Free Republic

Summoning his inner community organizer, President Obama said Thursday he intends to “mobilize the country” this year around a national mission of giving poor Americans a shot at economic success. “This is going to be a year of action,” Mr. Obama said at the White House. “This is not just a job for government. This is a job for everybody.” The president announced the selection of five new “promise zones” — distressed communities that will qualify for tax breaks and expedited grants to combat poverty. The administration chose Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Antonio, an eight-county region in southeastern Kentucky and...

Give Stephen Fuller credit for this much: He's willing to admit he was wrong. During the debate leading up to the federal budget sequester, Fuller was a voice of doom. An economist at George Mason University and the director of its Center for Regional Analysis, he predicted that sequestration would be especially calamitous for Washington, D.C., and its surroundings. If Congress didn't stop the automatic spending cuts from going into effect, Fuller warned last year, the Washington area was headed for a "devastating recession." Some 450,000 jobs, many of them in the private sector, would be wiped out in Virginia,...

With the ongoing conversation everyone has been having on income disparity, here's a Mint Blog infographic analyzing the phenomenon state by state. Unsurprisingly, smaller states with fancy New York City-like commuter neighborhoods are among the richest, while Southern regions are among the poorest. What's truly interesting are a few unexpected states in the second-to-poorest bracket, including Florida, Idaho, and Montana:

We turn to the Wall Street Journal for the math on what it will cost to raise taxes on corporations’ retiree prescription drug coverage. This is the provision that has caused several corporations to take markdowns recently. The bottom line: by closing this “loophole” — which was originally created to dissuade companies from dumping retirees’ prescription costs into Medicare Part D — the government could lose more than five times what it brings in. The Employee Benefit Research Institute calculates that the 28% subsidy on average will run taxpayers $665 in 2011 and that the tax dispensation is worth $233....

While policymakers debate a few million dollars for ACORN and a few hundred billion dollars more for health care reform, those committed to one-world government are moving ahead with plans for a global tax that could extract trillions of dollars out of Americans' already depleted IRAs and stock holdings. One can't exclude the possibility of such a tax being slipped into a health care or cap-and-trade bill that the Congress or the public could not have time to read before passage. Bob Davis of the Wall Street Journal deserves a journalism prize for taking the time to read the recent...

On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change expert, gave a presentation at Bethel College in St. Paul, MN in which he issued a dire warning regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty which is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009. .. Video 4:11 min

This year, more than any other, there has been significant agreement that our tax system is not fair, that the rich take advantage over the poor, and that the poor in America are more needy than ever. Despite the apparent unanimity of thought in these areas, the facts seem to be quite different. For example, the bottom 1/5 of all households has had a surprising upward mobility, while those with the largest wealth trended downward and this information has been provided from what one would believe is an objective source: the Treasury Department and the IRS. The IRS reported that...

Barack Obama proposed legislation titled Global Poverty Act (S. 2433) and was approved by the Committee, on which Joe Biden was on. The bill suggests we spend .7% of our GDP - .7% of 13.8 Trillion is just under $100 billion EACH YEAR! - on helping people around the world that live on less than 1 dollar a day. Coincidentally that does not include impoverished people living in the United States...

Jack Kennedy is famous for saying "Ask NOT what your country can do for you..." I think Barack Obama will be best remembered for asking "What has your country done for YOU lately?" or in the words of his wife, "What has your country done to make YOU proud lately?" Or since Obama is so in love with Matthew 25, I'll use my favorite chapter from the Gospel, Matthew 22:15-22, and turn it on its head. Obama's message is simply and best stated as:"Let the rich people render unto Caesar and Caesar shall render redistributive wealth unto YOU."Caesar shall render...

NBC’s Campbell Brown on the losers behind Bush’s child tax credit — minimum-wage families May 29 -- At Wednesday's signing ceremony President Bush hailed the tax-cut bill for how much it will help families. But NBC's Campbell Brown reports that's not true for families making minimum wage. By Campbell Brown NBC NEWS May 29 — At Tuesday’s White House signing ceremony for the tax-cut bill, President Bush lauded the tax cut for how much it would help families, saying it would add “$400 per child to 25 million eligible families” and promising that the check is in the mail. “Those...

Individual important in utopian world based on equality by Linda Rabadi March 25, 2003 Linda Rabadi is a senior piano major and writes ‘Talking About a Revolution’ for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Many groups of the political left advocate equality. We want fair treatment for individuals of all walks of life, not just those who are fortunate enough to have been born into a privileged position in our society. But when promoting this equality and striving to design a world where this can exist, we must be careful of what...