Tag: taxes

“Inappropriate Giveaway of Galactic Proportions”: Outrage Over $10 Billion Taxpayer Gift to Bezos Space Obsession

Progressives on Wednesday slammed what they called a proposed $10 billion handout to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—the world’s first multi-centibillionaire—in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as a “giveaway of galactic proportions” in the face of growing wealth inequality and the inability of U.S. lawmakers to pass a sweeping social and climate spending package.

According to Defense News, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to merge the $250 billion U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA)—aimed largely at countering the rise of China—with next year’s NDAA, which would authorize up to $778 billion in military spending. That’s $37 billion more than former President Donald Trump’s final defense budget and $25 billion more than requested by President Joe Biden. The NDAA includes a $10 billion subsidy to Bezos’ Blue Origin space exploration company.

“Providing Jeff Bezos with $10 billion of taxpayer money would be an inappropriate giveaway of galactic proportions,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU), said in a statement Wednesday.

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How Many Guns Does the IRS Have?

President Joe Biden and Democrats who support his multi-trillion dollar “Build Back Better” spending agenda want to empower the IRS with even more resources. 

According to the Heritage Foundation, the bill would increase the IRS budget by 70 percent. 

“House Democrats’ massive tax-and-spending package would reward the unpopular tax-collecting agency by increasing its current budget by more than 70%. Over the next 10 years, the bill would add $88 billion of new funding for the IRS, including $45 billion dedicated to enforcement, $27 billion for operations support, $5 billion for new business systems, $4 billion to administer green energy initiatives, and $4 billion to administer child tax credits,” Heritage analyzes. “Meanwhile, it dedicates less than $2 billion for taxpayer services.”

“Between the huge sums aimed directly at enforcement activities and operations support, expect a large majority of the $88 billion of new IRS funding to directly or indirectly support things like asset monitoring, audits, taxpayer investigations, and legal actions against taxpayers,” they continue. 

“On the issue of enforcement actives and operations support,” Americans for Tax Reform is reminding taxpayers the IRS already has substantial authority and power. This includes ownership of thousands of guns and agents who can be deployed to use them. 

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How Many Zombie Agencies Does Government Need?

How many federal agencies do we pay for?  I bet you think, as I once did, that a quick internet search would tell.  But researching for an essay a couple of years ago, I found numbers varying from 78 to 158, and websites saying the exact number was impossible to determine. 

Looking at the USA.gov website recently, I discovered a tab for Federal Agencies A to Z (actually there are none past W).  Scrolling around the list for two days, subtracting duplicate listings, like Useless Policy, Office of and Office of Useless Policy, I counted 456 (and a few more as I checked some links while drafting this essay). 

The large number of agencies was my first, but not my only surprise.  Each agency’s listing had a field for government branch, mostly filled with Executive, some Legislative, some Judicial.  But sometimes that field contained: Independent, Quasi, or None.  How can we have parts of government that are not part of a branch of our government?

It amused me that some agency names made it easy to guess when they were created.  Delinquency was a focus in the 1930s; nuclear threats, 1950s; civil rights, 1960s; cyberterrorism, after 2001.

This just started with to know how many federal agencies we have.  But discovering there are agencies decades past their freshness date, begs to be explored. This essay is a just cursory view.

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Illegal Immigrants Would Get Up To $10.5 Billion From Reconciliation Bill

The budget reconciliation package pushed by Democrats creates a new expanded child tax credit (CTC) that would pay illegal immigrants some $10.5 billion next year. All immigrants with children are eligible, regardless of how they got here and whether their children are U.S.-born.

This includes the roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released into the country pending a hearing.

Cash welfare to illegal immigrants is not just costly; it also encourages more illegal immigration. 

Although it is referred to as a “refundable credit,” the new CTC, like the old additional child tax credit (ACTC) it replaces, pays cash to low-income families who do not pay any federal income tax. The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment from $1,400 per child to $3,600 for children under 6, and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. After 2022, the maximum payment would be $2,000 per child, but advocates hope the much larger payments will be extended. 

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Most millionaires to get tax cuts from Biden bill, independent analysis finds

Two-thirds of people earning more than $1 million annually would receive tax cuts under President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan, a nonprofit think tank concluded.

