Free Republic

Leaders of California's Democratic Legislative Latino Caucus on Monday said everything should be considered in order to keep providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants, including a new tax on Californians.

Now you know why Trump is so eager to cut wasteful spending! The real mystery is why Democrats and RINOs are so determined to continue wasteful spending and not cut taxes. Trump inherited a fiscal disaster from Biden and Congress. Not to mention The Federal Reserve. Credit default swaps (CDS) for the USA are near Greece (and China) levels. ... Since Covid struck in 2020, US debt is up a staggering 56% ... And M2 Money is up 40% since Covid.

EXCLUSIVE: The top tax-writer in the House of Representatives is arguing that President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" will be "big" for American taxpayers as well – including seniors. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and other Republicans on the panel spent months negotiating behind closed doors on how to enact Trump's tax policies. Among those is an added $4,000 deduction for Americans aged 65 or older. Seniors with income of less than $75,000 as single filers, and less than $150,000 as joint filers, would be eligible for the full deduction, which then would begin to phase...

A radical proposal to eliminate all property taxes in Ohio is gaining momentum, and it’s revealing something profound about the state’s political climate: Ohioans are furious with their government. In a recent episode of Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, the hosts dissected this controversial ballot initiative and the public reaction it’s generating. “Citizens for Property Tax Reform can now start collecting 413,000 signatures for a ballot issue that would eliminate property taxes in the state of Ohio,” said Lisa Garvin. The Ohio Ballot Board unanimously agreed it was a single-subject issue, clearing...

Many homeowners have seen their property taxes increase in recent years because of rising housing prices and local tax rates. But the property tax assessment isn't always set in stone: filing an appeal may lower the cost for years. The median property tax bill in the U.S. in 2024 was $3,500, up 2.8% from $3,349 in 2023, according to an April report by Realtor.com...... Appealing your assessment is "not a terribly difficult investment of time for a residential property owner," said Sepp. "The processes are reasonably easy and fair." Should you be successful, the change typically takes effect for the...

House Republicans’ “one, big, beautiful” tax bill includes a new temporary $4,000 deduction for older adults. The change, called a “bonus” in the legislation, is aimed at helping retirees keep more money in their pockets and provides an alternative to the idea of eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, which President Donald Trump and other lawmakers have touted. The temporary provision would apply to tax years 2025 through 2028. The deduction would start to phase out for single filers with more than $75,000 in modified adjusted gross income, and for married couples who file jointly with more than $150,000. As...

Since he first started running for president in 2016, Donald Trump has sought a 15% corporate tax rate. Unleash Prosperity co-founders Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore were in the room with him nine years ago when he first started talking up that rate. In the 2017 bill we got the rate down from 35% to 21%. Corporate revenues increased. Trump ran on 15% in 2024 and won. Still the House GOP tax bill has no rate cut. Even the scaled back 15% rate for made-in-America companies is nowhere to be found. This could have easily been paid for with the...

Planned Parenthood’s leaders launch into its 2023-2024 annual report with a markedly sad tone: “It’s been over two years since the U.S. Supreme Court took away our constitutional right to abortion.” Very quickly, however, readers can see the truth: that never before in its history has the abortion giant been so well-funded by American taxpayers, and never before has it ended more unborn lives than this past year – nearly three years since the Supreme Court held there is no right to abortion in the US Constitution. “Abortion bans have made pregnancy more dangerous, put patients and providers at risk...

CV NEWS FEED // The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) is included in House Republicans’ omnibus tax bill, US Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, announced May 12. Cassidy, a chief sponsor of the ECCA, said in a post on X that the inclusion of the act in what President Donald Trump has called the “one big, beautiful bill” is a victory for parents and children. Cassidy and US Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, led the introduction of the ECCA, which offers a charitable donation incentive for people and businesses who help fund scholarship awards to offset expenses for qualified students’ public...

* Currently, there’s a $10,000 limit on the federal deduction on state and local taxes, known as SALT, which will expire Dec. 31, 2025, without action from Congress. House Republicans are calling for a higher limit on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, as part of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending package. The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax, released the full text of its portion of the bill on Monday afternoon. The SALT provision would raise the cap to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less....

