Tag: taxes

Our Nearly $1 Trillion Military Budget Won’t Make Us Safer

If you looked at the U.S. military budget without knowing otherwise, you’d probably guess we were in World War III.

Our military spending is now the highest it’s been at any point since World War II — and Congress keeps adding more. The House of Representatives just passed legislation that will take military spending to $895 billion, while the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill that would total $923 billion.

Those totals don’t even include the military aid to Ukraine and Israel that was included in the $95 billion war package Congress passed this spring. We’re teetering closer and closer to a $1 trillion military budget.

Adjusting for inflation, the last time the national security budget topped $1 trillion was in 1945, the final year of World War II.

Unlike a world war, there’s nothing happening today that can justify this level of spending. Even the war in Ukraine and the decimation of Gaza (which is being carried out with U.S.-supplied weapons) account for just a small fraction of overall spending.

So what’s all this spending for?

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‘Vast Majority’ of Pandemic Employee Retention Credit Claims Are Likely Scams, Says IRS

You can add the Internal Revenue Service to the ranks of federal agencies conceding that raining taxpayer money on all and sundry to offset the negative effects of pandemic-era closures didn’t go as well as intended. Not only was a program meant to offset the cost of paying workers during lockdowns and voluntary social-distancing prone to being gamed, but the “vast majority” of claims submitted to the program show evidence of being fraudulent.

In the course of a detailed review of the Employee Retention Credit, “the IRS identified between 10% and 20% of claims fall into what the agency has determined to be the highest-risk group, which show clear signs of being erroneous claims for the pandemic-era credit,” the IRS announced June 20. “In addition to this highest risk group, the IRS analysis also estimates between 60% and 70% of the claims show an unacceptable level of risk.”

The Employee Retention Credit was offered to businesses that were shut down by government COVID-19 orders in 2020 or the first three quarters of 2021, experienced a required decline in gross receipts during that period, or qualified as a recovery startup business at the end of 2021. But it was clear early on that scammers were taking advantage of giveaways of taxpayer money, either to claim it for themselves or to pose as middlemen helping unwitting business owners file claims.

In March of 2023, the tax agency warned of “blatant attempts by promoters to con ineligible people to claim the credit.” In September of that year, it stopped processing claims amidst growing evidence that vast numbers of applications were “improper,” as the IRS delicately puts it. In March 2024, the agency announced that its Voluntary Disclosure Program had recovered $1 billion (since raised to over $2 billion) in improper payouts from participants who got to keep 20 percent of the take.

Ultimately, only “between 10% and 20% of the ERC claims show a low risk” for fraud, even by generous federal standards for throwing other people’s money at problems largely of government creation.

“We will now use this information to deny billions of dollars in clearly improper claims and begin additional work to issue payments to help taxpayers without any red flags on their claims,” commented IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.

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Louisiana Parents Sue Over Law Mandating 10 Commandments Displays in Classrooms

Last month, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed a bill mandating that a copy of the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms in Louisiana. The law, House Bill 71, requires that the religious scripture be displayed on a poster or frame sized at least 11 inches by 14 inches and in a “large, easily readable font.” 

Apparently anticipating a First Amendment challenge to the mandatory religious text, lawmakers included several provisions that attempt to strengthen the law against a constitutional challenge. For example, the law prohibits schools from using taxpayer funds to finance the posters, instead directing them to accept private donations.

The law further directs schools to display a context document that describes “the history of the Ten Commandments in American Public Education.” This requirement attempts to undermine the religious nature of the scripture, instead showing how the “historical role of the Ten Commandments accords with our nation’s history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the founders of our nation with respect to the necessity of civic morality to a functional self-government.”

While the text of the law attempts to dodge accusations that it prescribes public schools to display an openly Christian text in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, Louisiana lawmakers openly argued that the law would put religion in Louisiana schools.

“I really believe that we are lacking in direction. A lot of people, their children, are not attending churches or whatever,” Rep. Sylvia Taylor (D–Laplace), a co-author and co-sponsor of the bill, said during a debate over the bill. “So what I’m saying is, we need to do something in the schools to bring people back to where they need to be.” Another sponsor state Rep. Dodie Horton (R–Haughton) said that the bill “seeks to have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong.”

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DHS GIVES FAITH-BASED INSTITUTIONS AND NONPROFITS $160M

Today, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will distribute $160 million in Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) funds as a first tranche of additional funding that the Biden-Harris Administration secured to protect faith-based institutions and nonprofit organizations against targeted attacks. The announcement accompanies DHS’s release of an amended Notice of Funding Opportunity that will now enable qualifying institutions and organizations to apply for these additional NSGP funds. 

