Tag: taxes

Prestigious $30K federal scholarships doled out almost exclusively to progressive students

The 2022 recipients of the prestigious federal Truman Scholarships once again lean heavily toward Democrats and progressives, according to an analysis by The College Fix.

Of the 58 scholarship recipients announced last week, only three have any connection to Republican politics. At the same time, five recipients have connections to Democratic politics, while an additional 35 more list a progressive cause as their primary area of advocacy.

The primary interests of the 35 progressive-leaning students granted the award in 2022 included environmental justice, “menstrual equity,” transgender rights, Latinx political engagement, diversity and inclusion, intersectionality, gun control, and the “gendered impacts of uranium mining.”

One student aims to set up a “safe space” for his school’s “multicultural male students and faculty to receive free food, haircuts, and showcase vulnerability as strength through meaningful conversations.”

Of the remaining awardees, 15 have political leanings that could be considered neutral or non-political.

The highly prestigious $30,000 scholarship is granted each year to a new set of college juniors to help them attend graduate school. The award was established by Congress as a nonpartisan federal program, and recipients must pledge to serve three of their first seven years after graduation in public service. It is granted to “persons who demonstrate outstanding potential for and who plan to pursue a career in public service.”

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Baltimore Residents To Get $1,000 Checks In UBI Pilot Test 

Newly elected Mayor Brandon Scott will provide unconditional payments of $1,000 a month for two years to low-income families in Baltimore City’s new guaranteed income pilot program, according to local news WBAL. 

According to a statement released by Scott’s office, the $1,000 monthly checks will be distributed to 200 low-income households across a metro area that struggles with violent crime and a broken economy thanks to decades of Democratic leadership. 

The city allocated $4.8 million in the American Rescue Plan funding to finance the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund. It’s a cover for pilot testing universal basic income (UBI). 

Requirments for free money require that a person be a millennial (18-24), be either the biological or adoptive parents or guardians, and have income at or below the federal poverty level. 

The free money comes with no strings attached, and they can spend it on anything.

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Federal government spent $22M studying invisibility cloaks, anti-gravity, and moon tunnel

The federal government has spent years investing millions into funding research projects straight out of a sci-fi movie.

The projects dating back to 2009 include those focused on invisibility cloaking, traversable wormholes, negative energy, anti-gravity, high-frequency gravitational wave communications, and a proposal to tunnel a hole through the moon. Research into the projects was done to assess the military and defense capabilities of the new technologies.

The Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program, through the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, received $10 million in the 2008 Defense Supplemental Appropriation Act and $12 million from the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act for the research, according to documents obtained by Vice‘s Motherboard.

“None of these technologies ever seem to have gotten remotely close to being a reality, as far as we know,” the outlet claimed Tuesday.

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Rhode Island Dems Submit Bill To Double State Income Tax For Parents Of Unvaccinated Minors

Rhode Island Democrats want to punish the parents of children who refused to submit to the COVID vaccine mandates.

If passed, the bill will financially cripple individuals by doubling their personal income tax and requiring them to pay a monthly fine of $50.

State Senator Samuel Bell is the lead legislator backing the bill, which mandates all Rhode Island residents, workers, and taxpayers receive a COVID-19 vaccine as well as any subsequent boosters that the state’s director of the department of health shall require.

The bill’s text can be read here.

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Illinois Offers Free Healthcare to Qualified Illegal Immigrants

Illinois is now offering free health care to some illegal immigrants after state lawmakers approved the program last year. The new program will provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants between the ages of 55 and 64, FOX32 Chicago reported. Migrants over the age of 64 are already entitled to healthcare coverage in the state.

Covered services include doctor and hospital visits, lab tests, physical and occupational therapy, mental health, substance abuse disorder services, dental and vision services, and prescription drugs. In order to qualify, the recipient must be an “undocumented immigrant”, be between the ages of 55 through 64 and have a household income is at or below $18,754 for one person, or $25,268 for two people.

The plan will soon expand further in order to grant free healthcare to illegal immigrants between the ages of 42 through 55.

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US TAX DAY: Americans Send Average of $2K to Military

Most of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time.

You’ve probably heard a lot about corporations not paying taxes. Last year, individual Americans contributed six times more in income tax than corporations did.

