Tag: taxes

Democrats Want To Eliminate The Wealthy So They Can Control Everyone Else

alifornia Democrats, supported by prominent left-wing leaders across the country, have proposed a ballot measure for a “one-time wealth tax” on the Golden State’s billionaires. California is already in the top ten states for per capita taxes, with a net domestic migration of about two million residents since 2016. More than 250 billionaires live there, who collectively possess more than $2 trillion. Democrats in favor of the tax see a $100 billion windfall to shore up medical spending. But skeptics see a good reason for billionaires to flee the Left Coast for more pro-business destinations.

If only Democrats in California were an outlier in fiscally disastrous ideas. But no. Apparently, they all suffer fever dreams of America’s wealthy swimming in gold like Scrooge McDuck.

Voices across the Left seem to think that solving America’s problems is as simple as transferring wealth from a few bank accounts to many. Yet such state intervention would not only accomplish the opposite, but empower government to control (and impoverish) ordinary citizens.

Complaints About The Wealthy Are A Bait and Switch

Granted, there are natural reasons for everyday Americans to bristle at hearing stories of billionaires and trillionaires. The tales of excess and unimaginable wealth is far removed from the experience of the average worker, whose median income is around $65,000 a year.

The uber-wealthy don’t have to worry about changes in grocery or gas prices, or whether they can afford a vacation this year. About one in 15 Americans are millionaires, which means it’s possible you know a millionaire, though probably one who is a small business owner with some capital, rather than one ostentatiously flaunting money around.

Remember when former president Joe Biden in his January 2025 farewell address claimed the “ultra-wealthy” are a threat to “our entire democracy?” Later that year, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani more explicitly declared: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”

This is not a unique position among Democrats. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a discussed presidential Democrat contender for 2028, asserted in 2020: “billionaires should not exist.” Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders, a previous presidential candidate, is on the record saying: “I think billionaires should not exist.” And don’t get the Left started on Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, something Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ro Khanna, and new Democrat darling Graham Platner all found viscerally despicable.

Yet as much as we can be cynical towards uber-wealthy Americans, there’s just as much reason to be skeptical of those demanding their downfall. Think for a moment about who has the loudest, and most influential voice in American politics today.

As John O. McGinnis argues in his recent book Why Democracy Needs the Rich, the answer is obvious: it is “the intelligentsia, or chattering class, including journalists, intellectuals, and entertainers,” who leverage the media, academy, and entertainment industry, to sway public opinion. “Like an unseen current in a river, their influence is constant, even as often relatively inexperienced political appointees with different views struggle to control the flow.” To disempower and silence the wealthy would effectively grant more power and influence to woke power blocs.

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Supreme Court rejects Michigan family’s claim that county committed ‘home equity theft’ over $2,200 tax debt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously sided with Isabella County, Michigan, rejecting a family’s claim that local governments must pay homeowners the full fair market value of property seized and sold in tax foreclosures rather than the lower price obtained at public auction.

In the 9-0 decision, the court ruled that under the Fifth Amendment, “the proper baseline under the Takings Clause is the price obtained in a tax sale, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of our country’s history of tax sales.”

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito explained that “neither the Fifth nor the Eighth Amendment requires the government to compensate former owners based on the hypothetical fair market value of their property.”

The high court noted that creating a fair-market-value baseline would impose “unprecedented burdens” on local governments seeking to collect unpaid taxes, making these sales “impractical.”

“Under Pung’s rule, a tax sale to collect $20,000 in delinquent taxes would net the government a $20,000 loss—a loss paid out to the delinquent taxpayer himself,” Alito continued. “The possibility of such a perverse result would render tax sales infeasible as a debt-collection mechanism.”

