Tag: taxes

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: Trump Wants No Taxes for Americans Earning Under $150,000 Annually

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed that President Donald Trump aims to abolish federal taxes for all Americans earning under $150,000 annually.

Lutnick made the revelation during an interview with CBS News on Tuesday.

“I know what his goal is: No tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year. That’s his goal. That’s what I’m working for,” Lutnick told CBS, underscoring a vision that would put thousands of dollars back into the pockets of American families.

Lutnick elaborated further in a separate interview with Fox News, detailing how Trump intends to finance this massive tax relief plan while balancing the budget.

According to Lutnick, the Trump administration is focused on driving revenue through tariffs, closing offshore tax scams, and slashing excessive spending, instead of squeezing the middle class for every last penny.

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A New Beltway Mystery: Follow the Biden EPA Money

When the Biden administration announced $27 billion in environmental grants last April, it set the clock ticking on a predicament: how to get the unprecedented sums for the President’s envisioned NetZero future out the door before the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30?

The task was complicated by the fact most of the money – $20 billion – would go to just eight nonprofits that, like the Environmental Protection Agency itself, had never handled such gargantuan grants.

In hindsight, it’s easy to suspect that corners were cut, or laws were broken, or, at the very least, extraordinary measures were taken.

Those possibilities are clearly on the mind of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as he tries to unravel what happened to Inflation Reduction Act spending that the Biden White House’s Office of Management and Budget and the EPA decided to expedite before the November election – an effort that included moving the roughly $20 billion to a private institution, Citibank, away from oversight of the Treasury Department.

On Wednesday, Zeldin moved to terminate the arrangements as the enriched nonprofits have filed lawsuits looking to protect their grants. The battle has thrust into the spotlight what had been a rather quiet attempt by the Biden administration to spend the $27 billion.

The money was put into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a new entity born in 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress without any Republican support.

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Trade War: Tariffs Are Needed To Defeat Globalism But They Come With A Cost

Ever since the days of Herbert Hoover and the official start of the Great Depression the concept of trade tariffs has been readily demonized across most of academia and among the majority of modern economic ideologies. Is is actually one area where globalists and free market economists tend to align (though each group has very different reasons).

Proponents of Adam Smith’s free market philosophy or Ludwig Von Mises and his Austrian school are Just as likely to be opposed to Donald Trump’s tariff plans as any globalist from the halls of Davos.

First and foremost we have to make it clear what tariffs are: Tariffs are taxes on international companies importing goods from other nations. These taxes are designed to force companies to import from countries outside of the tariff list or produce goods domestically. The primary targets of tariffs are actually corporations. The secondary targets are countries on the tariff list.

Austrian economists in their opposition to tariffs operate on the assumption that large corporations are “free market” entities. They also assume that globalism is a product of free markets.

Adam Smith might have witnessed the corruption of mercantalism, but he had no inkling of the monstrosity of modern globalism and how it would ultimately pervert the free market ideal. The same goes for Mises. Their support for global trade was contingent on the idea that government interference is always the root problem, the fly in the ointment.

They did not take into account the blurring of lines between corporations, governments and NGOs – They did not consider the corporate shadow government of Davos and the manipulation of markets in the name of “free trade”. They couldn’t have even fathomed the creation of organizations like the IMF, World Bank, the BIS, etc. at the time they came up with their economic theories.

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HUD Secretary Scott Turner Rejects Asheville’s $225M Disaster Relief Request After Shocking DEI Clause Exposed

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner has decisively rejected Asheville, North Carolina’s outrageous $225 million disaster relief request.

The reason? A jaw-dropping Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) clause buried deep in the city’s draft action plan—a clause that prioritizes woke ideology over the urgent needs of everyday Americans still reeling from Hurricane Helene’s devastation six months ago.

In an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, Secretary Turner condemned the city’s initial draft action plan for prioritizing assistance based on race and gender identity rather than need.

“This draft action plan that the city of Asheville presented at first has elements of DEI, and that is not acceptable to HUD,” Turner told Bartiromo.

“It’s not acceptable to the President, according to his executive order to get rid of all DEI. We’re working with the city of Asheville. They have been very responsive to make sure that their upcoming draft action plan is in compliance with HUD and how we give funds out according to HUD’s principles.”

“We’re happy to be here. They’re working with us, and we’re looking forward to helping the people of Asheville recover from this disaster.”

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800 billion euros of delusional promises

Von der Leyen has accustomed us to her grandstanding nihilism and disconnection from reality. Listening to her, one might sometimes get the impression that she sees herself as a kind of a god of creation, capable of transforming everything into matter with the mere power of her words. But of course, this is not true! The Russian economy has not collapsed in “tatters”; in fact, it has shown remarkable resilience, with wages growing at their highest rate in 16 years (a 21.6% increase compared to March of last year, and an 11.3% real growth after inflation—a dream for any Portuguese citizen), with the average wage expected to reach $1,113 by 2025, while everything remains cheaper than in any EU country.

