Tag: taxes

San Francisco buys vodka shots for homeless alcoholics in taxpayer-funded program

The City of San Francisco is providing free beer and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics at taxpayer expense under a little-known pilot program. 

The “Managed Alcohol Program” operated by San Francisco’s Department of Public Health serves regimented doses of alcohol to voluntary participants with alcohol addiction in an effort to keep the homeless off the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services. Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics wonder if the government would be better off funding treatment and sobriety programs instead.

“Established in countries such as Canada and Australia, a managed alcohol program is usually administered by a nurse and trained support staff in a facility such as a homeless shelter or a transitional or permanent home, and is one method to minimize harm for those with alcohol use disorder,” the California Health Care Foundation explains in an 2020 article describing the pilot program. 

“By prescribing limited quantities of alcohol, the model aims to prevent potentially life-threatening effects of alcohol withdrawal, such as seizures and injuries.” 

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Biden’s migrant crisis will cost taxpayers $451 BILLION a year: Staggering Republican report lays out how much is spent on healthcare and accommodation – as they target Mayorkas for impeachment

Taxpayers have to front nearly half a trillion dollars each year because the Biden administration is not stopping migrants at the southern border, Republicans said in a report on Monday.

The cost of providing education, healthcare, law enforcement and other expenditure resulting from millions of extra migrants adds up to as much as $451 billion a year, says the House study. 

The 49-page report comes as House Republicans push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly failing to constrain the record numbers of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.

‘Every day, millions of American taxpayer dollars are spent on costs directly associated with illegal immigration and the unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border sparked by … Mayorkas’ policies,’ says the report.

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Biden admin expected to announce additional $400 MILLION in weapons for Ukraine

The United States is expected to announce another $400 million in military aid for Ukraine on Friday, a source familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

It would mark the third round of assistance provided to Ukraine by the Biden administration since the president signed a $95 billion foreign aid bill into law last month.

According to the AP, the latest installment will be provided via the presidential drawdown authority and is set to include High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, artillery, air defense, anti-tank munitions, armored vehicles, and other necessary military equipment.

Whether the package included another round of Army Tactical Missile System long-range ballistic missiles, ATACMS, was not revealed.

On Thursday, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that his nation was facing “a really difficult situation” on the eastern front, where soldiers are working to prevent Russian troops from advancing further into their territory.

“With an increase in the supply of weapons,” Zelensky said, per the Washington Post, “we will be able to stop them in the east. As of now, they seized the initiative there.”

Following the passing of the aforementioned $95 billion foreign aid bill, the Biden administration moved to send $1 billion via the drawdown authority, then approved $6 billion in long-term contracts with defense industry companies to provide weapons in the future.

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Biden HHS Redefines ‘Lawfully Present’ To Give ‘Free’ Health Care To Illegal Immigrants

So much for a border crisis. The Biden administration recently finalized regulations that will provide taxpayer-funded benefits to individuals who came into this country lacking authorization, by defining them as “lawfully present.”

The final rule follows regulations proposed last spring. It will have the same major effects as the initial proposal by expanding access to taxpayer health benefits for specified populations, but seems craftily drafted in a way to avoid, or at least minimize, legal challenges.

Medicaid Expansion Not Finalized

The prime controversy in both last year’s proposed rule and this year’s final version is over health coverage for individuals participating in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Both regulations would revise the definition of “lawfully present” to include DACA participants for purposes of participation in health programs under Obamacare.

One major difference lies in the applicability of the regulatory changes. Whereas last year’s proposed rule changed the definition of “lawfully present” for both the insurance exchanges and Medicaid, the final regulation only applied the change to the exchanges, at least for the moment.

As a practical matter, not finalizing the Medicaid change will have little impact on DACA participants. Unlike most other populations, DACA participants will not need to earn income equal to the poverty level ($15,060 for a single person in 2024) to qualify for exchange subsidies. And because Biden-era enhanced subsidies remain in effect next year, the lowest-income recipients can qualify for subsidies that require no out-of-pocket premium for a benchmark health plan.

