Tag: taxes

Watch Pete Buttigieg Fantasize About Finding Newer Ways to Tax People

Former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg recently spoke to podcaster named Steve Bartlett and spent part of the time talking about new ways to tax people after lamenting that people keep finding ways to hide their wealth from the government.

This really is a window into the mind of a Democrat politician. This is the way they think. They fantasize about what they could do with your money.

The government already takes in trillions of dollars and a huge portion of it is stolen through fraud. Instead of trying to figure out how to spend that money more responsibly, they just think about ways to get more of it.

Quotes via Kanekoa the Great:

“If we had a more reasonable rate of taxation on capital gains and corporate income, and made it harder to pass along inherited wealth…”

“We’d be out of this doom loop we’re in saying… We can’t possibly do something like fast trains here in the United States. Of course we can. This is the wealthiest economy in the world.”

“If we aren’t collecting a fair level of taxes, then of course we’re going to come up short when we’re trying to fund those things.”

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SURPRISE! Zohran Mamdani’s Universal ‘Free’ Childcare Program Projected to Cost Billions More Than Planned

Zohran Mamdani’s universal and ‘free’ childcare program in New York City is now being projected to cost billions more than originally planned.

Who could have predicted such a thing?

Only a leftist could devise a government-run program that costs billions of tax dollars and have the nerve to call it free. It’s a concept that is completely lost on the media.

In this case, no one should be surprised that the price tag keeps going up.

The New York Post reports:

Mamdani’s universal childcare plan will cost taxpayers billions more than planned as costs balloon: report

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s universal childcare plan will cost 50% more than he advertised, according to a new study.

The proposed program is estimated to cost a whopping $9 billion annually, approximately with an average cost per child roughly $27,000, according to the report from the Center for New York City Affairs, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with the New School.

“An estimated $8.7 to $9.3 billion would be needed annually to fund universal child care in New York City,” the report, which was released on Monday, states.

That’s $3 billion more than the mayor previously said his ambitious universal free childcare program would cost.

Hizzoner promised on the campaign trail that his plan to make childcare free for children from 6 weeks old to five years old regardless of family income would cost about $6 billion per year and be paid for by taxing the state’s wealthiest earners.

The $3 billion gap identified in the study was largely tied to teacher pay, with the Center for NYC Affairs estimating some 23,000 new childcare workers will need to be hired, mainly for infants and children under three years old.

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Scamdani and the Truth About City-Owned Grocery Stores

Some of my earliest memories are from a grocery store.

My mother, and later her sister, worked at a locally owned Key Market running the deli department. Baked goods, hot meals, sliced meats and fresh salads, and the best donuts you ever tasted made from scratch every day — it was a kid’s paradise. She would sometimes take me to work on Saturdays, and I’d help, doing everything but slicing the meat (age-restricted because it’s dangerous). It was fun for me, and I learned things I would not have learned watching cartoons.

Later, just before I married and became a military wife, I worked at my local Kroger regional office supporting loyalty card and marketing issues for, gosh, I guess it was about 200 stores. I learned a lot about the grocery business.

All this is to say: I know the difference between grocery economics and political theater.

Scamdani’s ever-evolving store plans

Zohran Mamdani, New York’s newest Hizzoner, ran largely on a pledge to create city-owned grocery stores, and today he’s working to fulfill that promise. Sort of. The idea was to decrease prices for consumers by removing the “gouging” profit model.

Some of his campaign promises included:

  • “Grocery prices are out of control. The cost of eggs and milk has skyrocketed. Some stores are even using dynamic pricing, jacking up the cost over the course of the day depending on what they can get away with. It doesn’t need to be this way. I’m Zohran Mamdani, and as mayor, I will create a network of city-owned grocery stores. It’s like a public option for produce. We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores, whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging.”
  • “I’m Zohran Mamdani, and as mayor, I will create a network of city-owned grocery stores. It’s like a public option for produce.”
  • “We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores, whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging.” (This one is especially rich, as you’ll see.)
  • “Last month, we announced that we would fulfill a campaign promise: that we would lower prices by creating a network of city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough. In these stores, prices will be cheaper.”

