Tag: taxes

Schools forced into borrowing cash because Chicago is late on taxes

A “perfect storm” of convoluted bureaucracy caused Cook County, Illinois to spend 10 years and $63 million building a property tax billing software that did not work. 

Because tax collection was delayed, Chicago Public Schools were forced to take a loan to stay operational, incurring $33 million in interest costs.

Key facts: A July 21 report from the Cook County inspector general found that the contractor designing the tax billing software, Tyler Technologies, received conflicting information from three different government agencies involved with the project.

The county Assessor’s Office helmed the first stage of the project. But when a new assessor was elected, he added new requirements that delayed the project.

The Treasurer’s Office gave input later on, and asked Tyler Technologies to use different home ownership data than the Assessor’s Office had provided, according to the IG report.

The Treasurer’s Office staff also reportedly argued with Tyler Technologies about how to design the tax billing software. This created an “openly adversarial” work environment, according to the audit. At one point, county staff were told to intentionally withhold necessary data from Tyler Technologies, the report stated.

Eventually, the county hired another contractor just to serve as a liaison between government officials and Tyler Technologies.

The county also required Tyler Technologies to hire a local project manager, but the first three managers departed because of “knowledge gaps or interpersonal conflicts with county employees,” according to the IG report.

The Treasurer’s Office began using the new tax software in late 2025, even though the county’s Bureau of Technology warned that there were “hundreds of errors.” County homeowners have still not received their 2025 tax bills as of Aug. 8, 2026.

The Clerk’s Office and Treasurer’s Office said Tyler Technologies did not assign enough staff to the project, and that its programmers were not always present at meetings about technical issues, the report states. But the audit also noted that Tyler Technologies’ staff sometimes voluntarily worked seven days a week and without pay to try and resolve issues with the tax system.

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WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Detroit Public Schools Now Offering Students Cash Prizes Just for Showing Up

Public schools in the city of Detroit are now rewarding students for attendance with cash prizes and gift cards. Apparently, no one has told the students that going to school and studying hard is in their best interests and acts as its own reward.

Even parents can get in on the action if their children have good attendance records.

How did we come to this in America? Why are we even bothering with public schools at this point?

FOX News reports:

Detroit schools offer students up to $1,000 for perfect attendance as program expands

Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) paid students up to $1,000 for perfect attendance and is expanding the incentive program to middle schoolers after district officials say it successfully reduced chronic absenteeism.

Now in its second year, the Perfect Attendance Pays initiative targets the winter months — from Jan. 5 to March 20 — when attendance historically dips across the district.

“DPSCD is continuing the Perfect Attendance Pays initiative for the 2026–27 school year for high school students and expanding it to include middle school students,” a district spokesperson told Fox News Digital Friday.

“At the middle school level, parents of eligible students with perfect attendance during each five-day cycle will receive a $50 gift card.”

District officials clarified that the financial incentives are not funded by taxpayers or standard state educational aid.

“The incentive is funded through interest generated through district funds awaiting to be used for facility projects. Federal and state revenue is not used to fund the incentive, nor is the incentive offered on fall or spring count days,” the spokesperson added.

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Mamdani’s Socialist Government Considering Subsidizing For-Profit Grocery Stores to Compete With State-Supported Ones

Recently, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that he was making good on his campaign promise to bring down food costs by opening state-sponsored grocery stores that would sell goods at below cost. The stores will also not be required to pay taxes or rent.

By establishing these state-sponsored stores, Mamdani is not reducing food costs. He is reducing the price for consumers while placing a larger burden on taxpayers, most of whom will not be able to access the city stores.

To make matters worse, these stores are required to pay a “living wage,” which is estimated at more than double the minimum wage. Furthermore, they are required to provide healthcare and other benefits for employees. So, not only will the government have to supplement the lower prices of goods, but it will also have to support dramatically higher operating costs.

Apart from the fact that selling goods below cost in stores that cannot cover their operating expenses is an unsustainable model, the other problem with state-sponsored grocery stores is that they make it difficult for the private sector to compete. Private grocers and bodega associations have protested the decision. A bodega trade group, the United Bodegas of America, representing roughly 14,000 businesses, is preparing a lawsuit arguing that the taxpayer-subsidized stores create unfair competition, both on pricing and through the use of rent-free city land.