The $160 million in additional funds are a portion of the $390 million that were included in the fiscal year 2024 National Security Supplemental, a key priority of the Administration as it continues to intensify its efforts to combat the dramatic increase in hate crimes and other forms of targeted violence against faith-based institutions and nonprofit organizations. In total for fiscal year 2024, the Administration has secured $664 million for the NSGP, more than double last year’s $305 million appropriation. Earlier this year, DHS announced $274.5 million in available NGSP funds and intends to make the balance of those funds available later this year. 

“We have seen a dramatic increase in hate crimes and other forms of violence targeted against faith-based institutions and nonprofit organizations,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “The additional Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding that we are announcing today will provide these institutions and organizations with much-needed resources to strengthen their security and protect their communities from harm.” 

The rise in hate crimes and other forms of targeted violence has increased sharply since the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks against Israel. In light of the changing threat environment, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program has become a more important resource to faith-based institutions and nonprofit organizations to strengthen their security posture. In 2023, over 2,200 faith-based and other nonprofit organizations utilized over $305 million in NSGP funding to purchase security cameras, developing evacuation plans, additional warnings and alert systems, gates and lighting, access control systems, and training programs for staff. 

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Portland enforces homeless camping ban after SCOTUS ruling, county continues giving out tents

After Portland, Oregon, announced it would implement a ban on homeless street camping and impose fines or jail time for those who refuse shelter, Multnomah County says will continue distributing tents and tarps to homeless individuals despite the city’s efforts. The news comes just as the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that cities can remove homeless encampments from public property.  

On Monday, the city announced that it would start enforcing the new ban which applies to any homeless person offered reasonable shelter who refuses. Violators could be fined $100 or jailed. The ban also prioritizes targeting camps that pose significant health and safety risks in the community.  

Despite the city’s ban, the county will keep handing out tents and tarps, aiding those living on the streets, according to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, per KATU News.   

“We’re not stopping handing out tents and tarps. We’re just not going to be purchasing any more,” said Pederson. “We do have supplies on hand that are sufficient for the needs we have right now.”  

On Wednesday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler criticized the county’s actions, explaining, “It doesn’t make any sense that with 6,000 homeless people on our streets that we would hand out more than 6,000 tents and nearly five times that many tarps.”  

The city and county are currently in the middle of negotiating a three-year homeless response plan. Pederson emphasized she wouldn’t be pressured to stop distributing tents and tarps to reach a new deal.   

“If anyone was going to be using this to have an ultimatum about what our policy was going to be, that’s not something I was going to stand for,” she said.  

Responding to questions from KATU about the city and county’s relationship, with the county distributing tents and the city enforcing the ban, Pederson remarked, “I think it’s a sign of where we are right now, where we don’t have enough capacity within our existing system for shelter.”  

Mayor Wheeler responded to the same line of questioning, stating, “I think it says you have two separate governments.”  

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Bipartisan Vote Blocks CISA Budget Cut Despite Speech Censorship Concerns

104 Republicans and 198 Democrats voted to uphold a proposed budget increase for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the defense appropriations bill. Representative Andrew Clyde from Georgia proposed an amendment to freeze CISA’s funding at its 2024 level, which would reduce the budget by just over 2% to $2,379,485,00. During a forceful speech on the House floor, Clyde criticized the agency for misusing its resources to suppress dissenting opinions.

The vote came just following the Supreme Court siding with the Biden administration’s partnership with tech giants to encourage the suppression of social media content, overturning the injunction by alleging that the case lacked standing.

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Why Has Joe Biden’s $42 Billion Broadband Program Not Connected One Single Household?

One of President Joe Biden’s pledges upon entering office in 2021 was to expand Americans’ access to high-speed broadband internet. But despite apportioning tens of billions of dollars to the task, not one person has been connected to the internet as a result of the initiative.

Contained within the 2021 infrastructure bill, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program authorized more than $42 billion in grants, to “connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.”

“In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans,” Brendan Carr, the senior Republican commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) this month. “Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.”

BEAD is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency of the Department of Commerce. NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson told lawmakers in May, “with BEAD, this is really a 2025, 2026, shovels in the ground project.”