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The Great Ukraine Robbery is Not Over Yet

The ink was barely dry on President Biden’s signature transferring another $61 billion to the black hole called Ukraine, when the mainstream media broke the news that this was not the parting shot in a failed US policy. The elites have no intention of shutting down this gravy train, which transports wealth from the middle and working class to the wealthy and connected class.

Reuters wrote right after the aid bill was passed that, “Ukraine’s $61 billion lifeline is not enough.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went on the Sunday shows after the bill was passed to say that $61 billion is “not a whole lot of money for us…” Well, that’s easy for him to say – after all it’s always easier to spend someone else’s money!

Ukraine’s foreign minister,  Dmytro  Kuleba, was far from grateful for the $170 billion we have shipped thus far to his country. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine as the aid package was passed, Kuleba had the nerve to criticize the US for not producing weapons fast enough. “If you cannot produce enough interceptors to help Ukraine win the war against the country that wants to destroy the world order, then how are you going to win in the war against perhaps an enemy who is stronger than Russia?”

How’s that for a “thank you”?

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Race to the Bottom: The State Competing with California to be the ‘Left’s Progressive Utopia’

When hearing about the woes of blue states, names like California and New York immediately come to mind, but we may need to add a new name to the list of places Democratic officials are ruining: Illinois.

The Daily Caller reported on Thursday that new data indicates the state our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, once called home is in a downward spiral.

While California is still leading the nation with the worst unemployment rate in the country at 5.3 percent, Illionois is not far behind in fifth with 4.8 percent.

The comparisons don’t stop there. With the 8th highest tax burden and high crime rates, many Illinoisans are opting to simply leave the state for greener pastures — as Californians have been doing.

Bryce Hill, director of fiscal and economic research at the Illinois Policy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “The Census Bureau has reported that residents are leaving the state en masse to the tune of hundreds of thousands every single year, so much so that the state’s population has actually been declining for the past 10 years.”

As of July 2023, Illinois population was 12,549,689. That number was down 32,826 from 2022. Census data showed this fall has been steady, as the population as of April 1, 2020, was 12,813,469.

Heartland Institute Senior Fellow S.T. Karnick cited a few reasons for this decline. “Opinion polls cite high taxes as the top reason people want to leave Illinois, with crime and safety second. Illinois has the fourth-most regulations among the 50 states, which raises prices and kills jobs.”

Violent crime in Chicago went up 18 percent in 2023 compared to ten years prior, with arrests dropping 33 percent over the same time.

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Israeli Officials Say Flow of US Weapons Is Uninterrupted Despite Report of Ammunition Delay

Israeli officials said on Sunday that the overall flow of US weapons shipments to Israel is “uninterrupted” despite a report from Axios that said the Biden administration put a hold on an ammunition shipment.

The Axios report cited two Israeli officials who said the hold on the ammunition raised “serious concerns” in the Israeli government, but the sources did not give a reason why the US delayed the shipment. CNN later reported that the pause had nothing to do with Israel’s plans to invade Rafah and wouldn’t impact future weapons shipments, meaning it doesn’t reflect a change in US policy.

“The stream of security shipments from the US to Israel is ongoing. While individual shipments might be delayed, the overall flow remains uninterrupted, and we are not aware of any policy suspending it,” an Israeli official told Ynet.

Israel’s public broadcaster Kan cited a political source who said Israel “is not aware of any US decision regarding stopping or reducing military support to Israel.” The source added that it was “possible that one shipment or another will be delayed, but the flow continues, and we are not aware of a political decision to stop it.”

When asked about the paused ammunition shipment, a National Security Council spokesperson vowed the US would continue arming Israel. “The United States has surged billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel since the October 7 attacks, passed the largest ever supplemental appropriation for emergency assistance to Israel, led an unprecedented coalition to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, and will continue to do what is necessary to ensure Israel can defend itself from the threats it faces,” the spokesperson told CNN.