Planned Parenthood used Mother’s Day weekend to release its 2023-2024 annual report revealing a staggering 402,230 abortions during that year — the most the corporation has ever reported to date. This is an increase of 2.42% from the 392,715 abortions Planned Parenthood reported last year. As Congress debates whether to defund Planned Parenthood, this newly released annual report shows that taxpayer dollars granted to Planned Parenthood (for the year ending June 30, 2024) have risen by more than 13% from the $699.3 million recorded by Planned Parenthood in 2022-23 to a whopping $792.2 million recorded in 2023-24. Between 2022-23 and...

Pro-life lawmakers from across the country are demanding that Congress put an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, calling on Republicans to use their “trifecta” in Washington. The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Idaho Senator Mike Crapo and Kentucky Rep. Brett Guthrie and signed by 183 legislators, urges Republican leadership to include a measure to defund “Big Abortion” in the budget reconciliation bill, which is scheduled for markups on Tuesday. Planned Parenthood rakes in tens of millions from taxpayers every year, according to its annual reports, while performing about 400,000 abortions between...

The House Ways and Means Committee will soon release the GOP’s first draft of the party’s tax proposals, and the irony is that the bill may be getting worse even as a good bill becomes more urgent. President Trump has pitched a tax-rate increase that even Democrats failed to pass, and parochial demands are shrinking the pro-growth value of the bill. Republicans seem to have forgotten the principles of sound tax policy, even the lessons of the successful 2017 reform. Most of the 26 GOP Members of Ways and Means weren’t in Congress in 2017. The intellectual capital of previous...

On April 10, the House voted to pass H. Con. Res. 14, a budget resolution blueprint that sets spending and revenue targets or the federal budget. Budget resolutions do not actually set funding levels and do not have the force of law. However, they are an important first step toward the process through which Congress can begin to appropriate federal funds. By passing this resolution, the House will be able to continue the process of passing a budget reconciliation bill. A reconciliation bill can only focus on budget-related measures, but it’s a powerful tool because it only needs a simple...

House Ways and Means Committee partially revealing tax legislation... leaders of at least four nations headed into Ukraine...Kremlin appreciation for President Trump's efforts to settle the war... South African officials criticizing the US plan to take in white... "I won't fight for a team that refuses to win"...Marjorie Taylor Greene...will not run for US Senate... Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka arrested at an immigration detention... A federal district judge ordering release...Turkish student from Tufts University... On Saturday morning India saying its armed forces are responding to Pakistan's Saturday morning attacks...Pakistan announcing retaliation against India...Indian airbases among the targets hit......

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he did not want to see taxes go up on anybody when asked about President Donald Trump’s comments on taxes. On Truth Social Trump posted, “The problem with even a “TINY” tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming,“Read my lips,” the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot...

A Long Island suburb voted to wallop homeowners with a 87% property tax hike— with local officials saying the insane increase was necessary because of a years-long administrative goof. Atlantic Beach’s village board of trustees told residents the big number was needed because of how taxes were assessed by the county in recent decades but officials refused to give The Post further information or answer any questions. The Nassau County assessor said it was the village government that was improperly billing commercial properties. ... Though village officials blamed assessment quirks, some residents said part of the hike is to cover...

People who pay more in taxes could be less likely to die from cancer. The link was revealed in a new study published in JAMA Network Open, which aimed to explore how state-level tax revenue impacts cancer screenings and mortality in the U.S. Researchers from The Ohio State University, Emory University in Georgia and the University of Verona in Italy analyzed 1,150 state-years of tax data over a 23-year period, between 1997 and 2019. (A state-year refers to one year of data from one state.) They also reviewed population-level cancer screening rates and cancer-related deaths from Centers for Disease Control...

A great piece in the WSJ by former Reagan speechwriter Kenneth Khachigian reminds us of what happened when Reagan was snookered into raising taxes 40 years ago.“In 1988 Reagan complained that the 1982 tax increase that he reluctantly embraced was among the worst decisions of his presidency.”“The fellas promised I would get $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of taxes I agreed to. Instead, for every dollar of new taxes we got $1.70 in new spending – the complete reversal of what I was promised.” We would add that on several occasions when taxes were proposed to Reagan during...

The big, beautiful tax bill winding its way through the House and Senate just got a lot better. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio just posted the draft text of its portion of the bill yesterday and it’s a banger. They would amend the Congressional Review Act (which allows Congress to rescind costly regulatory agency regs) to correct its biggest design flaw. Even if the House and Senate vote to overturn a regulation, the president who issued the regulation can use his veto to save his own rules (except when the presidency has just changed...