Tag: taxes

Vance: WH Task Force to Eliminate Fraud has identified $230B in improper payments, systemic waste and criminal fraud across fed. agencies

Vice President JD Vance announced that the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud has identified approximately $230 billion in improper payments, systemic waste and alleged criminal fraud across federal agencies since its inception.

Speaking at a White House gathering alongside senior administration officials and state enforcement leaders, Vance highlighted the tally as evidence of widespread vulnerabilities within federal safety-net programs, disaster relief initiatives, and government procurement channels that were left largely unaddressed in previous years.

“There are a few things that I want to talk about and celebrate. The first is that just since the beginning of the fraud task force that I started under the president’s leadership and direction, we have identified 230 billion dollars of fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American people, and we have halted already 56 billion dollars of that,” Vance said during a Cabinet meeting on Friday.

“It’s sometimes hard once the money has already gone out the door; it’s hard to get it back. But stopping it from going out the door is how we save the American people. $56 billion, and of course, we’re going to keep on working on that,” he added.

Established by presidential executive order, the interagency task force chaired by Vance was charged with launching a comprehensive federal crackdown on illicit operations exploiting public funds.

The $230 billion figure encompasses a broad array of uncovered abuses, including tens of billions in fraudulent or delinquent pandemic-era small business loans, improper Medicaid and Medicare billing claims, unauthorized government contracts and improper benefits disbursements across state-administered welfare programs.

Vance emphasized further that the task force’s rapid findings demonstrate the urgent necessity of restoring more rigorous oversight and pre-payment integrity standards across the executive branch. Notably, a central component of the enforcement drive involves structural coordination with the newly established National Fraud Enforcement Division within the Department of Justice (DOJ).

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Brampton PC MPP Hardeep Grewal billed taxpayers nearly $20,000 for Toronto hotels

Ontario PC MPP Hardeep Grewal charged taxpayers nearly $20,000 for hotel stays in downtown Toronto despite representing a Brampton riding less than 50 kilometres from Queen’s Park.

Grewal, the MPP for Brampton East and Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Transportation, submitted $19,827.73 in hotel expense claims between 2023 and 2026 under the legislature’s “special circumstances” accommodation policy.

The policy is intended for exceptional situations, such as severe weather or other emergencies that prevent an MPP from returning home. However, a review of expense records by Global News found most of the claims occurred during the spring and fall legislative sessions, suggesting the hotel stays had become routine rather than exceptional.

Grewal’s constituency office is approximately 43 kilometres from Queen’s Park.

Premier Doug Ford’s office has since said that any hotel expenses that did not meet the intent of the rules will be repaid to taxpayers.

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Guess Who’s Funding Barricades And Porta-Potties At Madison’s Marxist-Antifa Encampment

Far-left foot soldiers linked with Black Lives Matter and Antifa have established a two-block autonomous zone along Williamson Street in Madison, Wisconsin, following the death of 38-year-old Corey Durrell Ruiz.

Ruiz, who had reportedly been released from prison (read report) shortly before the incident, was approached by police while riding a bicycle after allegedly attempting to enter several vehicles. Far-left activists have since designated the occupied area the Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone, or CRAZ.

The encampment appears designed to demonstrate control over public space while creating conditions in which any police intervention could be framed as state repression. However, reporting from local media and anti-communist commentator Karlyn Borysenko suggests the local government is accommodating, and potentially enabling, the occupation rather than moving to dismantle it.

“So who’s funding the barricades and the porta-potties in the BLM/Antifa autonomous zone (the CRAZ) in Madison, Wisconsin? You’re not going to believe the answer. And I provide the receipts to prove it,” Borysenko wrote on X.

Borysenko pointed to reporting from local outlet WMTV 15 News that says the municipal government is funding part of the CRAZ.

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Mississauga Centre PC MPP Natalia Kusendova-Bashta billed taxpayers $4,258 for six Toronto hotel stays

Mississauga Centre PC MPP Natalia Kusendova-Bashta billed taxpayers $4,258 for six hotel stays in downtown Toronto despite representing a riding within commuting distance of Queen’s Park.

Expense disclosures from the Ontario Legislature show Kusendova-Bashta claimed $4,258 under the Legislature’s “Special Circumstance Accommodation in Toronto” policy through six separate hotel claims between 2023 and 2025.

Ontario’s expense rules allow MPPs who live within 50 kilometres of Queen’s Park to claim overnight accommodations only in exceptional circumstances, such as severe weather or other emergencies that make returning home impractical. Mississauga Centre is well within commuting distance of the Legislature.

Kusendova-Bashta’s claims are part of the broader Ford government hotel expense scandal that saw Toronto-area Progressive Conservative MPPs collectively bill taxpayers more than $100,000 for Toronto hotel stays under the “special circumstances” allowance.

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Setting Marijuana Taxes Too High Drives Consumers To The Illegal Market, Federally Funded Study Finds

States that impose high tax rates on regulated marijuana products are driving adult consumers to the illicit market, according to a new federally funded study.

The research, published in the journal Health Economics, looked at past-month cannabis purchasing behavior of 1,525 adults aged 21 and older.