Carr blames the delay on “the addition of a substantive wish list of progressive ideas” to the approval process. In an April 2023 letter to Davidson, 11 Republican U.S. senators warned that “NTIA’s bureaucratic red tape and far-left mandates undermine Congress’ intent and would discourage participation from broadband providers while increasing the overall cost of building out broadband networks.”

Among several examples, the senators noted that NTIA’s BEAD proposal “requires subgrantees to prioritize certain segments of the workforce, such as ‘individuals with past criminal records’ and ‘justice-impacted […] participants.'” The infrastructure law that authorized the program merely required contractors to be “in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws.”

The previous year, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Republican senators warned that the NTIA’s proposed BEAD rollout “creates a complex, nine-step, ‘iterative’ structure and review process that is likely to mire State broadband offices in excessive bureaucracy and delay connecting unserved and underserved Americans as quickly as possible.”

In practice, this is exactly what’s happening: Multiple representatives from the telecommunications industry told MinnPost this week that they had no interest in applying for a piece of Minnesota’s $652 million in BEAD grants. Brent Christensen, president and CEO of Minnesota Telecom Alliance, which represents 70 Minnesota telecom companies, said, “None of them would bid for the federal grants because of the regulations that would come with it—especially the requirement to provide low-cost services to low-income households in exchange for grants that would allow internet providers to build out their networks.”

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Shock as Vending Machines With Orwellian Name Supplied With Various Disturbing Products Aimed at Drug Users

A new device in Ontario, Canada offers people easy access to some disturbing supplies like HIV self-test kits, meth pipes, naloxone, crack kits, and condoms.

The real shocker is that all of the items are free; users just need to tap on the screen after creating an account, which is meant to better track supplies and limit abuse.

The bizarre vending machines have sparked backlash online, with some viewing it as a sign that “Canada is broken.”

CTV News reported that the jaw-dropping device is located at the office of SOAR Community Services.

It was dubbed “our Healthbox” by manager of healthy communities at the Brant County Health Unit (BCHU) DeAnna Renn.

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Pentagon doesn’t know if it funds dangerous biological research in China, new audit reveals

Despite years of warnings that China operates an illicit biological weapons program, the U.S. military remains unable to determine whether it sends American tax dollars to Beijing for research that could make pathogens more dangerous or deadly, the Pentagon’s chief watchdog declared in a stunning new warning to policymakers.

“The DoD did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding to Chinese research laboratories or other foreign countries for research related to enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential,” the Pentagon inspector general concluded in a report released this month.

You can read that report here.

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The findings show the Pentagon has done little to improve transparency on a critical security issue in the two years since the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, first raised concerns that defense officials could not account for how biological research funds sent to China were being used. You can read that GAO report here.

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The latest inspector general report also adds to momentum in Congress to formally ban the Pentagon from funding “gain-of-function” research in foreign countries, a goal that has increased in priority now that some members of the U.S. intelligence community like the FBI believe the COVID-19 pandemic began with a virus leak  inside a Wuhan lab doing research funded by U.S. tax dollars. Gain-of-research refers to the serial passaging of microorganisms to increase their transmissibility and virulence among other things.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa., has been leading the effort to force the Department of Defense to account for money it sends to China and to formally ban spending on research that makes viruses and bacteria more contagious or lethal. She got a provision added to the National Defense Authorization Act last year that required the inspector general review.

“The Department of Defense should defend the nation, not support research with the potential to do us harm,” Ernst said recently. “While bureaucrats are blindly giving away taxpayer funds, China doesn’t even have to steal our research.

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Trans-identified male felon awarded $350,000 by NYC after suing for being housed with male inmates on Rikers Island

Ali Miles, a biological male felon who identifies as a Muslim woman, has been awarded $350,000 in a settlement after suing New York City over officials’ decision to hold Miles in pre-trial detention on Rikers Island with male inmates. Miles spent one month in the facility before being transferred back to Arizona, where Miles was found guilty on numerous charges.

Miles, formerly known as Dylan Miles, alleged in the lawsuit that the inmate had informed the court that Miles was transgender, and that the refusal to house Miles with female inmates amounted to “gender identity discrimination.” As part of the settlement, the city maintained that Miles’ allegations were untrue, and did not accept any blame.

According to Reduxx, Miles was held on Rikers Island from June to July 2022 after being arrested in New York on an Arizona warrant. After being found guilty of two counts of aggravated harassment per domestic violence, a Class 5 felony, as well as disorderly conduct, harassment, threatening or intimidating, and false reporting to law enforcement, Miles was sentenced to 312 days in jail and three years of supervised probation. 

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