The ruling comes amid a decade-long legal battle between Isabella County and the Pung family over what they called “home equity theft.” Isabella County foreclosed on the family’s 3,000-square-foot home over a disputed $2,241.93 tax bill stemming from a revoked Principal Residence Exemption, subsequently selling the $194,400 property at auction for just $76,008. Michael Pung, acting as the personal representative of the estate, disputed the bill and brought the legal challenge on behalf of the family.

While the county eventually returned the surplus auction proceeds, the family argued the Constitution required “just compensation” based on the home’s actual worth, rather than a low-ball auction price that destroyed more than $118,000 in equity.

However, the court said on Tuesday it would not “resolve any of Pung’s newfound contentions that the procedure the County followed in seizing and selling his property was unfair.”

The court ultimately vacated and remanded the case, sending it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reconsider those procedural claims.

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Corrupt Illinois Democrat State Rep and County Clerk Husband INDICTED In Mass NGO Kickback and Fraud Scheme — Just Weeks After Daughter Busted For COVID Fraud

Another corrupt Illinois Democrat family caught with their hands in the till.

Urbana Democrat State Representative Carol Ammons and her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, were indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on multiple felony counts including wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The indictment lays out a brazen scheme where Ammons allegedly used her campaign committee, Friends of Carol Ammons, to issue overpayments and then took cash kickbacks disguised as “gifts.”

At the same time, she used her position as a state lawmaker to steer massive state grants to friendly nonprofits that then put her daughter Titianna Ammons on the payroll, WCIA reported.

According to the federal indictment:

  • Carol Ammons allegedly caused campaign funds to be paid to herself and family members through excess checks and then received cash kickbacks to hide the scheme. She also falsely reported expenditures to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
  • She helped secure over $1.6 million in state grants for nonprofits including:
    • Bridgewater Sullivan Community Life Center ($612,000 grant) — where daughter Titianna was paid more than $60,000 as Program Director (Ammons even helped draft her employment contract).
    • Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (over $1 million in grants) — where Titianna was paid nearly $10,000 as a digital marketing coordinator.
    • Another grant to Hood Vote that also funneled money to the daughter.

Prosecutors say Ammons and her daughter received financial benefits in excess of $100,000 through this web of campaign misuse and grant steering between 2017 and roughly 2023.

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U.K. Police Offer ‘Unreserved Apology’ and £25,000 to Irish Comedian and Writer Graham Linehan After Armed Arrest at Heathrow Airport for ‘Gender-Critical’ X Posts

In September 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, best known for creating Father Ted and The IT Crowd, was arrested at Heathrow Airport over social media posts criticizing transgender ideology.

Linehan was met by five armed officers on arrival in London and detained in connection with three posts made on X.

The posts under investigation included one in which Linehan wrote that men entering female-only spaces were committing abusive acts and should be challenged, with police called if necessary.

A second post read, “Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

The third post flagged read, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** ’em.”

Linehan said he was taken into custody, locked in a cell, and later taken to the hospital because of stress.

He added that the condition for his release was that he stop posting on X.

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Planned Parenthood Dropping $47 Million Bomb on Midterms in Attempt to Protect Their Taxpayer Funding

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has announced a massive $47 million political spending spree through its Super PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, aimed directly at trying to flip vulnerable Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

This near-record investment, second only to the $50 million the group dumped into the 2022 cycle, represents a calculated effort to target lawmakers who supported efforts to cut off federal Medicaid funding to the organization last year.

As detailed in reporting from The Hill, the funds will fuel ads, voter outreach, and mobilization in battleground House districts across Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while also targeting key Senate contests, including Michigan, where Democrats hope to challenge former GOP Representative Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine.

The money bomb announcement came just days after the expiration of a one-year provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that had temporarily barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion services.

That measure, signed into law last year, had forced the closure or consolidation of dozens of clinics and cut off hundreds of millions in federal dollars, proving once and for all that the organization heavily relies on taxpayer dollars, despite its primary role being performing hundreds of thousands of abortions annually.