Researchers with Ohio State University found that high cannabis taxes and prices are linked to “lower cannabis consumption and THC intake” from legal purchases, but that the majority of those reductions (89 percent) may be offset by consumers switching to unregulated products from the illegal market.

“If the illegal market is restricted, policymakers can expect increasing cannabis prices using excise taxes to reduce both unit and THC consumption, while generating tax revenues,” the study said. “However, given the sizable illegal market, a large portion of the consumption reduction due to taxes may be offset by switching to illegal products.”

States have worked to strike a balance between pricing marijuana low enough to transition adults to the regulated market but still high enough to generate revenue. The results so far have been mixed, with no firmly established universal price or tax rate.

States that impose high tax rates on regulated marijuana products are driving adult consumers to the illicit market, according to a new federally funded study.

The research, published in the journal Health Economics, looked at past-month cannabis purchasing behavior of 1,525 adults aged 21 and older.

Researchers with Ohio State University found that high cannabis taxes and prices are linked to “lower cannabis consumption and THC intake” from legal purchases, but that the majority of those reductions (89 percent) may be offset by consumers switching to unregulated products from the illegal market.

“If the illegal market is restricted, policymakers can expect increasing cannabis prices using excise taxes to reduce both unit and THC consumption, while generating tax revenues,” the study said. “However, given the sizable illegal market, a large portion of the consumption reduction due to taxes may be offset by switching to illegal products.”

States have worked to strike a balance between pricing marijuana low enough to transition adults to the regulated market but still high enough to generate revenue. The results so far have been mixed, with no firmly established universal price or tax rate.

The study, meanwhile, also demonstrated that legal and illicit cannabis flower are essentially “substitutes for each other.”

Raising the price of legal cannabis flower by 10 percent “results in a 0.9 percent-1 percent increase in illegal flower consumption (units and THC),” and the inverse follows a similar pattern, the researchers found.

“While the cross‐price elasticities for unit demand between legal and illegal flowers are symmetric (not statistically significant), the cross elasticities for THC demand suggest that the increase in THC from illegal flowers in response to higher legal flower prices exceeds the increase from legal flowers in response to higher illegal flower prices.”

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What in the Actual? Mamdani Doxxes NYC’s Wealthy by Publishing Their Names and Addresses

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) just made it a whole lot easier for anyone to look up the names and home addresses of wealthy New Yorkers who own second properties in the city.

How? By publishing a searchable database of properties that could fall under the new pied-à-terre tax, complete with the owners’ full names and addresses.

The list covers unoccupied, non-primary residences worth more than $1 million across the five boroughs.

The New York Post reports that the move by the administration is “effectively doxxing thousands of wealthy New Yorkers.”

I’m almost certain that those individuals are thrilled to have their potentially empty homes’ addresses advertised to unhinged “tax the rich” leftists.

For property owners who already felt targeted by the city’s new tax push, having their personal information posted online is only pouring fuel on the fire, which is the intent, really. Mamdani is literally trying to drive wealthy individuals out of the city that serves as the economic engine of the nation.

It fits a clear pattern of taunting. RedState’s Nick Arama detailed how Mamdani recently mocked second-home owners online by gloating that notification letters for the new pied-à-terre tax were already in the mail and that “you’ve got mail.”

Arama accurately described the derisive message as “gross,” which might as well be an evergreen description going forward for Mamdani’s economically illiterate reign.

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Feeding Our Future Fraudster Gets 10 Years for Brazen $120,000 Juror-Bribery Plot That Triggered Arrest of All Seven Trial Defendants

A ringleader in Minnesota’s massive Feeding Our Future scandal has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to purchase a not-guilty verdict with a staggering $120,000 cash bribe.

Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud for his role in the brazen plot to bribe a federal juror during his 2024 fraud trial, the Justice Department announced Friday.

Farah had already been sentenced to 28 years in prison for helping steal tens of millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded program intended to feed needy children during the COVID pandemic.

But stealing from hungry children apparently was not enough.

When Farah and six co-defendants went on trial in April 2024, prosecutors said Farah and his associates researched Juror 52 online, obtained her address, surveilled her home, and tracked her movements.

On the night of June 2, 2024, a woman identified by prosecutors as Ladan Mohamed Ali arrived at the juror’s home carrying a white Hallmark gift bag stuffed with rolls of $100, $50, and $20 bills.

Inside was $120,000 in cash.

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Sesame Street accelerates white kids’ racism, University of Illinois professor says

Could “Doc McStuffins” and “Dora the Explorer” be turning white kids into racists? 

A professor from the University of Illinois thinks so. 

“White children in the United States begin developing racial biases in early childhood that threaten the well-being of children of color and serve as the developmental roots for racial prejudices that persist into adulthood,” a new Psycnet study from Professor Michael Rizzo says.

The study reviewed the TV watching patterns of white kids as young as four and asked them about their willingness to play with a hypothetical person who was white, black, Asian, or Hispanic. 

“With age, children whose favorite media portrayed fewer Black characters—and especially in high-status contexts and roles—were less likely to choose to play with a Black child, held less positive attitudes toward Black children, and were more likely to attribute Black–White racial inequalities to intrinsic racial differences,” the study found.

