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Tag: taxes
The Left’s Secret Repeal of No Taxes on Tips
What began as a campaign promise in Nevada became law this summer with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: “No taxes on tips” is now nationwide. But even as pundits debate its merits, progressive cities are quietly undoing the tax cut—and few are noticing.
Progressive cities such as Washington, D.C., and Chicago have recently eliminated the tipped-wage credit, which lets employers pay tipped employees below minimum wage as long as tips filled the gap. Now, New York City is the next battleground in a push to mandate a one-size-fits-all minimum wage.
The campaign against the tipped-wage credit began before then-candidate Donald Trump floated “no taxes on tips,” but few have considered how these ideas play out together. To see the consequences, look at what happened when D.C. scrapped the tipped-wage credit.
After D.C. repealed the credit—causing such a backlash that the city council has already voted to partially reverse the decision—servers reported tips falling from roughly 23 percent to 25 percent to 18 percent to 20 percent. Research from the Census Bureau shows that for every $1 increase in the mandated minimum wage for tipped workers, tips drop by about the same amount.
Prior to the repeal, the minimum wage for D.C. servers was $5.35 an hour; the rate was scheduled to increase to $16.10 by 2027—a $10.75 jump. The back-of-the-envelope math shows the potential tax implications.
On an average night, a D.C. server at a quality establishment might turn over four to five tables during the two-hour dinner rush, and the total gross sales from those tables may be modestly estimated at $500. If that server was tipped at 23 percent prior to D.C.’s elimination of the tipped-wage credit, they would have made $115 in tips, vs. an estimated $95 after the repeal—a $20 expected decline in tips. But that is before the “no taxes on tips” landscape.
At first glance, higher base pay seems to offset smaller tips ($16.10 per hour over that two-hour period versus $5.35 per hour would work out to $21.50 total in extra wages). But those new wages are taxable. For a server in the 12 percent tax bracket—typical for D.C.—a $21.50 raise nets only about $19 after taxes, less than the $20 in tax-free tips they lost. The gap widens the more tips a worker earns.
If every extra dollar in required wages replaces a dollar in lost tips, as Census Bureau data suggest, then repealing the tipped-wage credit effectively swaps tax-free income for taxable income. The same could soon hit gig workers and hotel staff.
Eliminating the tipped-wage credit now shifts earnings from tax-free to taxed—a de facto tax increase on these workers that could also lead to lower take-home pay in many scenarios.
Who gets food stamps? Viral chart misleads about SNAP recipients’ race, ethnicity
With millions of people at risk of losing access to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1, a viral chart claimed to show the majority of the nation’s food stamp recipients are non-white and noncitizens.
The chart, titled “Food Stamps by Ethnicity,” listed 36 groups of people and said it showed the “percentage of U.S. households receiving SNAP benefits.”
The groups were labeled by nationality such as “Afghan,” “Somali,” “Iraqi,” along with the racial groups “white,” “Black” and “native.” The chart appeared to show that Afghan people were the largest group receiving SNAP benefits, at 45.6%, followed by Somali (42.4%) and Iraqi (34.8%). White people, represented on the chart with the American flag, were third to last at 8.6%.
The federal government shutdown, which started Oct. 1, is the cause of the looming SNAP funding lapse. SNAP provides food purchasing benefits to low-income households. Conservatives have peddled the misleading narrative that Democrats are pushing for healthcare for illegal immigrants, and people commenting on the chart rehashed a similar talking point.
“Who is getting their EBT cut,” read the caption of an Oct. 25 X post sharing the chart, which had 3.1 million views as of Oct. 27. EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer, which is a SNAP payment system.
“Only 18.7% of EBT or food stamp recipients are American. Let that sink in…” read another post sharing the chart, seemingly mistakenly referring to the figure next to the word “Armenian”; there was no “American” category in the chart. “We are subsidizing foreigners on the taxpayers dime.”
The chart doesn’t show the full picture of SNAP recipients by race or ethnicity. The most reliable source for the breakdown of SNAP recipients by demographics comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program.
According to the most recent USDA data available, from 2023, white people are the largest racial group receiving SNAP benefits, at 35.4%. African Americans are next, making up 25.7% of recipients, then Hispanic people at 15.6%, Asian people at 3.9%, Native Americans at 1.3% and multiracial people at 1%. The race of 17% of participants is unknown.
The same report found that 89.4% of SNAP recipients were U.S born citizens, meaning less than 11% of SNAP participants were foreign-born. Of the latter figure, 6.2% were naturalized citizens, 1.1% were refugees and 3.3% were other noncitizens, including lawful permanent residents and other eligible noncitizens.
While large shares of the groups listed in the chart may receive food stamps, “they are certainly a tiny share of the households and spending on SNAP,” said Tracy Roof, University of Richmond associate professor of political science.