Sounds great. So last month, he announced the reality: a limited core basket including produce, meat, seafood, milk, bread, yogurt, and a few other things to be priced 30% below “typical retail,” whatever that really means, in city-owned and subsidized stores run by private for-profit operators. Operators are entitled to price everything outside the core basket at whatever they like. The discounted “basket” will be subsidized by the city. The city covers capital, rent, and property tax. And users, as announced today, will be required to prove residency with a “library card” style identification.

As Darth Vader said, the deal has been altered. Pray he does not alter it further.

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California Democrats Overwhelmingly Back Billionaire Tax Ahead of High-Stakes November Ballot

California’s proposed billionaire tax cleared a major political hurdle on Sunday after winning the endorsement of the California Democratic Party.

The endorsement provides fresh momentum to the initiative just months before voters decide the measure at the ballot box.

The proposal secured the 60 percent threshold required for the party’s endorsement during a meeting of hundreds of Democrat officials in San Diego.

The approval came despite fierce opposition from some of the state’s most prominent Democrats.

If endorsed by voters in November, the measure would impose a one-time 5 percent tax on Californians with a net worth of at least $1 billion, affecting roughly 200 of the state’s wealthiest residents.

The endorsement is a significant victory for supporters after months of infighting within the Democratic Party.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra have both publicly opposed the proposal, warning it could encourage wealthy taxpayers to leave the state.

The initiative was placed on the ballot by the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which claims the tax will raise an estimated $100 billion.

The money will be primarily used to offset healthcare funding reductions enacted by the Trump administration.

“This endorsement puts to rest the idea that California Democrats are not united by the billionaire tax—they are,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW.

The measure has drawn support from far-left Democrats, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, who argue California’s wealthiest residents should contribute more to fund healthcare programs.

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Crack Pipes, Get Yer’ Crack Pipes! Free Crack Pipes!: California Taxpayers Fund Drug Paraphernalia

As governor of California, Gavin Newsom has repeatedly supported “harm reduction” policies, which enable drug use in the name of making it “safer.” He created the state’s Harm Reduction Initiative, which funded “syringe services programs” for “people who inject and smoke fentanyl and/or methamphetamines.” His Department of Public Health has endorsed distributing syringes, glass pipes, and “[c]ontainers for mixing injectable drugs” to drug users. Newsom argued earlier this year that harm-reduction tactics “increase the likelihood of people entering substance use treatment.”

But do California’s harm-reduction programs encourage addicts to enter treatment? We visited the Skid Row Care Campus, a homeless-services site in Los Angeles County, to witness “harm reduction” in action. We discovered that, instead of directing addicts to get clean, the taxpayer-funded program doles out free paraphernalia, enabling addicts to get high – no questions asked.

We arrived at Skid Row in the morning. The campus, bounded by pastel-colored buildings and a metal gate, looked like an apocalyptic wasteland. Homeless people and addicts were splayed across the common areas, with some smoking what seemed to be hard drugs with impunity.

We stepped onto the courtyard connected to the street. No one stopped us, asked for identification, or searched us for weapons or drugs. This is apparently by design, judging by the Skid Row Action Plan and its implementation outline, which, singly or together, inspired the creation of the campus, denounced the “racist and classist war on drugs,” and called on local officials to create hubs “free from monitoring by law enforcement” and staffed by people with histories of “substance use and sex work.”

We entered campus and found a walk-up counter, where an attendant sat before shelves of drug paraphernalia. Users come to this counter to get free needles and crack pipes, with which they can inject or smoke hard drugs.

“What can I get you?” he asked. “We have oil burners, we have spray shooters, we have socks, we have petroleum jelly.”

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SpaceX Purges Chinese Personnel And Parts From Supply Chain as Space Force Awards $1.6 Billion Launch Contract

SpaceX is conducting what sources close to the company describe as an unprecedented supply chain purge — systematically removing Chinese nationals and Chinese-manufactured components from every facility that touches its hardware. The move, first reported by Nikkei Asia, represents the most aggressive decoupling of a major American defense contractor from the Chinese Communist Party’s industrial ecosystem in recent memory.