With the ban now lifted as of early July, Planned Parenthood has regained access to those funds and is channeling significant resources into ensuring pro-abortion politicians regain or maintain power to protect and expand that pipeline.

Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Sarah Standiford framed the effort as an “existential moment” where voters must “take back our right to decide, our lives and our future state by state.”

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Spain: 70% Of Tested ‘Unaccompanied Minor’ Immigrants Are Actually Adults

The Spanish city of Madrid has delivered a stark confirmation of long-standing suspicions about unaccompanied foreign immigrants claiming to be minors. When this group undergoes rigorous medical age verification, 70 percent turn out to be adults over 18.

This is not a handful of isolated incidents but a systemic pattern that has become the norm in Spain’s capital. The findings, detailed in official data and reported by Spanish outlet El Debate, underscore a growing “farce” in the handling of unaccompanied minor claims across the country.

In 2024, authorities in the Madrid region opened 848 age-determination proceedings for individuals claiming to be unaccompanied foreign minors — a sharp increase from 482 the previous year. More than half of these cases were archived because the claimants abandoned the process before completing the key medical test, which is a wrist X-ray for bone age assessment.

Of the 378 individuals who underwent the test, only 112 were confirmed as minors, while 266 were determined to be adults — approximately 70 percent.

The number of detected frauds tripled compared to the prior year. Since 2018, Madrid has handled more than 11,000 unaccompanied foreign minors in its protection system. In 2024 alone, 2,442 new young people entered the system. The regional government has already filed 29 police complaints after its own checks revealed adults improperly placed in minor-protection facilities.

Nationally, the Fiscalía General del Estado reported 7,562 pre-procedural age-determination cases in 2024. Of these, 2,457 concluded the individuals were adults, while many others either abandoned proceedings or received the benefit of the doubt.

Real benefits for fraud

As Remix News has reported in the past, claiming minor status grants significant advantages under Spanish and EU rules, including placement in specialized protection centers with housing, education, healthcare, and legal safeguards.

There is also significantly greater difficulty in deportation; and, in many cases, pathways to family reunification or residence permits unavailable to adults. Many claimants disappear from centers once age verification begins, avoiding confirmation of their true age.

Similar fraud seen across Europe

This Madrid revelation is far from unique. Remix News has extensively covered parallel cases of age fraud by migrants claiming unaccompanied minor status throughout Europe, often involving the same nationalities, notably Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Afghans.

France has seen some of the starkest figures. In the Marne department, bone analyses of 240 individuals claiming to be unaccompanied minors found that 80 percent (192 people) were actually adults.

French MP Charles de Courson highlighted the financial burden in a parliamentary speech, “Eighty percent of unaccompanied migrants in France’s northeast Marne department who declared themselves thus are not minors, with the cost of caring for these 160 false minors costing €5,000 per month, which equals for €60,000 per year for each one.”

A separate 2019 experiment by the Paris prosecutor’s office examined 154 formally identified “minors” and found 91.6 percent (141) were adults via medical exams. Prosecutors noted that adults were systematically exploiting the protective regime established for minors under a 1945 law.

Belgium reported comparable results. A study of data from Justice Minister Koen Geens showed that of 4,563 migrants declaring themselves minors, authorities doubted 2,546 claims. Age tests on a sample revealed that 73.7 percent were over 18. Flemish MP Tom Van Grieken stated bluntly: “Asylum seekers guilty of age fraud should be denied the right to asylum.”

Sweden recorded an even higher rate: health authorities found 84 percent of tested “child migrants” were actually 18 or older. In Germany, forensic examinations in Münster showed around 40 percent of examined “unaccompanied minor refugees” were demonstrably adults, with many sharing suspicious January 1 birthdates — a common indicator of fabricated identities.

Remix News has also documented specific incidents in Spain itself that align with this pattern. In one Madrid case reported in October 2025, a Moroccan man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl claimed to be 17; age verification determined he was likely 23, with 14 prior convictions, leading to his case being transferred to adult court.

