Tag: taxes

Chuck Schumer Learned Nothing From the Failure of Pot Legalization in California

During the next year, California officials said last week, the state expects to seize “more than $1 billion worth of illegal cannabis products.” That announcement came a few weeks after the U.S. Justice Department bragged about guilty pleas by 11 unlicensed California marijuana merchants who had been nabbed with help from state and local law enforcement agencies.

The continuing war on weed in California, which supposedly legalized marijuana in 2016, reflects the striking failure to replace black-market dealers with state-licensed vendors, a plan that has been doomed by high taxes, local bans, and overregulation. Judging from the marijuana legalization bill he introduced last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D‒N.Y.) has learned nothing from that experience.

Six years after California voters approved recreational marijuana, unauthorized suppliers still account for somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of sales. A recent report from Reason Foundation, which publishes this website, highlights one major reason why licensed businesses have had so much trouble competing with illegal suppliers: Taxes are too high.

Geoff Lawrence, Reason Foundation’s managing director of drug policy, found that California’s effective tax rate ranged from $42 to $92 per ounce, depending on the jurisdiction, compared to an estimated wholesale production cost of $35 per ounce. The corresponding rates in Colorado and Oregon, both of which have been more successful at displacing the black market, are about $33 and $21, respectively.

Despite modest tax relief approved this year, legal marijuana remains overpriced in California. It is also inconvenient to buy in much of the state, Lawrence notes, thanks to local sales bans that have created “massive cannabis deserts” where “consumers have no access to a legal retailer within a reasonable distance of their home.”

Legal sellers also must contend with burdensome licensing requirements and regulations. Dale Gieringer, California director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says those rules help explain why legal marijuana prices are much higher than he anticipated.

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House Lawmakers to Receive $10,000 Security Stipend Amid Increasing Threats of Violence

House lawmakers will be offered up to $10,000 to strengthen their home security amid increasing threats of violence against lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The stipend, announced by House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker, would offer to cover up to $10,000 worth of expenses for upgrading home security systems, cameras and video recorders, locks, and motion sensors at the homes of lawmakers.

In addition to the stipend, Walker announced that the program, set to begin on Aug. 15, would furnish up to $150 per month to helping lawmakers pay fees and maintain the new equipment.

“The Sergeant at Arms (SAA) will assume the cost of and oversee certain future residential security upgrades, maintenance, and monthly monitoring fees. This program will strengthen the security of Members of the House of Representatives and their families,” Walker wrote in a letter to lawmakers announcing the stipend.

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The Semiconductor Industry Is Coming for Your Wallet — As Usual, Congress Is Complicit

Of all the problems in the world right now, the chip shortage probably isn’t the chief concern for most people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue. The auto and tech sectors have faced unprecedented delays and rising prices in recent months. Some used cars are even selling for more than their new counterparts because of the delays, a sure sign that production has slowed dramatically.

To address this, Congress is contemplating bipartisan legislation known as the Chips Act, which would provide $52 billion in grants and $24 billion in tax credits to the US semiconductor industry. Thanks to a last-minute bipartisan amendment, the bill will also put tens of billions of dollars toward various federal agencies, bringing the total price tag to $250 billion.

Because why not…

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Here’s the Absurd Things Congress Wasted Your Tax Dollars On

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its 2022 “Congressional Pig Book” on Wednesday, documenting all the porky waste of taxpayer dollars that result from earmarks from members of the House and Senate. In its report this year, CAGW “exposes 5,138 earmarks, an increase of 1,702.8 percent from the 285 in FY 2021, at a cost of $18.9 billion, an increase of 18.9 percent from the $15.9 billion in earmarks in FY 2021.”

Among the wasteful spending — most of which replicate existing infrastructure or would be unnecessary if institutions used their assets rather than forcing taxpayers to fund their projects — are some doozies. Such as $7 million worth of taxpayer dollars earmarked for the Army Corps of Engineers to work on “fish passage and fish screens” or the more than $31 million earmarked for presidential libraries by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) who appropriated $20 million for the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Roy Blunt (R-MO) who earmarked $11.5 million for the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. As the CAGW report notes:

The Grant library opened in November 2017 at a cost of $10 million, and was paid for by Mississippi taxpayers. The FY 2022 earmark, costing double the original amount and paid for by federal taxpayers, will support the relocation and construction of a new library. This makes about as much sense as hosting the victorious Union general’s library in the deep South.

Out in Colorado, Democrat Senator Michael Bennett earmarked a staggering $30 million for construction on a “fitness center” at an Air Force base in Colorado Springs, despite the city have more than two dozen gyms and there already being a facility on another nearby Air Force base. Somehow, Congress managed to spend more than $26.5 million on just 14 earmarks “funding bike paths” in Rhode Island, Nebraska, and California while another $20+ million was earmarked for museum exhibits in New York, Illinois, and California. 