John Catsimatidis, CEO of Gristedes and D’Agostino’s, has threatened multiple times over more than a year to close, sell, or relocate his stores. Before the election, he told Fox Business, “If the city of New York is going socialist, I will definitely close, or sell, or move or franchise the Gristedes locations,” adding that he would also consider moving his corporate offices to New Jersey.

After Mamdani won the election, Catsimatidis predicted the plan “would collapse our food supply, kill private industry, and drag us down a path toward the bread lines of the old Soviet Union.” More recently, he has said he might relocate operations to Florida instead, citing declining sales and increased shoplifting that he attributes to city policy. He also said profitability has suffered for two years, making layoffs and operational scale-backs more likely. He has not announced a definite timeline for relocation or layoffs and is still evaluating his options.

On the unfair-competition point specifically, Catsimatidis told Fox News Digital, “The people that are going to run those five stores are not going to pay any real estate taxes, not going to pay any rent,” adding, “If I don’t pay any rent or real estate taxes, I can bring down the cost of a product 20% across the board.”

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San Francisco Dems move to break with state party to oppose ‘Billionaire Tax’

In a move signaling a deepening ideological rift within Northern California’s political establishment, leaders of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) are preparing to formally oppose Proposition 40, breaking ranks with the California Democrat Party.

The statewide measure, known as the Billionaire Tax Act, was narrowly endorsed by the state party’s executive board following an intense debate, setting the stage for an unprecedented local rebellion in one of the nation’s most left-wing strongholds.

To clear the path for this rare divergence, the San Francisco DCCC quietly altered its local bylaws to allow the party committee to take an independent position on statewide ballot initiatives when the state party’s stance conflicts with local priorities.

While state party rules strictly forbid local chapters from endorsing alternative candidates, ballot measures reportedly fall into a procedural loophole, allowing San Francisco leaders to break from the broader party platform.

Proposition 40 would levy a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, generating an estimated $100 billion primarily designated to backfill projected federal cuts to Medi-Cal, California’s healthcare program for low-income residents, non-citizens and illegal aliens.

Despite the measure’s strong backing from healthcare unions, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), local party leaders in San Francisco have expressed deep skepticism over its economic ramifications.

San Francisco DCCC Chair Nancy Tung and prominent local “moderate” figures argue that the measure poses a severe threat to California’s fragile budget dynamics. Opponents warn that an aggressive targeted tax will accelerate an exodus of high-net-worth individuals and corporate headquarters out of San Francisco and the whole state, ultimately gutting broader income tax revenues.

In taking this stance, the local committee aligns itself with Democrat leaders who also oppose the proposition, including Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Mayor Daniel Lurie and organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, the impending vote has notably drawn criticism from more far-left members inside the local committee, who argue that defecting from the state party “undermines Democrat unity” and “shields the ultra-wealthy from contributing to basic social safety nets.”

However, with more moderate members holding a majority on the committee, the local party is widely expected to vote against Proposition 40 ahead of the upcoming election.

Beyond the ideological issues, the potential break carries financial implications for local campaign operations. Aligning against the initiative positions the local party to receive substantial financial support from well-funded anti-tax committees, tech leaders and venture capitalists who are pouring tens of millions of dollars into defeating Proposition 40.

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Socialist Leader Says Quiet Part Out Loud: Affordability Pitch Masks “Guerrilla Class War” To “Bleed Enemy Dry”

We have extensively profiled how communism is on the rise in America and how the Democratic Party has served as its primary vehicle into mainstream electoral politics. The Marxists in the Democratic Socialists of America have a platform that, in the long run, has very little to do with affordability but everything to do with what some of their leaders have described, in their own words, as “destroying the nation from within.”

DSA members are hell-bent on breaking down capitalism and the current form of the United States as we know it. One of their tactics is to ignite a Marxist class war, or class struggle, which is a conflict between economic classes over wealth, political power and control of production.

The idea that DSA is seeking to start a Marxist class war is not based on speculation but is, yet again, part of the plan to destroy capitalism, according to DSA National Political Committee member Cliff Connolly.

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US Set to Impose 50% Tariffs on $20 billion Worth of Canadian Products

The United States is set to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products early Saturday after last-ditch negotiations failed to resolve the latest strain in already tense relations between the historic allies.

President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, including products ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.

“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week. Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement read to reporters on a press call shortly before midnight.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded, “Last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

Carney said his government would announce additional support for Canadian workers and businesses in the coming days.

Greer said the U.S. offer was “forward-looking” and included “a historic economic and national security partnership.”

