Tag: taxes

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Raiding Retirement and Health Funds

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is already short of funds for his socialist dream for New York City. Like a true communist, his plan is to increase taxes on homeowners while raiding retirement and healthcare funds. Ironically, communists are supposed to support the working man, but in reality, they support the non-working man who needs more money from the working man to keep from having to work.

On February 17, 2026, Mayor Mamdani presented his first preliminary budget and framed the city’s finances as a choice between two paths. He delivered an ultimatum to Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature: approve higher taxes on the wealthy or he would use the limited tools under his direct control to close a projected $5.4 billion shortfall.

His preferred path calls on Albany to raise personal income taxes by 2 percent on New Yorkers earning over $1 million and to increase corporate taxes on the most profitable companies. If the state refuses, he says he will pursue what he describes as a last resort: a 9.5 percent property tax hike, the first major increase in more than 20 years, affecting roughly 3 million residential units, along with drawing down approximately $1.2 billion from the city’s reserves, including the Rainy Day Fund and retiree health benefit trusts.

The proposal to tap retirement-related funds has generated the strongest backlash. Mamdani’s plan includes taking $229 million from the Retiree Health Benefits Trust, which pays health insurance premiums for retired city workers such as teachers, police officers, and sanitation workers.

Using money set aside for future medical costs to cover today’s operating deficit shifts long-term obligations into the current budget cycle. Budget watchdogs, including the Citizens Budget Commission, warn this would leave the city less prepared to meet healthcare costs for an aging workforce.

Mamdani insists he does not want to touch these funds and describes this as a harmful path he hopes to avoid. He is using the threat to pressure Governor Hochul into approving higher taxes on the wealthy.

Mamdani has also pushed to shift city pension investments away from what he calls harmful industries, including certain fossil fuel companies and firms tied to the conflict in Gaza. Pension trustees and union leaders argue this amounts to political intrusion into retirement assets and conflicts with their fiduciary duty to maximize returns for retirees.

By law, trustees must focus solely on financial performance. Critics contend that divesting from high-performing sectors for ideological reasons narrows the investment pool and can reduce long-term returns. Analysts noted that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange significantly outperformed the S&P 500 in 2025.

Avoiding such assets means forfeiting gains that help keep pension funds solvent. Even a one or two percent underperformance compounded over time could create substantial funding gaps.

The dispute has escalated into a showdown with New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, the legal custodian of the pension funds. Levine recently announced plans to resume investing in Israel Bonds, calling them a long-term, secure investment that has never missed a payment in 80 years. Mamdani opposes the move, arguing the city should not support a foreign government involved in the Gaza conflict.

However, the mayor does not control the pension boards outright. The comptroller and union representatives hold significant seats, limiting Mamdani’s ability to force divestment. Critics say he is attempting to pressure the boards into adopting his position.

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From €1.5B to €5B: Did Romania’s Globalist Government Conceal the Real Cost of Supporting Zelensky’s War Effort?

A heated national debate has erupted in Romania after fresh claims suggested that the true cost of Bucharest’s support for Ukraine may be much higher than the public has been told.

What began as a routine televised discussion on the country’s budget priorities quickly escalated into a broader confrontation over transparency, sovereignty, and the price Romania is paying for its alignment with Brussels’ “prop up the failing Ukrainian state at any cost” policy.

During a recent broadcast, journalist Robert Turcescu pressed former Finance Minister Adrian Câciu on the following question: how much is the Romanian government really spending on Ukraine? The answer he received has fueled growing skepticism toward the government’s official narrative.

Câciu acknowledged that the publicly cited figure of approximately €1.5 billion reflects only direct public expenditures, such as housing, food, and social assistance for Ukrainian refugees inside Romania. But he argued that this figure represents only a fraction of the total fiscal burden ultimately borne by Romanian taxpayers.

According to Câciu, when defense spending, border security operations, and interior ministry costs related to the war are included, the real figure could approach 1.5% of GDP. With Romania’s GDP estimated at roughly €370 billion, that percentage amounts into approximately €5 billion.

The distinction between direct aid and broader security-related expenditures lies at the heart of the controversy. Government officials have emphasized the lower figure, while critics argue that the public deserves a consolidated, transparent accounting of the full cost.

Turcescu reacted sharply to the suggestion that Romania’s total war-related spending could be closer to €5 billion. He publicly questioned why, amid domestic austerity measures and tax increases, such sums would be directed toward Kyiv without full disclosure.