According to Nikkei’s reporting, SpaceX is instructing its suppliers in writing not to assign Chinese nationals to any facility producing SpaceX hardware and to prohibit equipment manufactured by Chinese companies — including surveillance cameras and routers — from those production floors. Audit teams dispatched by SpaceX are actively verifying compliance. The company is simultaneously building what it internally calls an “NCNT” supply chain — Non-China, Non-Taiwan — to insulate production against any potential disruption in the Taiwan Strait. “We work hard to adhere to the requests and it is understandable,” one supplier source told Nikkei. “The technology is a matter of national security, especially as SpaceX also has commercial partnerships with NASA.”

The timing could not be more significant. On Thursday, the U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command awarded SpaceX two task orders totaling $1.6 billion to execute 18 Falcon 9 launches under the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 program. All 18 missions will lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and are designed to deliver Space Based Sensing and Targeting capabilities — satellites providing real-time tracking of airborne threats and near-instantaneous data relay to joint warfighters. Space Force Col. Eric Zarybnisky called the two-month acquisition timeline from requirement identification to award “unprecedented,” emphasizing that “the speed our warfighter demands” drove the compressed schedule.

This is what economic nationalism looks like when it has teeth. For years, Washington demanded that defense contractors clean up their China dependencies while quietly tolerating the status quo. SpaceX is doing what the Pentagon has talked about endlessly but rarely enforced: hard-wiring the CCP out of systems that underpin American military supremacy in space. The Space Force contract ceiling for Lane 1 was raised from $5.6 billion to $17 billion just weeks ago — a signal that the U.S. military’s appetite for sovereign, China-free launch capacity is accelerating fast.

The broader context matters too. SpaceX already holds a $2.29 billion contract to build the Space Force’s low Earth orbit satellite communications backbone for low-latency warfighter data relay. Rocket Lab last week landed a parallel NSSL contract for up to 18 missile defense launches. America is rebuilding its space arsenal at speed — and the new rule is simple: no Chinese hands, no Chinese chips, no exceptions. The establishment media will frame this as xenophobia or Musk politics. What it actually is, is industrial policy that matches the threat.

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Newsom’s Release of Tax Returns Called ‘an Insult to Transparency’

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California released four years of federal tax returns this week to carefully selected news outlets — a disclosure which one news outlet slammed as “sneaky” and an “insult to transparency.”

The release was prompted “in part by a federal investigation into the finances of his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom,” aides told the New York Times, one of the few publications tapped to view and report on the returns.

That’s the rub, critics said.

The California Post reported Saturday that the governor “only permitted a small group of favored media outlets to pore over 718 pages of documents while forbidding them from making copies,” a move it headlined as “sneaky” and the process an “insult to transparency.”

The Post, which had lobbied for their release, was not one of the chosen few.

In 2024, the most recent year released, the Newsoms reported a taxable income of about $1.39 million, $1 million of that from investments, according to the Times’ reporting on Friday.

The governor’s taxable wages from his salary as governor were about $192,000. According to that report “his wife’s wages were about $148,000.”

Until this week, Newsom and his wife have not released returns since he ran for reelection in 2022, though when he was first elected governor he promised to release them annually–but failed to do so, the Times noted.

His office told the newspaper that the new release was in response to “right-wing claims” that the couple enriched themselves during his time in office.

The Post and others, however, took umbrage at the methodology of the disclosure. The paper reported the release was made at a “carefully managed private media event Thursday in Sacramento.”

“Media outlets including the New York Times and Politico, whose reporters were ordered to use only a pen and paper to take notes on the documents, agreed to publish their findings Friday morning,” the Post wrote in its Saturday edition.

The Times confirmed that restricted note-taking scenario as well.

The Post published comments from two critical congressmen from the Golden State.

“If the governor is truly committed to transparency, it makes little sense to pick and choose who that transparency extends to,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), a former state legislator, told the tabloid. “This appears to be another Newsom story where the factual details are very different from the self-proclaimed headline.”