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How Medicare Became a Slush Fund

Four years ago this month, Washington passed a law and named it, with a straight face, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Bizarrely, their plan to ‘reduce inflation’, which had been caused by excessive government spending, was for the government to spend even more money. It’s genius!

Among its various provisions, part of the legislation authorized the government to negotiate prescription drug prices. Seems like a nice idea in principle… but in practice it’s been a disaster.

The Congressional Budget Office released the results late last month: the Medicare drug provisions that were supposed to generate $129 billion in savings will now add $700 billion to the deficit.

Sometimes it seems like this is the whole idea; given the rampant Medicare fraud that gets uncovered on a daily basis, it’s clear that politicians have an incentive to steer MORE money into the program.

Healthcare is the easiest spending in Washington to justify. Every dollar comes with the same argument: if we don’t spend on healthcare, people will die!

It ends up being so much money— a giant, dark pool of corruption— and a lot of it gets funneled straight back into the political process as campaign contributions. And it’s been going on for ages.

Back in 2002, for example, America’s biggest health-care workers union spent about $800,000 electing Rod Blagojevich governor of Illinois. He later thanked them “for electing me governor.”

Weeks after he took office, Blagojevich signed multiple executive orders that fattened the union’s pockets, like forcing more healthcare workers to join… and automatically deducting union dues from their paychecks. Bad for the unionized workers, but great for the union bosses.

In New York, the Greater New York Hospital Association wrote two checks totaling more than $1 million to the state Democratic Party in August 2018, at then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign’s request.

Three months later the state ordered its first across-the-board Medicaid rate increase since 2008, worth about $140 million a year. Great news for the hospital association.

The cycle never ends— the unions and associations scratch the politicians’ backs, and in turn get their backs scratched. No one can rationally expect those parties to walk away from their mutual benefit.

And this is just the ‘honest’ graft and corruption… it doesn’t take into account the outright fraud.

During COVID, Medicare paid for eight test kits per month, per person, in America. Yet an inspector general later found it paid up to $454 million for nearly 39 million kits over that limit.

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Iowa GOP Governor Candidate Slams Democrat in Ad For Massive Tax Hike Plot

Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn released a campaign ad Thursday saying Democrat rival Rob Sand plans to raise the average Iowan’s taxes by $7,500 a year.

The 30-second spot was provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release. Filmed on Lahn’s farm in Belle Plaine, it opens on rising costs before cutting to an attack on Sand, the state auditor and Democrat nominee for governor. The ad casts Sand as a billionaire out of touch with working families.

In it, Lahn ties the cost of gas and groceries to his opponent and delivers the central charge directly to camera.

“But Rob Sand wants to raise your taxes by $7,500 a year. You can look it up. He is a billionaire. He doesn’t get what regular folks go through. He’s opposed tax cuts his whole career,” Lahn says in the ad. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help Iowa families as governor, because I know how hard you work. Iowa First.”

Lahn’s campaign argued the attack is grounded in Sand’s personal wealth. In a statement, campaign spokesman Dan Capodilupo said Sand’s opposition to tax cuts is easier to understand given who covers his expenses.

“It’s easy for Rob Sand to oppose tax cuts for families when someone else is paying his bills,” Capodilupo said. “His entire lifestyle and political career have both been financed by his father-in-law’s chemical fortune.”

The campaign claimed Sand married into the Lauridsen Group, Inc. (LGI), a family-owned chemical company, and asserted that Sand’s family has bankrolled his campaigns “to the tune of $13 million, the most in Iowa history.” The campaign described Sand’s operation as “effectively the seventh wholly owned subsidiary of LGI.”

Sand’s documented tax positions include a higher tax on out-of-state landowners, a ban on hedge funds and LLCs buying Iowa farmland, and ending state tax breaks for data centers. He has said he would consider an increase in the state cigarette tax to address Iowa’s cancer rates.

Sand’s campaign has cast Lahn as the outsider in the race. Press secretary Maddie Moher said Sand “has spent his career working with Republicans, Democrats, and independents to hold government accountable, uncover misspent taxpayer dollars, and deliver results for Iowans,” and would do the same as governor.

“Zach Lahn is a career political operative, and his latest attacks are a distraction from his own record and frequent flights to Kansas,” Moher said, referring to Sand’s line of attack over Lahn’s ties to Wichita.