Official data provided by Romania’s Fiscal Council in response to an inquiry from right-wing populist AUR MEP Gheorghe Piperea paint a different picture. According to that response, Romania’s total military, financial, and humanitarian support from February 2022 through mid-2025 amounted to around €1.5 billion — approximately 0.6% of GDP.

That figure would place Romania in the middle tier among European contributors. Countries such as Denmark and Estonia have devoted more than 3% of GDP, while Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, and France have also contributed proportionally more than Romania.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has further stated that direct financial assistance in 2025 amounted to approximately €50 million, largely channeled through NATO mechanisms. However, many military expenditures remain classified through Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT), limiting public oversight.

The result is a widening credibility gap. While the government emphasizes limited direct aid, critics argue that broader institutional and logistical costs — from troop deployments to enhanced border security — are effectively war expenditures that taxpayers ultimately finance.

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Was Climate Change The Greatest Financial Scandal In History?

Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex.

And for what?

Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources.

The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost countless lives in poor countries and made those countries poorer by blocking affordable energy.

Since the global warming crusade started some 30 years ago, the temperature of the planet has not been altered by one-tenth of a degree—as even the alarmists will admit.

In other words, $16 trillion has been spent—a lot of people got very, very rich off the government largesse—but there is not a penny of measurable payoff.

But it’s much worse than that.

In economics there is a concept called opportunity cost: What could we have done with $16 trillion to make the world better off?

What if the $16 trillion had been spent on clean water for poor countries?

Preventing avoidable deaths from diseases like malaria?

Building schools in African villages to end illiteracy?

Bringing reliable and affordable electric power to the more than 1 billion people who still lack access? Curing cancer?

Many millions of lives could have been saved.

We could have lifted millions more out of poverty.

The benefits of speeding up the race for the cure for cancer could have added tens of millions of additional years of life at an economic value in the tens of trillions of dollars.

Instead, we effectively poured $16 trillion down the drain.

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Trump’s $2,000 Tariff ‘Dividend Checks’ Go Up in Smoke

President Trump’s promise to send Americans $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks appears all but dead after the Supreme Court struck down a key pillar of his trade agenda Friday, the New York Post reports.

In a 6-3 ruling, the high court found Trump exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs tied to trade imbalances and fentanyl smuggling.

While the decision could save households hundreds of dollars on the goods marked up by tariffs — it also wipes out the revenue stream that would have funded the proposed rebate checks.

Before the ruling, the average U.S. household was projected to pay an extra $1,300 to $1,700 in 2026 due to tariffs, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

With the IEEPA tariffs now halted — though others remain in place and Trump has vowed to impose a new 10% global tariff effective Friday — that burden could fall roughly in half to about $600 to $800, John Ricco, associate director of policy analysis at the Budget Lab, told CNBC.

Still, experts cautioned that consumers may not see full relief.

“I’m actually shocked that the number wasn’t a little higher on the financial burden to the average American household than $1,000,” Erik Rosica, sales supervisor at OEC Group New York, told the Post.

“I do agree that the impact of reversing them would hopefully halve it — but again, that’s only if people lower their prices,” he added.

Rosica noted that companies may be reluctant to cut prices, particularly on higher-ticket goods, even if tariff pressures ease.

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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Demands $8.6B in Tariff Refunds from Trump

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) demanded that President Donald Trump give the people of the state a total of $8.6 billion in refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

In a letter addressed to Trump that Pritzker posted to X, Pritzker described Trump’s tariffs as having “wreaked havoc on farmers,” having “enraged our allies,” and increased the cost of groceries.

Pritzker explained that he was demanding “a refund of $1,700 for every family” in the state, and that because there were roughly 5,105,448 households in the state, the total came to $8,679,261,600.

“Your tariffs wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof,” Pritzker wrote. “This morning, your hand-picked Supreme Court Justices notified you that they are also unconstitutional.”

Pritzker added: “On behalf of the people of Illinois, I demand a refund of $1,700 for every family in Illinois. There are 5,105,448 households in my state, bringing the total damages you owe to $8,679,261,600.”

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5 Takeaways From Supreme Court’s Rejection of Trump’s Global Tariffs

The Supreme Court on Feb. 20 struck down many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, stating they violated an emergency powers law he invoked last year.

The president previously declared a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, saying the tariffs were needed to stem the flow of illegal drugs and to combat “large and persistent” trade deficits with foreign nations.