But have you heard about how many of citizens’ tax dollars then end up in corporate pockets? It’s a lot — especially for corporations that contract with the Pentagon. They collect nearly half of all military spending.

The average U.S. taxpayer contributed about $2,000 to the military last year, according to a breakdown my colleagues and I prepared for the Institute for Policy Studies. More than $900 of that went to corporate military contractors.

In 2020, the largest Pentagon contractor, Lockheed Martin, took in $75 billion from taxpayers — and paid its CEO more than $23 million.

Unfortunately, this spending isn’t buying us a more secure world.

Last year, Congress added $25 billion the Pentagon didn’t ask for to its already gargantuan budget. Lawmakers even refused to let military leaders retire weapons systems they couldn’t use anymore. The extra money favored top military contractors that gave campaign money to a group of lawmakers, who refused to comment on it.

Then there’s simple price-gouging.

There’s the infamous case of TransDigm, a Pentagon contractor that charged the government $4,361 for a metal pin that should’ve cost $46 — and then refused to share cost data. Congress recently asked TransDigm to repay some of its misbegotten profits, but the Pentagon hasn’t cut off its business.

Somewhere between price-gouging and incompetence lies the F-35 jet fighter, an embarrassment the late Sen. John McCain, a Pentagon booster, called “a scandal and a tragedy.”

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New IG Report Reveals Biden Regime Wasted $17 Million on UNUSED Hotel Rooms Meant for Illegals and ICE Contractors

In yet another brutal indictment of the Biden Administration’s handling of the Southern Border, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a new report this week detailing several procedural violations and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars through border operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and contractors.

Following the $80 million-plus contract that the Biden administration awarded to the non-profit group Endeavors to provide hotel room lodging for illegal immigrants, the IG report found a lack of “justification” given for the exorbitant amount of money being allocated, leading to millions in wasted dollars. In all, a whopping $17 million was wasted on empty rooms in six hotels between April and June 2021.

The decision to award Endeavors the housing contract for illegals was also criticized at the time because the Biden administration subverted the traditional selection process and allowed the non-profit to secure the contract without opening it up to any competition, also called a no-bid contract. In other words, this relationship has been shady since the beginning.

Although the amount is fairly modest when compared to the recently passed trillion-plus-dollar spending package, or even the 3 billion that’s been sent to Ukraine so far, the complete waste of millions in taxpayer dollars is a notable issue. The fact that over 3 million illegals that we know of have crossed the border since Biden took office  and the subsequent overcrowding in ICE facilities, should suggest that there would be no vacancies in any of the hotel rooms. How did almost 1/4th of the money end up being spent on nothing?

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Bellingham, Washington School District Pays Middle School Students $2,000 to Perform Drag Show

A Bellingham middle school awarded children $2,000 to perform a drag show.

Whatcom Middle School’s Gender Sexuality Alliance club (yes, for 10-12 year olds) came up with the idea to host the “Drop Dead Gorgeous Drag Show.”

Totally normal.

But don’t worry because the school insists the drag show will be “behaviorally appropriate,” KGMI reported.

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IRS Data: Democrat Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Pays Less than Half the Tax Rate Paid by Average American

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the failed Democrat presidential primary candidate and former New York City mayor, is paying less than half the federal income tax rate the average American taxpayer pays, newly published Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data reveals.

The revelation is part of a broad investigation by ProPublica that gives a glimpse into the tax loopholes that the richest 400 Americans utilize every year to dodge billions in federal income taxes that most Americans are required to pay.

“To make it into the top 400, each person on this list had to make an average of at least $110 million each year,” the investigation states. “A typical American making $40,000 would have to work for 2,750 years to make what the lowest-earning person in this group made in one.”

Bloomberg, ProPublica reports, “achieved one of the lowest tax rates in the top 400” richest Americans from 2013 to 2018 “partly by taking annual deductions of more than $1 billion, mostly through charitable contributions.”

During that time frame, Bloomberg paid an average federal income tax rate of just four percent — less than half the rate that the average American taxpayer, at 13.3 percent, pays every year. In fact, Bloomberg’s average rate is just 0.5 percent more than what the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay on average.

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