A European Parliament fact-finding mission to Spain’s Canary Islands similarly found that roughly half of unaccompanied minors there were actually adults, highlighting failures in age assessment amid high illegal arrivals.

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Tax-Payer Funded NPR Publishes Article on How to Avoid Trump’s Image on Passport

The taxpayer-funded NPR published an article Wednesday explaining how passport applicants can avoid receiving a commemorative passport featuring President Donald Trump’s image.

The special passport, released to mark America’s 250th anniversary, became available Monday at the Washington Passport Agency. It can only be obtained in person and by appointment.

Among those seeking the new design was Alabama resident John Hall, who told NPR he drove to Washington in his “MAGA red” Hyundai hoping to get one because he is a supporter of Trump and wanted the commemorative passport. He was unable to secure an appointment before returning home and said he plans to come back for one of the agency’s upcoming passport events.

Not everyone shared that reaction. Kim Zaninovich of Richmond, Virginia, told NPR she was unhappy after receiving a passport featuring Trump’s image, saying she did not realize there was another option. She described the illustration as showing an “angry look” and said she would have preferred a standard version.

According to NPR, applicants who do not want the commemorative edition can avoid it by requesting a passport with extra pages. NPR added that the State Department said the anniversary design is only offered in the standard 28-page passport book, meaning the larger version does not include Trump’s image.

Despite NPR’s claim that the commemorative passport is only available in the standard 28-page book, the State Department says the anniversary passport is issued only in the standard 26-page passport book, while applicants who request the 50-page version receive the existing design instead.

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Why are taxpayers paying for pipelines private companies used to build?

Canada’s pipeline sector, once entirely funded by private investment, is now leaning on taxpayer subsidies after years of federal regulatory hurdles.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Noah Jarvis, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, joined Ezra to discuss two newly floated pipeline proposals — one from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver championed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, and another to Ontario backed by Premiers Doug Ford and Danielle Smith. 

Both projects are expected to require significant government subsidies, in sharp contrast to a decade ago, when private companies competed to build pipelines without a dime of public money, including proposals that were later killed by federal decisions, such as Northern Gateway and Energy East.

“The government is very much in the way right now,” Noah said, pointing to the Impact Assessment Act, passed by the Trudeau government in 2019, and the industrial carbon tax as key barriers driving up the cost of producing Alberta oil.

Noah cited a recent Fraser Institute report suggesting the industrial carbon tax, if it climbs to $140 per tonne, could add roughly 20 percent to the cost of producing a barrel of Alberta oil. Canada, he noted, is the only country that levies such a tax on its oil and gas producers. He urged Smith and Ford to pressure Ottawa to repeal the Impact Assessment Act and roll back the carbon tax, rather than turning to subsidies. 

Ezra questioned why neither proposal has any backing from producers, calling the Vancouver route’s estimated $30-billion price tag “insane,” and describing the Ontario pipeline as “at best, PR gimmicks, and at worst, government white elephants.”

“You don’t have to spend all this money,” Ezra said. “Just get rid of those blockages and blockades and regulations.”

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Department of Labor Announces Gavin Newsom’s California Owes OVER $22 BILLION to U.S. Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund – The ONLY State Still in Debt, Slamming Businesses with Higher Federal Payroll Taxes

The radical left’s favorite golden boy is running the once-great state of California straight into the ground.

The Trump Labor Department announced Wednesday that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s failed administration owes more than $22 billion to the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

This staggering debt comes from loans California took during the COVID-19 pandemic to pay unemployment benefits — benefits that were looted by massive fraud under Newsom’s watch. California is now the only state in the entire country with an outstanding federal unemployment insurance loan balance.

As a direct result, California business owners are being forced to pay higher federal payroll taxes to bail out Sacramento’s incompetence and corruption. Every other state that borrowed during the pandemic has repaid its loans. Not Newsom’s California.