The act generally gives the president the power to regulate imports to address emergencies, but debate ensued over what that meant in practice.

Writing for the 6–3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected Trump’s arguments, saying that the law’s phrasing did not clearly authorize tariffs.

Tariffs enacted under other laws are not affected by the ruling.

Tariffs Not Authorized Under Emergency Law

Roberts said Trump rested his claim of tariff authority on the words “regulate” and “importation” in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to act.

“The President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” Roberts said. “Those words cannot bear such weight.”

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Democrats Claim GOP ‘Gutted’ Medicaid. Federal Data Shows The Opposite

etween now and the November midterm elections, Democrats and their allies will spend countless hours and energy claiming Republicans “cut” Medicaid in last year’s reconciliation legislation. Don’t you believe it. 

A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report demonstrates how Republicans’ reforms in that law merely attempted to slow an unsustainable Medicaid program following a Biden-era spending explosion. But for good or for ill, the program’s spending continues to grow inexorably higher, notwithstanding those reforms.

Scaling Back Biden’s Spending Binge

Last January, I wrote about that Biden-era Medicaid explosion. From June 2024 to January 2025, CBO increased its estimates of Medicaid spending by $817 billion, or 12 percent, and cited five factors driving such rapid spending growth. Democrat policy priorities, most of them imposed by the Biden administration unilaterally, were at the root of those factors: administrative actions to expand eligibility and prevent states from cracking down on fraud, a mandate on states to cover anti-obesity medications, greater incentives for states to expand Medicaid to able-bodied adults, and policy changes allowing states to bilk the federal government out of additional Medicaid matching funds.

The budget reconciliation bill Republicans passed last year undid many of those changes. It repealed the additional incentives Congress passed in 2021 for states to embrace Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, blocked several costly Biden-era mandates, cracked down on state abuses of the Medicaid financing system, and instituted work requirements for able-bodied adults. But it made no explicit changes to the benefits provided to the vulnerable populations — seniors, individuals with disabilities, and children — for which Medicaid was originally designed.

The Other Half of the Story

Last week, CBO released its annual report on the budget and economic outlook, its first fiscal update since the reconciliation measure last July. It estimated that last year’s bill would reduce Medicaid spending by $1.184 trillion, a fact Democrats will dutifully repeat ad infinitum between now and Nov. 3.

But the welfare-industrial complex won’t bother to mention several other important Medicaid facts to voters. First, even after taking into account the changes in the reconciliation bill, CBO now estimates Medicaid will spend more under Donald Trump than it estimated during the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency. You read that right: From 2026 through 2034, CBO now estimates that Medicaid will spend $7.124 trillion, versus an estimate of $6.862 trillion in June 2024.

In part, that dynamic occurs because, notwithstanding the changes Republicans enacted into law last year, Medicaid spending continues to climb ever higher. Even as it reduced Medicaid spending by nearly $1.2 trillion to reflect legislative changes from the reconciliation bill, CBO cited “technical changes” to increase spending by $700 billion over the coming decade. While noting lower-than-expected enrollment growth in 2025, “[c]osts per enrollee grew by 16 percent in 2025 — significantly more than CBO had anticipated,” and a trend the budget gnomes expect to continue.

Contra claims about Medicaid “cuts,” program spending will continue to grow every single year over the coming decade. From 2026 through 2036, CBO believes Medicaid spending will grow by a total of 39 percent, due to both growth from inflation and 18 percent growth in real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) spending per beneficiary.

Democrats will cite the estimated 14 percent reduction in Medicaid beneficiaries as evidence of the likely harm caused by the budget reconciliation measure. But even here, CBO notes that the number of individuals “losing” coverage “includes 1.5 million enrollees whose records indicated enrollment in more than one state and who would retain Medicaid eligibility in their current state of residence.” This “cut” reflects not individuals being harmed but “enrollees” who never should have had duplicate coverage to begin with.

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79th Suspect in Massive Minnesota Fraud Scheme ARRESTED After Attempting to Flee to UK — Center Received MILLIONS in Taxpayer Funds Under Walz Administration

Another taxpayer-funded grift artist has been stopped in her tracks.

The owner of Future Leaders Early Learning Center, who pocketed a staggering $3.67 million in child care funds in 2025 alone, has been arrested before she could escape to the UK.

Fahima Egeh Mahamud now becomes the 79th defendant charged in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud network, the same racket that stole hundreds of millions meant for kids’ meals and actual care.

In 2025 alone, the center reportedly hauled in a staggering $3.67 million in Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) funding.