Study Reveals Taxpayer Funds Meant to End Homelessness Are Being Used to Fund the Radical Left’s Agenda
A new study has exposed waste and abuse in the industry that is meant to ‘end’ homelessness. It revealed that taxpayer dollars that have been earmarked for this problem have been funneled to radical left wing causes for political reasons.
It actually makes perfect sense. There are lots of people who make a ton of money fighting homelessness. Why would they want the problem to be solved? That would mean an end to their industry.
This is a reminder that progressives do not actually care about the homeless. They see them as a means to an end. A way to fund their preferred political causes.
FOX News reports:
A new study just exposed the corruption behind America’s homelessness crisis
A groundbreaking investigation, “Infiltrated” – backed by more than 50 pages of documentation from the Capital Research Center in cooperation with Discovery Institute – pulls back the curtain on a vast system of corruption. It reveals how billions in taxpayer funds intended to lift people out of homelessness have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti-American political agendas, betraying both the taxpayers who fund it and the homeless they were meant to help…
It exposes how radical networks have quietly embedded themselves within leading homelessness nonprofits, sharing infrastructure, donors and ideology.
What began as a movement rooted in compassion has metastasized into what can only be described as a Homelessness Industrial Complex – a sprawling web of nonprofits, bureaucrats and activists feeding off the very crisis they claim to solve.
They’ve built an empire of corruption draped in “evidence-based” slogans that shield politics, protect paychecks and betray the vulnerable.
The report lays it bare: these networks posture as defenders of America’s homeless, yet in truth, they have become their greatest exploiters, dependent on failure to sustain power.
Senate Republicans Reject Bill to Fund SNAP Benefits During Shutdown
Senate Republicans on Tuesday voted down a Democratic bill to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through the government shutdown.
As tens of millions of Americans stare down the prospect of going hungry beginning Nov. 1, Senate Republicans rejected a unanimous consent bid by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) to keep the program funded.
SNAP allows those with low to no income to buy food and beverages at grocery stores.
While this benefit is mandatory—unlike Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—it is funded through appropriations.
SNAP benefits were scheduled to be handed out on Nov. 1, but without government funding, that assistance will not be administered.
An earlier, now-deleted Sept. 30 post from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled “Lapse of Funding Plan,” said that SNAP benefits would continue flowing during the shutdown. The agency is now contradicting that earlier memo.
New Report Exposes Billions in Funding for the ‘Homeless Industrial Complex’
Americans spend billions of dollars to combat homelessness, through donations and taxpayer funding, but the “Homeless Industrial Complex” uses this money for political activism that actually demonizes the policies more likely to solve the crisis, according to a new report.
“Fringe groups in the Homeless Industrial Complex like to characterize homelessness as a symptom of societal injustices, such as systemic racism, police violence, or capitalism,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, which released the report, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “Anyone who disagrees with their tried-and-not-true policy recommendations is called uncompassionate or greedy.”
The report, “Infiltrated: The Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy,” focuses on the 759 organizations that filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024), arguing that laws against camping on the sidewalk violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Supreme Court disagreed, but the nonprofit support for this claim illustrates how organizations founded to help solve the homelessness crisis engage in activism that arguably exacerbates it.
The Capital Research Center report finds that the nonprofits collectively have $9.1 billion in total revenues and received at least $2.9 billion in government grants (32% of their revenues), according to IRS filings.
Attacking Trump and Conservatives
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing nonprofit that puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” alongside the Ku Klux Klan and has an endowment of more than $700 million, was the second-largest nonprofit to sign an amicus brief in the Grants Pass case.
The SPLC’s involvement “illustrates the disconnect between those charities that provide genuine services to the needy, and those that use their resources to advance a left-wing ideological agenda,” Walter said.
“When President [Donald] Trump signed a series of commonsensical executive orders in 2025 to protect public safety and address the root causes of homelessness, the SPLC and other allied groups accused him of human rights violations,” he noted.
Trump’s order “Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets” notes that America hit a grim milestone when 274,224 people lived on the streets on a single night in January 2024, and that most of the homeless “are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.” His order directs the federal government to enforce bans on open illicit drug use and on urban camping and shifting the homeless into “long-term institutional settings for humane treatment.”
In response, SPLC Deputy Legal Director Kirsten Anderson accused Trump of “resurrecting unlawful and outdated approaches to housing that are rooted in racist stereotypes and bias against people with disabilities.”
Senate Votes 52-48 to Nuke Trump’s Tariffs on Brazil — These Five RINOs Voted with the Democrats
The Senate on Tuesday voted 52-48 to nuke President Trump’s 50% tariffs on Brazil.
House Speaker Mike Johnson will not hold a vote on the measure, so the Senate’s vote was a waste of time.
President Trump would never sign the measure into law anyway.