During and after the pandemic, California raked in record budget surpluses, at one point nearing $100 billion. Instead of using that taxpayer windfall to repay the federal loan like responsible states did, Newsom and the Democrat supermajority in Sacramento sat on the money, spent it on other priorities, and let the debt balloon with interest.

The state has paid $1.8 billion in interest since 2021, with Newsom’s latest budget proposing another $668 million in interest payments this year while putting zero dollars toward the actual principal.

The bill keeps growing. The California EDD’s UI Fund Forecast officially projects the outstanding loan balance to reach $22.0 billion by the end of 2026.

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US Debt Exceeds 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II

The United States has crossed a milestone that Washington has spent decades pretending would never arrive. Federal debt held by the public has now exceeded 100% of GDP for the first time since the aftermath of the Second World War. According to the latest government data, debt held by the public reached approximately $31.27 trillion while the nation’s annual economic output totaled roughly $31.22 trillion, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 100.2%. The Congressional Budget Office now projects debt held by the public will average 101% of GDP this year and continue climbing to 120% by 2036 if current law remains unchanged.

The media continues to compare today’s numbers with the end of World War II, but that comparison completely misses the point. After 1945, the United States emerged as the world’s dominant industrial power. Soldiers came home, factories shifted from producing tanks to automobiles, the population expanded rapidly, and economic growth far outpaced government borrowing. Debt declined because the nation was producing wealth. Today we are doing precisely the opposite. Washington continues borrowing during periods of economic expansion, not because the country faces an existential war, but because politicians refuse to tell voters that promises have become mathematically impossible to keep.

The numbers expose just how unsustainable the fiscal position has become. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit will total roughly $1.9 trillion this fiscal year, equal to 5.8% of GDP. By 2036, annual deficits are projected to exceed $3.1 trillion, or 6.7% of GDP. Federal spending will consume 23.3% of GDP this year, while revenues amount to only 17.5%. Washington is spending approximately $1.33 for every dollar it collects. That gap is no longer the result of recession or emergency stimulus. It has become the permanent operating model of government.

The real crisis is not simply the debt itself. It is the cost of carrying that debt. Net interest payments exceeded $1 trillion for the first time last year, consuming roughly 14% of all federal spending. Interest on the debt now exceeds what Washington spends on national defense. Every increase in long-term interest rates compounds the problem because trillions of dollars in Treasury securities must continually be refinanced at higher yields. Governments cannot borrow indefinitely without eventually becoming captive to their creditors.

This is exactly why I have repeatedly explained that the sovereign debt crisis, not inflation, will define this decade. Every government has embraced the Keynesian fantasy that deficits do not matter as long as borrowing remains possible. They assume they can simply issue another bond and postpone the consequences for another administration. That strategy works only until confidence begins to disappear. Sovereign debt crises are never caused by running out of money. They begin when lenders question whether governments possess either the ability or the political will to restore fiscal discipline.

Our computer has never suggested that the sovereign debt crisis would begin with a sudden default. It unfolds gradually through rising interest costs, capital migration, declining confidence, and governments searching for new ways to finance themselves. That inevitably leads to higher taxes, inflationary policies, capital controls, and expanding regulation of private wealth. Politicians will never admit they overspent. They will instead insist that the problem is wealthy citizens who have not contributed enough, corporations that have not paid their “fair share,” or investors who moved capital abroad. Governments always blame the people before accepting responsibility for their own fiscal recklessness.

Crossing 100% of GDP is not merely another statistic. It marks the point where the United States officially joins the group of heavily indebted nations that believed perpetual borrowing could replace sound fiscal policy. Unlike 1946, there is no peace dividend waiting on the horizon, no manufacturing boom capable of overwhelming the debt, and no political appetite to reduce spending. Every election promises more benefits, more subsidies, and more borrowing. That is why this cycle will end as every sovereign debt cycle throughout history has ended, with a crisis of confidence rather than a shortage of promises.

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