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Massachusetts Democrat Governor Maura Healey Approves Millions in New Spending on Illegal Immigrants as Residents Flee State

Massachusetts Democrat Governor Maura Healey has just approved hundreds of millions in new spending for illegal immigrants, even as people are fleeing the state for greener pastures.

Massachusetts is a sanctuary state where homeless migrants must be housed, no matter how badly it works out for citizens.

The state is spending an insane amount of money on people who entered the country illegally.

Townhall reports:

Democrat Massachusetts Gov. Approves $400 Million In Freebies for Illegal Immigrants

Despite residents fleeing Massachusetts, Democrat Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) signed a bill welcoming hundreds more of illegal immigrants into her state.

Healey signed the state budget this week that includes an additional $426 million to house illegal aliens in correspondence to the state’s “right to shelter” law that requires the government to put illegal immigrants and homeless people into homes.

The Democrat governor’s move comes as Boston declared a state of emergency after it exhausted its resources last year due to the massive influx of illegal immigrants coming to the sanctuary state.

According to a report, Massachusetts currently has more than one million illegal aliens residing in the state. It is expected to cost taxpayers over one billion dollars by 2025 to house them.

This number doesn’t include the 14,000 illegal Haitian immigrants Massachusetts has funded since 2022. CBS News noted that there are more than 3,500 illegal immigrants just in the state’s shelter system— which has been at capacity for months.

It’s like American citizens are the last consideration.

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Waste of the Day: Federal Government Loses Up to $521 Billion to Fraud Annually

Topline: The federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud every year, according to a new study from the Government Accountability Office.

Key facts: The fraud losses represent 3 to 7 percent of the $40 trillion the federal government obligated from 2018 to 2022, a ratio the GAO says is comparable to other large governments like the U.K.

The dollar figure includes only crimes that cause the government to lose money it already has — not tax fraud or other ways the government loses potential revenue.

It does include over $100 billion lost to unemployment insurance fraud and $200 billion in fraudulent business loans from the Small Business Administration during the pandemic.

The lowest estimate, $233 billion, is still larger than the 2022 budget of all but eight federal agencies.

Only $4.41 billion to $7.31 billion was reported as “confirmed fraud” each year with an official court ruling. The rest was settled out of court or, more likely, never recouped at all.

Some of the biggest risk factors for fraud are expanding government programs or adding new ones, allowing state governments to control payments, and relying on officials with limited training or experience, the GAO wrote.

The report does not necessarily predict how much will be lost to fraud in the future.

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UK Vows To Arm Ukraine For ‘As Long as It Takes’ – Commits $3.7BN Annually

The UK has committed to what might be called ‘forever aid’ in Ukraine’s defense, with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron newly promising $3.74 billion of annual military aid for Kiev for “as long as it takes”.

He unveiled the plan Thursday, and it marks the biggest commitment in foreign defense aid rollout for Britain thus far in the war (and perhaps in all of history), coming on the heels of the Biden administration also seeking to erect a 10-year plan to assist Ukraine which theoretically would lock in future US presidents as well.

“We will give 3 billion pounds every year for as long as is necessary. We’ve just really emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment,” Cameron told Reuters in an interview on a visit to the Ukrainian capital.

“Some of that [equipment] is actually arriving in Ukraine today, while I’m here,” he said. Alarmingly, he openly stated that the British government has no problem with Ukrainian forces using UK weapons to strike at targets inside Russian territory.

“Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” Cameron said.

“It’s absolutely crucial, not just in terms of the weapons it will bring, but also the boost to morale that it will bring to people here in Ukraine,” the UK top diplomat continued in the remarks given upon his second visit to the war-ravaged country as foreign secretary.

Cameron was at one point asked whether a potential future Trump administration could negatively impact the flow of aid to the Zelensky government.

He responded: “It’s not for us to decide who the Americans choose as their president. We will work with whoever that is.” NATO officials have reportedly been attempting to “Trump-proof” any future aid.

Last Sunday, Zelensky himself signaled as much in a nightly video address, saying that he’s working with Washington on a bilateral security agreement which would last ten years. “We are already working on a specific text,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all.”

“We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation. We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and the next 10 years.”

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