The Tax Policy Center released its analysis of Democrats’ $1.85 trillion spending package and found that most of the wealthy will have a smaller tax bill if it is passed as it is currently outlined.

Among those making over $1 million, only 34.2% will see their taxes increase, while the rest will get tax cuts. Additionally, nearly 80% of those earning between $500,000 and $1 million will see their tax bill shrink by an average of about $6,000 per year.

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Biden’s ‘Build Back Better Act’ Gives $800M in Cash Payments to Illegal Aliens Released into U.S.

President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” a filibuster-proof $1.75 trillion budget reconciliation package, would give $800 million worth of cash payments to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who were recently released into the United States interior, a new analysis states.

As Breitbart News previously reported, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyzed the cost to American taxpayers if Biden’s expanded Child Tax Credit for illegal aliens was extended for at least another year as part of the reconciliation package.

Initially, the CIS analysis found that the cost to provide the tax credits to illegal aliens with children would cost about $80 billion over the course of a decade, or about $8 billion every year.

CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota now writes that the cost to taxpayers will be even more because the roughly 500,000 to 600,000 illegal aliens released into the U.S. interior this year would be eligible to receive $800 million in cash payments as a result of the tax credits.

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Taxpayers Held Liable After Video Shows Cops Search Man’s Anal Cavity Over Window Tint Stop

What started out as a fishing expedition disguised as a window tint violation ended with two Hamilton County deputies placed on leave for strip searching and sodomizing a man suspected of possessing an illegal substance. Now, after the cops enjoy a months-long paid vacation, the taxpayers will be held accountable for their actions.

The victim in the incident, James Myron Mitchell has filed suit against the deputies, claiming the stop was for false allegations of a window tint violation which led to his horrifying treatment at the hands of two public servants.

As TFTP reported in July, deputies Daniel Wilkey and Bobby Brewer stopped Latisha Menifee (driver) and Mitchell (passenger) as they were driving in a Buick. As the stop began, Menifee was immediately handcuffed and brought to the rear of the vehicle. Mitchell was likewise handcuffed and brought to the front of the police cruiser and his following mistreatment was captured on dash cam footage. The stop, they were told, was over window tint. However, they would quickly realize this was not the case.

While in handcuffs Wilkey and Brewer can be seen groping Mitchell’s genitalia in an apparent search for drugs. Even though the traffic stop was reportedly about window tint, no tint meter appears to be used during the traffic stop.

The lawsuit says, “Wilkey then began to grab James’ genitals. When James told Wilkey that (he) had an untreated and large hernia and that Wilkey’s actions were causing (him) pain, Brewer and Wilkey jerked James’ arms high above his back, and slammed James face-down onto the hot engine hood, causing injury….”

Also of interest was how quickly officers escalated their use of force against Mitchell claiming the handcuffed man, who was doubled over their police cruiser, was somehow “resisting” arrest. Mitchell simply appeared to be squirming as he was handcuffed on the hood of a car and sodomized by cops in search of a substance deemed illegal by the state.

According to the lawsuit, the deputies then beat Mitchell with “fists, knees, and feet,” and slammed him to the ground. It was then, according to the lawsuit, that they removed his pants and shoes, while continuing to beat him.

As News 9 reports, the lawsuit says the deputies then picked Mitchell up and leaned him over the patrol car. It says Deputy Wilkey put on a set of gloves, pulled down his (Mitchell’s) underwear, and “conducted an anal cavity search of James.”

During the horrific event, the two law enforcement officers likely violated Mitchell’s 4th and 14th amendment rights as the search was provoked by a window tint violation. Mitchell was a passenger in the vehicle, not the driver, yet officers honed in on him.

According to the lawsuit, Menifee watched in horror as Mitchell was sodomized on the side of the road in search of a plant. She also stated that she was afraid the deputies were going to kill Mitchell.

Then, after Mitchell was put in the patrol car, according to the lawsuit, deputies approached Menifee and “told her that she did not see anything,” took off her cuffs and told her to leave.

A medical examination later revealed suffered “tearing in his anus, and multiple contusions,” along with an aggravation of a hernia that eventually required surgery, according to the lawsuit.

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