Watching “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” may accelerate the latent racism brewing with white children.

“By their 4th birthday, many White children in the United States have already begun developing racial biases that privilege their White peers, threaten the health and well-being of children of color, and serve as the developmental roots for racial prejudices that persist into adulthood,” the researchers allege. (Lead author Michael Rizzo cites one of his other studies to back up this claim).

The study’s authors explain why they focused on white kids, presupposing that they are already growing up in racist homes.

The paper states:

We focused on White, U.S. children because White children are the dominant and majority group in the United States and are the most likely to develop racial biases…Moreover, White children often live in racially segregated neighborhoods with parents who take color-evasive (i.e., ignoring or denying the importance of racial group membership) and power-evasive (i.e., ignoring or denying the reality of structural racism) approaches to racial socialization, leaving these children with little guidance on how to interpret the segregation and inequality they observe in the world.

The handpicked TV and movies curiously show that black characters are actually overrepresented by what children watch.

While the study sought to understand how children’s TV watching influenced their racial behaviors, the researchers did not similarly look at how black children might be influenced.

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‘Free Stuff’ in Norway Still Costs Half of Average Pay

Every few years, Americans rediscover Scandinavia. 

Someone visits Norway or Denmark, returns dazzled and envious of parental leave and universal childcare and asks why America refuses to copy what obviously works. On the day dedicated to celebrating America, Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote for The New York Times that America is so great that, in fact, it should be more like Norway. If American companies can pay high wages and generous benefits to workers there, Kristof observed, they could do so in New York, too.

If only America were willing to embrace a little more social democracy and bigger government, this popular and recurring story goes, perhaps it could enjoy the same prosperity and flourishing that Norway does – and have its population also routinely rank among the happiest on the planet.

I was born and raised in one Nordic country, have worked in another and for the last six years have lived in a third, so I’m fairly familiar with our way of life. I’ve also spent much time in America, stunned and enamoured of the way things are in the vast, diverse and unruly union of states. Europeans are simultaneously fascinated and bewildered by America. 

Plenty of things are amazing about these United States, and quite a few things awful about the Nordics; I suspect American intellectuals, dreaming about Norway without understanding its nature and trade-offs, overlook both.

“You Want Security, Health Care and the American Dream? Look to Scandinavia”

Norwegian workers certainly have higher wages than those in many European countries, including those of its fellow Scandinavians. Hotel cleaners, retail clerks and construction workers often earn salaries that surprise visiting Americans. Thanks to Baumol’s cost disease, decades of well-managed petroleum wealth have pushed up industrial and service wages. 

The first thing an American professional moving to Norway would notice isn’t the generous parental leave, but the great loss of disposable income and material well-being. Norwegian households average 30 percent less disposable income than those the US, and the cost of everyday items is much higher. 

The Scandinavian bargain might look like free services, but it as trade-off: more public goods, fewer private goods. 

When American politicians or intellectuals promise Nordic welfare states, most people imagine this happening automatically or by taxing the rich and everybody benefits. That’s not the case. The real Nordic model taxes earners more (45 per cent in Denmark, 40 in Norway, 41 in Sweden, compared to 25 per cent in the United States) and charging flat value added tax (“VAT”). Broad welfare states require broad tax bases; Nordic welfare states are financed not by billionaires but by ordinary workers. The “free” benefits are bought with invasive and regressive consumption taxes (up to 25 percent), payroll taxes and income taxes that reach well and that begin after just $10,000 (the first $16,000 is tax free in the US). 

An American professional, pocketing the median earnings of about $65,000, would pay over $17,000 in Norwegian income taxes (compared to about $5,000 per the IRS calculator, naturally subject to state taxes and various deductions), with the employer forced to chip in another $9,200 for the privilege of merely hiring him/her. From what’s left over, he/she faces a high cost of living and sales taxes between 11 per cent and 25 per cent. 

Were she/he in Sweden, a much poorer country with wages well below Norway’s, our middle-of-the-road American professional would land himself/herself in the top 20 per cent of earners – though not yet triggering the top 53 per cent (or 64 per cent) marginal tax rates.

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Waste of the Day: Education Fraud Sweeps Nation

At Broward County Public Schools in Florida, information officer Anthony Hunter allegedly used district funds to buy $17 million worth of school supplies from a friend’s business, ignoring the competitive bidding process. In return, the friend hired Hunter and his son to work a security job and sold Hunter a house for $150,000 below market value, state prosecutors claim

Chicago Public Schools received $1 million of federal grants meant for Native American students, using an application that included more than 1,000 students of South Asian descent. The district was unable to verify how many students were actually in the program, and agreed to repay the money.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

Fraud arguably hits small school districts the hardest because they have fewer budgetary resources to begin with. When Janis Bucknor, former head of Community Preparatory Academy in California, admitted to stealing $3 million from the school over five years, it amounted to one-third of all the school’s state and federal funding.

Bucknor spent $220,600 of the money on Disney vacations and also funded her internet shopping and private school tuition for her kids. She was sentenced to three years of home detention and ordered to repay the money.

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