Rep. James Gallagher (R-CA) also weighed in, saying, “Newsom’s transparency is a lot like his homelessness policy — it leaves a lot to be desired.”

He continued, “He talks big about things but never actually delivers. This is another instance of that — only allowing select people and only pen and paper. This isn’t real transparency. There are still a lot of questions where Gavin’s money comes from.”

According to the Times:

The returns, which were released for 2021 through 2024, show that Mr. Newsom’s finances have been fairly stable over the years, except in 2021, when the family’s income received a $1 million boost after they sold a multimillion-dollar home. Mr. Newsom has filed for an extension to file his 2025 return, which is due in October.

Tax returns often do not indicate how much a person’s wealth has grown through investments and business holdings. Many asset classes grew substantially in value between 2021 and 2024, yet the Newsoms’ income remained roughly the same. The governor and his wife both have significant investments in blind trusts, and only the income from those investments was reflected in the tax returns.

The couple, the Times reported, earned the bulk of their joint income from the governor’s investment in the wine and hospitality industry, held in a blind trust. His wife’s income stemmed from nonprofits with which she is associated.

The governor, who published his memoir Young Man in a Hurry, also earned $70,000 as an author in 2023 and $75,000 in $2024, presumably as advances for that book or royalties for a children’s book he also wrote.

Over the period released, the couple’s donations to charity ranged from a low of $40,000 in 2021 to a high of $67,000 in 2023. The names of organizations receiving cash were withheld, according to the Times, while recipients of non-cash donations were included.

One such donation was “Armani business wear” to a justice nonprofit in Oakland, the clothing costing them $45,000 but listed at a “thrift shop value” of only $4900. Other donations like toys and furniture went to Goodwill Industries.

The couple also paid additional taxes for domestic staff members and babysitters, reportedly paying nearly $200,000 in wages for household employees in 2024.

The returns came especially into focus after the governor disclosed recently that he and his wife are subjects of a federal investigation, which he claims is politically motivated.

Newsom in the past has accused the administration of weaponizing the Justice Department against him because he is a likely contender in the 2028 presidential election.

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USEFUL IDIOT: Left Wing Political Commentator is SHOCKED That He is Being Hit With Zohran Mamdani’s New Tax on New Yorkers

Scott Galloway is a left wing political commentator and professor at NYU. He hates President Trump and has never heard a far left policy he didn’t like.

But now he is complaining that he has been hit with Zohran Mamdani’s new pied-à-terre tax, which hits New Yorkers who own a valuable second home.

Galloway is complaining that he has been ‘doxed’ because his name appears in the Mamdani administration’s searchable database for these properties.

FOX News reports:

Prominent liberal podcaster and NYU professor Scott Galloway called out New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s publicly accessible database, saying it endangers landowners like himself.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened a new front in his ongoing battle with New York City’s wealthy after his administration published a searchable database identifying affluent property owners who could be subject to the city’s proposed pied-à-terre tax, a move critics say could expose them to harassment and public safety risks.

The database, released by the city’s Department of Finance, allows users to search properties and view the names and addresses of owners whose non-primary residences could be subject to the proposed tax. A spokesperson for the department said publication of the property roll was required by state law…

“I’ve been doxed,” the liberal professor announced on the podcast. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Mayor Mamdani has decided to release a list of the 950,000 residences with addresses and names that might be eligible for his pied-à-terre tax.”

“I don’t love this,” co-host Kara Swisher agreed. “I can’t say I love this. It feels a little bit like doxing. Just tax them and get on with it is my feeling.”…

“He’s taken a legitimate source of tax revenue, and he’s turning it into a wanted poster,” he said of Mamdani’s tax list. “The question I would have is, other than trying to identify and imply these people have done something wrong — and then, 18 months after a healthcare CEO was executed in the street, published the list — what is the upside here? Why is he doing this?”

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Canada: The Illusion Of Free Healthcare

With the rise in popularity of the Democratic Socialist movement in the United States, one of the promises made to voters is “free healthcare.” Advocates frame healthcare as a human right, pointing north to Canada as the example of universal coverage.