This comes after her site was already flagged for receiving over $850,000 from the feeding scheme between 2020 and 2021, while spending only a fraction of that on actual food for children.

More from KARE 11:

According to court documents, Mahamud operated a food site, Future Leaders Early Learning Center, under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future between 2018 and 2021. Records show that Mahamud incorporated Future Leaders as a legal entity in March 2015 and participated in the Federal Child Nutrition Program under a different sponsorship. However, in September 2018, documents show that Mahamud signed a sponsor transfer request to be under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future.

Future Leaders received funds in 2018 and 2019, but the claims were mostly “modest,” according to a special agent with the FBI, and rarely exceeded $10,000, but in December 2020, those funds dramatically increased. An affidavit in support of a criminal complaint says Future Leaders claimed to serve more than 1,000 children per day between January 2021 and June 2021. By February 2021, prosecutors say Future Leaders was claiming to serve nearly 60,000 meals to children monthly.

There was also email communication between Aimee Bock, the so-called “mastermind” behind the Feeding Our Future fraud, and another staff member at Feeding Our Future about Mahamud’s request to “increase from 500 to 1000.”

The special agent said that investigators found evidence that indicates many invoices and receipts are “inflated or fraudulent.” Some of the invoices were from a vendor of a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

The affidavit goes on to say that from December 2020 through July 2021, Future Leaders received more than $850,000 and only spent about $125,000 on food. Forensic analysis indicates that Future Leaders made payments to individuals, including $174,159 to Mahamud and $726,566 for real property purchases and $359,020 to other companies associated with Mahamud.

Court documents indicate that on February 10, 2026, Mahamud notified the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families that she was abruptly closing her center.

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Florida, Texas Executives Get 20 Years for $233M Affordable Care Act Fraud Scheme

Two executives were each sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted for a years-long scheme to steal from the Affordable Care Act program.

The defendants — the president of an insurance brokerage firm and the CEO of a marketing company — preyed on tens of thousands of vulnerable consumers to improperly enroll them into fully subsidized ACA plans, for which the defendants earned millions of dollars in commission payments from insurance companies.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Cory Lloyd, 47, of Stuart, Florida, and Steven Strong, 43, of Mansfield, Texas, engaged in an extensive fraud scheme that sought over $233 million in fraudulent ACA plan subsidies for which the federal government paid at least $180 million. 

“Preying upon medically compromised consumers to rob hundreds of millions from taxpayer-funded programs is evil and unforgivable,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Fraud schemes like this rob citizens and shake faith in our institutions — today’s sentencing is the latest example of this DOJ’s commitment to fighting fraud nationwide.”

As proven at trial, Lloyd and Strong targeted vulnerable, low-income individuals experiencing homelessness, unemployment, and mental health and substance abuse disorders, and, through “street marketers” working on their behalf, sometimes offered bribes to induce those individuals to enroll in subsidized ACA plans. 

“These defendants didn’t just commit fraud; they built a business model around exploiting people at their most vulnerable,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “They targeted vulnerable individuals in the community, manipulated federal health programs for profit, and put victims at risk of losing critical medical care so they could cash in. Stealing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars while endangering lives is as callous as it gets. The FBI and our partners will continue to track down and hold accountable anyone who treats vulnerable Americans as a payday.”

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Wisconsin’s DPI Continues to Stonewall the Public About Taxpayer-Funded Standards Workshop

Two weeks ago, it was revealed that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) held a four-day junket at a waterpark, on the taxpayers’ dime, to “redefine student proficiency.”

Then the DPI issued a gag order on participants. 

The Dairyland Sentinel did some digging and found “documents concerning the ‘standard setting’ process used to redefine what it means for a Wisconsin student to be ‘proficient’ in reading and math.” Under those new standards, proficiency rates jumped 12 percent, which means a majority of students now “meet expectations.” Did the DPI lower proficiency standards to inflate those numbers? The public deserves to know that.

But despite Superintendent Jill Underly vowing transparency last year, that transparency hasn’t come.

“The department updated achievement benchmarks for the Forward exam this summer in a transparent process, and reflecting the recommendations of nearly 100 experts from across the state, I accepted the recommendations of these professionals after they carefully determined how to measure student performance according to Wisconsin’s rigorous state standards,” Underly told WPR on January 21, 2025.

The Dairyland Sentinel asked the DPI for information on who these experts were, howe they were chosen, and what it all cost.

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