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White House Approves 16th Weapons Transfer to Ukraine, Total Security Aid Now Over $8 Billion

The White House announced a $270 million weapons package Kiev on Friday. The latest transfer will send four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS and drones to Ukraine.

The additional four HIMARS brings the total number the US has committed to sending to Ukraine to 16. Commander of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley said the other 12 HIMARS have reached Ukraine and have not been destroyed by Russia. The US has provided Ukraine with rockets that can be fired 50 miles by the rocket systems.

John Kirby, communications director for the National Security Council, announced the package on Friday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Wednesday the US would be sending the additional HIMARS.

The package also includes 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for howitzers and 560 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones. The latest transfer is the 17th approved by the White House since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The Biden administration has now committed over $8 billion in weapons to Kiev’s fight.

Russia has been critical of arms assistance to Ukraine from the US and its allies. The HIMARS have drawn particular ire from the Kremlin because of the platform’s long range. Ukrainian officials have recently suggested the HIMARS could be used in an offensive to retake the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

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Fauci’s Projected $414,667 Retirement Deal ‘Largest Ever’ in U.S. History

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced his retirement effective January 2025.

By then, he will have turned 85 years old and served in the federal government for 59 years.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com crunched Fauci’s cash pension payout as of his anticipated retirement date.

Today, Fauci earns a federal salary of $480,654 per year. However, by 2024, Fauci will likely be making $530,000 in salary — an increase of nearly $200,000 since 2014.

Therefore, we estimate that Fauci’s first-year pension payout will exceed $414,000 — more than the salary of the president of the United States ($400,000).

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Senate Democrats introduce bill to federally decriminalize and tax marijuana after Biden said no one should go to jail for using cannabis

Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday introduced a bill that would federally decriminalize marijuana and allows states to set up their own regulations on the cannabis industry. 

The bill came at long last to cannabis advocates and days after Biden proclaimed at a July 16 press briefing: ‘I don’t think anyone should be in prison for the use of marijuana. We’re working on the crime bill now.’ 

Biden was asked if he would be ‘honoring his campaign pledge’ to release all of those locked up for pot convictions from prison. The president has repeatedly says he does not support full legalization. 

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Schumer first proposed a pot bill over a year ago but did not release text until Thursday. The legislation, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, has a slim chance of passing the Senate, but portions of the bill could find their way into other packages that have a shot at passing before the end of the year. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set up a hearing titled: ‘Decriminalizing Cannabis at the Federal Level: Necessary Steps to Address Past Harms’ for next week. 

The legislation includes priorities sought by Democrats and Republicans: it expunges federal cannabis-related records and sets up funding for law enforcement to fight illegal cannabis production. 

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POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE SPENDING MILLIONS ON ‘COPAGANDA’

In May of this year, I testified at a hearing in San Francisco where city leaders questioned the police department’s funding and use of public relations professionals. That funding was heavier than you might expect.

According to police department documents provided to the County Board of Supervisors, budget items included a nine-person full-time team managed by a director of strategic communications who alone costs the city $289,423; an undisclosed number of cops paid part-time to do PR work on social media; a Community Engagement Unit tracking public opinion; officers who intervene with the families of victims of police violence and who are dispatched to the scenes of police violence to control initial media reaction; and a full-time videographer making PR videos about cops.

San Francisco is not unique. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has 42 employees doing PR work in what it calls, in Orwellian fashion, its “Information Bureau.” The Los Angeles Police Department has another 25 employees devoted to formal PR work.

Why do police invest so much in manipulating our perceptions of what they do? I call this phenomenon “copaganda”: creating a gap between what police actually do and what people think they do.

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Biden Asks Congress for Tens of Billions to Back Federal Anti-Crime Plan

The Biden administration on Thursday said it is asking Congress for $37 billion in funding to deal with surging crime while calling for a ban on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”

“We need to fund police who walk the beat, know the neighborhood, are accountable to those they are sworn to serve, and build community trust and safety,” said the White House in a statement, coming two years after top Democrats embraced the polarizing “defund the police” rhetoric amid nationwide Black Lives Matter riots.

The statement added that the United States needs to “invest in mental health and substance use treatment services, crisis responders, and social workers to reduce the burden on police officers and prevent violent crime” while also expanding community interventions.

Turning to firearms themselves, the administration called to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” which was not clearly defined in the White House statement. Pro-gun groups have said that the terms “assault weapon” and “high-capacity magazine” are nebulous and don’t have a clear definition and prefer terms such as “modern sporting rifle” instead.

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