Sand, of Decorah, has served as state auditor since 2019 and is the only Democrat holding statewide office in Iowa. He built his profile prosecuting the Hot Lotto rigging scandal as an assistant attorney general and has centered his campaign on lowering costs for Iowa families.

The ad comes as Lahn, a venture firm owner and Make America Healthy Again supporter, tries to hold an open seat Republicans have held since 2011, with Gov. Kim Reynolds not seeking reelection. Lahn won the GOP primary in a June upset, edging Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra by less than a point.

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Entitled Democrat lawmaker who’s been arrested three times while in office demands enormous six-figure salary increase that’ll take her pay to $250,000

A Texas Democrat who has been arrested three times while in office is seeking a six-figure salary raise. 

Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt has requested $250,000 ‘or more’ according to a formal salary grievance filed with the county and seen by the Houston Chronicle.

The increase, if approved, would be equivalent to a 79 percent raise on her current salary of just over $139,500.

It was filed as part of an annual process that lets elected members ask a committee for a raise, her request will be considered today. 

According to the grievance, seen by the outlet, Wyatt said she was asking for ‘an amount that fairly and appropriately reflects the statutory responsibilities, fiduciary obligations, scope of authority, workload, and level of accountability associated with the office of Harris County Treasurer.’

The request comes after her office was stripped of some of its financial oversight powers in an ongoing effort to abolish her position entirely, the outlet reported. 

Wyatt made the request while a drink driving case against her works its way though the legal system. 

Police in Galveston said that they approached a car flagged by a concerned onlooker during a patrol in May, only to find the female driver, Wyatt, ‘to be asleep.’

An officer woke Wyatt up and asked her where she was, to which she responded that she was ‘in Heaven.’

After repeated attempts to get the treasurer to say where she was and where she was going, she finally said she was in Houston, trying to get to Galveston for a conference the next morning.

At one point, Wyatt admitted to having one glass of wine that evening, before eventually changing her story to two glasses.

The arresting officers said they ‘smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting’ from Wyatt.

Wyatt also sat on the rear bumper of her car to remain upright, the officer said, according to police documents obtained by ABC13.

She eventually failed a field sobriety test and was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Wyatt was immediately taken to the Galveston County jail but has since been released, according to jail records.

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Number of UK Welfare Recipients Hits Record High of 8.4 Million

The number of people receiving direct welfare benefit payments in Britain has soared to an all-time high, the government has disclosed.

According to data published this week by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), 8.4 million people were receiving Universal Credit welfare payments as of May, an increase of around 700,000 from the previous year and 100,000 more than in February.

The DWP said this meant it is now the highest number of people receiving welfare under the Universal Credit scheme since it was introduced in 2013. The number of people on the rolls has increased from 5.5 million since March 2022.

Meanwhile, the proportion of welfare claimants with “no work requirements” rose from 46 per cent last year to 51 per cent in May, or 4.3 million. This was compared to 1.6 million claimants who were required to search for work.

The remaining 3.1 million claimants were employed while receiving the benefits, or 37.7 per cent of the total, down from 41.9 per cent just a year before.

The statistics showed that over 15 per cent of Universal Credit claimants in May were migrants, inclduing 8.9 per cent who were granted access to British welfare as a result of the EU Settlement Scheme following Brexit, which in turn allows for British expats living in EU nations to access their welfare states.

The data release comes as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has unveiled plans to cut welfare spending by £51 billion ($69bn) per year, which would purportedly save every British family £1,700 ($2,305) annually.

Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick said that, if elected, a Reform government would ban all foreigners from receiving welfare benefits, including EU nationals granted access under the Brexit withdrawal agreement. According to Jenrick, simply removing non-British citizens from the scheme would save taxpayers £21 billion ($28.5bn) a year by 2029.

The Reform Party would also look to adopt a similar scheme to that implemented in the Netherlands, in which businesses will be incentivised to encourage their workers to return to the force by requiring firms with more than five employees to purchase a new form of insurance to pay for employees who go on disability.

Jenrick said that the Dutch system upon which it is modelled had cut disability claims by 40 per cent.

Furthermore, Reform would also require that those able to work who have been receiving Universal Credit for over a year must do 20 hours of community service per week or lose their benefits.

“Without these changes, the cost of the welfare system will keep spiralling. We will face a genuine national debt crisis. Those least able to bear it will pay the highest price,” Jenrick warned. “Only Reform will do what it takes to avert this.”

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