Five RINO Republicans voted with the Democrats to repeal the tariffs on incoming materials:
- Rand Paul (KY)
- Thom Tillis (NC)
- Susan Collins (ME)
- Lisa Murkowski (AK)
- Mitch McConnell (KY)
Earlier this year, the Senate voted to nuke President Trump’s Canadian tariffs.
RINOs Murkowski, Collins, McConnell, and Rand Paul voted to repeal those tariffs.
President Trump is currently in the Supreme Court fighting to keep his tariffs in place after a court said Trump exceeded his authority.
Last month, the US Supreme Court agreed to fast-track President Trump’s tariff case.
In May, the Court of International Trade in New York said President Trump exceeded his authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA).
The DOJ immediately appealed the federal appeals court’s ruling on Trump’s tariffs.
President Trump ripped the judges over the summer.
“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end. If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong,” Trump said in August.
The U.S.A. will no longer tolerate enormous Trade Deficits and unfair Tariffs and Non Tariff Trade Barriers imposed by other Countries, friend or foe, that undermine our Manufacturers, Farmers, and everyone else.”
Trump Administration Overhauls Biden’s DEI Broadband Program that Connected Zero Households in 4 Years
Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Arielle Roth, outlined the Administration’s policies for reforming the wasteful Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in a speech at the Hudson Institute this week. According to Roth, “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.”
As Breitbart has previously reported, BEAD was filled with DEI mandates, climate-regulation burdens, and a fiber-technology bias that virtually banned viable satellite and fixed-wireless solutions — despite fiber being inefficient in sparsely populated areas. Rather than prioritizing connecting rural Americans most cost-effectively, BEAD under Biden became an ideological vehicle — so much so that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) admitted four years after the bill’s passage that it hadn’t connected a single household.
The $42.5 billion federal program prioritized woke corporate mandates and handouts to the politically connected fiber and broadband lobby, while discriminating against far more efficient Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite technology, such as SpaceX’s Starlink. Four years after it passed, it proposed spending tens of thousands of dollars per household, but failed to connect a single American.
Assistant Secretary Roth agreed, noting that “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.” However, she alluded to the problem of state governments undermining the Trump administration’s priorities on BEAD, explaining, “As BEAD moves toward final plan approvals, delivering results means keeping defaults to an absolute minimum. A program this large and unprecedented must be managed with discipline and careful oversight. That means meticulously reviewing state proposals to ensure compliance, prevent distortionary outcomes, and protect against waste.”
Trump Says SNAP Benefits Will Be Solved for Next Month
President Donald Trump said that he believes Republicans will solve how to fund food stamps, when he was asked about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the government shutdown.
SNAP is slated to expire by Nov. 1, potentially ending benefits for millions of people across the United States.
“We’re going to get it done,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Oct. 29. “The Democrats have caused the problem, unfortunately. All they have to do is sign, and if they sign, I’ll meet with them.”
The president then suggested that the shutdown is linked to broader talks on health care and an extension of subsidies. Senate Democrats have refused 13 times to pass bills to reopen the government because those measures do not include health care provisions, including an extension of Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) subsidies slated to expire at the end of the year.
“We have to fix health care because Obamacare is a disaster,” Trump said, referring to the Affordable Care Act. “When you see the increases in Obamacare, it never worked, it never will work, and we could do something with the Democrats much better than Obamacare. Less money and better health care.”
Trump then said that health insurance companies are “making too much money” and said that talks are needed between Republicans and Democrats when the shutdown ends.
Illegals vs. the Deserving American Poor
The other day I was driving on a small mountain road and came upon a road construction project. At both ends of the work the flag crew consisted of two older women bundled up against the cold — yes, it’s starting to get cold in the Colorado mountains.
What struck me was their age. They were surprisingly old. I have never met these women in my life, but I’d bet a lot of money they were out working on this job not because they like the fresh air but because they need the money.
You see the same thing in Walmart, grocery, and other retail stores, and in thousands of other unseen occupations. Older workers struggling to get by, doing whatever jobs are open to people of their age and ability.
And it annoys me beyond belief. I would also bet a lot of money that the vast majority of these people either personally bled for this country or have relatives who have — far too many actually giving their lives for this great country.
What greater sacrifice can one make for their country? I can think of none. Yet these people are kicked to the curb by our government and the elites while money that could go to them is instead showered as free stuff for illegal aliens.
Remember, that’s what the illegal part is all about — they shouldn’t have been allowed in the country in the first place.
What could Social Security payments and others be if all this money went to only U.S. citizens? A few hundred a month could make a huge difference in these citizens’ lives. Perhaps big decreases in health insurance costs for the average working schmoe?
Is there a greater insult a country could send to its citizens than this? You or your kin gave blood and sometimes lives for this country, but when in need, the sacrifice is ignored and non-citizen criminals — they broke the law coming here and they break it every day they remain — are placed ahead of you.
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