trip to Europe with his wife. More * Congress Retreats Over Jet Purchase 8/11/09 * Opposition Emerges to House's Jet Spree 8/10/2009 * Lawmakers' Global-Warming Trip Hit Tourist Hot Spots 8/8/2009 * Pentagon Takes Aim at Jets for Congressional Travel 8/8/2009 * Congress Gets a Plane Upgrade 8/7/2009 Journal Community * Discuss: How much of the official travel by members of Congress is justified? These are among...

Arizona, Florida, and Nevada have run through the riches of their boom and are starting to look more like cash-strapped New York. If states were airlines, New York and California would be Delta and United. Even when competently managed, they must shoulder the institutional inheritance of decades of other people’s decisions, good and bad. They must bear the heavy cost of legions of retired government workers. And they carry billions of dollars of debt that backs expensive, complex infrastructure. Over the last few decades, when New Yorkers and Californians tired of paying high taxes to fund big government, they tended...

John McCain pledged yesterday to balance the budget by 2013. Barack Obama responded by claiming that it can’t be balanced, and he can’t be bothered to try: Not only does Obama say he won’t eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do, he frankly says he’s not sure he’d bring it down at all in four years, considering his own spending plans. “I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families,” Obama told reporters...

It is very rare, if not unheard of, to catch a presidential candidate, especially a Republican, in the act of saying he or she would be willing to sign any tax increase that lawmakers wished for. But that's what happened to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has rocketed to a statistical tie in Iowa with Mitt Romney, largely as a result of the former Baptist minister's support from evangelical voters in the nation's first caucus state. The Club for Growth, an effective tax-cut advocacy group, has been on Huckabee's back almost from the beginning of his candidacy, sending out...

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told breast cancer survivors Tuesday that their disease "is getting less than a fair shake" when it comes to research funding. Romney, a former governor who made health care reform his signature issue in Massachusetts, suggested that as president he would increase federal spending on research of breast cancer and other cancers. "There's no substitute for funding," he said

Why did the governor push ahead an appeal of the trial court's decision, even though he removed the potential savings from his budget? Our only conclusion is that the administration wanted to create a precedent that would eviscerate taxpayer protections for bond spending. Had the state won the case on appeal, virtually any debt run up by the government (for schools, government salaries, pensions, etc.) could be determined a legal obligation, and then those costs could be offloaded to future taxpayers and kept off the annual budget books. State legislators and this governor love to spend money. They love to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A nearly $4 billion windfall from unanticipated revenue would be used to pay down debt, improve highways and restore some funds cut from schools and other programs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed Friday. While the revised $115.7 billion state budget plan would take a big step toward balancing state spending with income, it did little to satisfy the governor's critics among Democratic lawmakers and education officials, who vowed to fight the proposal. "As governor, you have to be like a parent," said Schwarzenegger during a news conference near the Capitol. "No, no, no - you can't this,...

Twice so far this year Sen. J. F. Kerry has flown his hair dresser across the country from Washington D.C.. I've been considering just how much fuel that might require. If you thought an SUV's mileage was bad wait until you see these numbers! Presumably the hair dresser traveled in the Kerry family's Gulfstream IV jet, the "Flying Squirrel." A bit of Googling reveals that a Gulfstream IV consumes 3000 lbs./hr. at altitude cruising at 450 kts. Factoring in the weight of Jet-A fuel and converting knots to miles-per-hour that comes to 1.2 mpg. For comparison an 18-wheeler with a...

<p>NEW YORK — Mike Tyson is no longer in the boxing ring, but he's still getting knocked out ... financially.</p> <p>Once the most feared man in boxing, Tyson has filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court (search), claiming that his finances are in disarray and he is unable to pay his bills.</p>

Texas Republican Ron Paul was the U.S. House member most committed last year kto reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, deft, and legistation, according to the National Taxpayers Union's annualrating of Congress. Paul claimed the top spot in the House for the third consecutive year. The rating, which isbased on roll-call votes affecting fiscal policy, assigns a "Taypayer Score" to each member of Congress. Paul scored 88 percent. His fellow, Central Texas Republican, Lamar Smith, scored 61 percent. Austin's rep Democrat Lloyd Doggett, scored 21 percent. In the Senate, Texas Republicans Phil Gramm and Kay Baily Hutchison scored 87 percent...