It is also not true that the Russians have been stripping semiconductors from washing machines, nor is it true that the G7 has blocked Russian oil exports with their oil caps. In fact, Russia has never exported as much oil as it does today. The broker Ursula von der Leyen was also wrong when she claimed that the U.S. had the cheapest LNG—why would Trump want to lower prices now?—urging European countries to buy more shale gas, in violation of the European corporate sustainability directive, which requires suppliers to comply with environmental sustainability rules. As is well known, shale gas is extracted through fracking, a method highly damaging to the environment and banned in the EU. It seems that for the unelected president of the European Commission, directives are applied according to her whims.

But the latest delusion from the European Commission president is the announcement of a “massive boost”—as she loves these Americanized propaganda slogans with supposed creative power—to European military spending, which has already been increasing over time, but now she proposes to raise it by an additional 840 billion euros. It’s worth noting that she was Germany’s Defense Minister, during the scandal involving the sale of Trident submarines to Portugal, a deal that led to the imprisonment of several intermediaries. During that time too, von der Leyen, when investigated about several businesses, said that she lost the cellphone which helped her avoid jail. Similarly, during her time at the European Commission, she was involved in the vaccine procurement scandal. Certain character traits never disappear, and it’s a pity that these are the traits that determine who gets chosen for such positions. To our detriment.

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White House Responds to Email From Senior USAID Official Ordering Destruction of Documents

The White House on Tuesday evening responded to an email from a senior USAID official ordering remaining staffers to destroy documents.

The document shredding took place at the Ronald Reagan Building Tuesday.

Thousands of USAID workers were placed on administrative leave so the building is being cleared out.

“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email from USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr said.

“The only labeling required on the burn bags are the words “SECRET” and “USAID/(B/IO)” in dark sharpie if possible,” the email said.

The email was obtained by Propublica, Politico and CBS News.

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US Army’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicles Never Passed Required Armor Testing

In news that we’re certain will have Adam Schiff laying out a multi-national, multi-planetary conspiracy that can only be stopped by impeaching Donald Trump tomorrow, a new report from Bloomberg found that from 2017 to 2019, employees at Evraz North America Inc., a Russian-owned steel manufacturer, falsified quality control tests on armor plating used in the JLTV, according to an internal report and company officials.

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), the U.S. Army’s successor to the Humvee, is designed to protect troops from bullets, mines, and explosives. At its Portland, Oregon facility, workers skipped mandatory hardness tests and fabricated results for about 12,800 armor plates, which were falsely labeled as approved. Some of these plates later developed cracks, raising concerns about their reliability in combat.

Oshkosh Defense LLC, a major military vehicle manufacturer, was a key customer for Evraz’s armor plates. The company produces the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), marketed as a “go-anywhere, do-anything” light tactical vehicle. Primarily used by the U.S. military, the JLTV has also been provided to Ukraine, Israel, Brazil, and Lithuania. As of last year, over 22,000 JLTVs had been built, each expected to last around 20 years, the report says.

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“Shred And Burn All Documents”: USAID Staff Ordered To Destroy Evidence On Tuesday

A senior USAID official on Tuesday ordered the agency’s remaining staff to report to their now-former headquarters in Washington DC for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents, many of which contain sensitive information, Politico reports.

The materials marked for destruction include “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, according to an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr.

“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” read the email instructing staff to label the burn bags with “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO” (which stands for “bureau or independent office”) in dark sharpie.

According to the report, the email did not provide any reasoning for the document destruction, however the building is currently being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted the routine destruction of materials. 

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US Resumes Military Aid, Intelligence Sharing for Ukraine

The Trump administration has lifted its pause on military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine following talks between US and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

US officials said the move came after Ukraine signaled it was open to a 30-day ceasefire if Russia agreed.

“Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” the US and Ukraine said in a joint statement.

“The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace. The United States will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine,” the statement added.

The joint statement also said that “both countries’ presidents agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s critical mineral resources to expand Ukraine’s economy and guarantee Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security.”

So far, there’s been no reaction from Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, saying in January that he wouldn’t accept “some kind of respite for regrouping forces and rearmament with the aim of subsequently continuing the conflict” and that he wanted a “long-term peace based on respect for the legitimate interests of all people, all nations living in this region.”

Moscow also has the momentum on the battlefield on its side as its forces continue to make gains in eastern Ukraine and are pushing Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

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Musk: Democrats “Don’t Want Waste And Fraud To Be Turned Off”

During a Fox Business interview, DOGE head Elon Musk explained that there is so much pushback on the efficiency project’s activity from the left because Democrats desperately don’t want their incentives to illegal immigrants to be turned off.

Musk stated, “So the waste report in entitlement spending, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that’s like the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half trillion, maybe 600, 700 billion a year.”

“That is also a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters,” Musk added.

“So this is why the Democrats are so upset about the situation,” he continued, adding “Because they’re losing. You know, if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave and they will lose voters.”

“Where you’ll see the biggest outcry is from the Democrats who are, they don’t want the waste and fraud to be turned off because it is a gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country,” Elon further noted.

“I mean, you see some of the crazy stuff like where money from FEMA, FEMA is an agency that’s meant to take care of Americans in distress. And a bunch of their money was being sent to pay for luxury hotels in New York for illegal immigrants,” he added, referring to The Roosevelt Hotel in NYC, among many others.

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