The slogan is simple, powerful, and politically effective: Canadians enjoy free healthcare. The belief that Canadian healthcare is free stems from the fact that Canadians do not pay at the point of service. Yet the question remains: Is it truly free, and what does “free” actually mean?

Anyone applying basic logic and common sense quickly realizes that a system as complex as healthcare, involving doctors, nurses, hospitals, equipment, pharmaceuticals, and administrators, cannot exist without someone paying for it. The real question is not whether money is paid, but how it is collected, who controls it, and how the system functions behind the scenes.

Canada’s healthcare system is often described as universal, equitable, and accessible. But beneath the surface lies a prepaid tax‑funded model controlled almost entirely by government. The mechanics of this system are not widely understood by the average Canadian consumer, largely because the costs are hidden within layers of taxation rather than presented as a monthly insurance premium or deductible.

In Canada, healthcare funding flows through a combination of federal transfers (CHT), provincial taxes, employer payroll taxes, and individual income‑based health premiums. These mechanisms create the illusion of “free” care because the consumer never sees a bill at the doctor’s office. Instead, the costs are embedded in the tax structure, quietly deducted long before the patient ever steps into a clinic.

One of the most significant components of Canadian healthcare funding is the Employer Health Tax (EHT)—a payroll tax applied to businesses based on total compensation paid to employees. In provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec, this tax can reach over four percent of payroll.

While the tax is levied on employers, its economic burden does not remain there. Businesses inevitably pass these costs on to consumers through higher prices, reduced wages, or slower hiring. Canadians may not see a healthcare bill, but they pay for healthcare every time they buy groceries, fill their gas tank, or purchase consumer goods whose prices have quietly risen to absorb payroll taxes.

Beyond employer taxes, individual Canadians also contribute directly through provincial health premiums and income‑based surcharges. Ontario, for example, includes a “Health Premium” on its tax return that can reach up to $900 per year depending on income. Other provinces embed healthcare funding within general income tax brackets, meaning a portion of every paycheck is siphoned into the healthcare system without explicit labeling.

This is why many Canadians believe they pay nothing for healthcare—because the payment is hidden inside broader taxation rather than itemized as a healthcare expense. In reality, most middle‑income Canadians contribute between $400 and $800 annually through these mechanisms, in addition to the indirect costs they incur due to higher consumer prices.

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Federal government approved pay raises for 336,188 bureaucrats despite weak department performance

The federal government approved pay raises for 336,188 public servants in 2025, even as departments continued to miss nearly half of their own performance targets, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The records show 78 per cent of federal employees received a pay increase last year, while only 596 employees — about 0.14 per cent of the federal workforce — saw their pay reduced.

“Taxpayers have every reason to question why the vast majority of bureaucrats are taking bigger paycheques when departments can barely pass their own test,” said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano. “Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t feel entitled to more money every year just because they’re on the taxpayer payroll.”

The latest figures continue a long-running trend. About 385,000 federal employees received raises in 2024, while more than one million pay increases were granted between 2020 and 2023. The federal government has not disclosed the total cost of the salary increases.

CTF General Counsel Devin Drover criticized the government’s refusal to release the financial impact of the raises, calling it another example of Canada’s weak access-to-information system.

“Taxpayers are on the hook for another wage hike, but the government won’t tell Canadians the price tag,” Drover said. “Taxpayers pay these wages and they have a right to know the bill.”

According to federal performance reports, departments met just 54 percent of their own performance targets in 2024, their best result in the past five years. In two of those years, departments failed to meet even half of their stated objectives.

The report also points to research from the Fraser Institute showing government employees earned an average wage premium of 4.8 percent over comparable private-sector workers after accounting for factors such as education, experience and occupation.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects the cost of the federal bureaucracy will reach $79.4 billion this year, exceeding spending levels during the final year of Justin Trudeau’s government after adjusting for inflation. Public Accounts data show the cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80 percent between 2015 and 2024.

Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to “spend less” and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s commitment to return the civil service to a “more sustainable level,” the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects personnel costs will continue to rise.

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