Tag: taxes

New York Taxpayers To Pay $220 Million Next Year For Illegal Migrants’ Health Care

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently signed into law a $220 billion budget riddled with wasteful spending, including $220 million for free Medicaid for illegal immigrants and a $600 million subsidy for a new Buffalo Bills stadium, according to the New York Post.

Federal law prohibits federal tax dollars from going toward Medicaid for illegal immigrants, so New York taxpayers will pick up the tab for healthcare for up to 20,000 illegal immigrants living in the Empire State.

Those making less than $18,754 would qualify for the program, though many other details regarding eligibility have yet to be announced.

Hochul, a Buffalo resident, pushed for her pet project of giving $600 million to gift the NFL a new stadium, and is part of why the budget was delayed for days.

In addition to state funding, Eerie County will contribute $250 million to the project, making it the largest public subsidy for a stadium in the United States, according to Bloomberg. The NFL and the Bills will only pay $550 million toward the new stadium.

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Supersizing the IRS: Another Big, Bad Biden Idea

The Biden administration is dead-set on taking your money. 

Plan A was to repeal the entire Trump tax cut and vastly increase corporate and individual income taxes on top of new taxes on energy. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have slowed this down, reduced the size of any final tax cut, and perhaps killed tax cuts before the 2022 midterm elections. So plan B is to give the IRS vast new powers to squeeze more money out of taxpayers using the current code. And then there’s plan C: inflation. Print more dollars and spend them. 

While the world talks about possible tax hikes and the painful reality of inflation, they’re missing the disturbing developments in plan B — developments that would adversely affect the lives of all tax-paying citizens.

The Democrats want to supersize the IRS.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden agree that they want to double the size of the IRS and spend even more tax dollars to harass and audit taxpayers. But wait. There’s more. They also want to give IRS bureaucrats new powers to monitor the bank accounts of taxpayers and have the IRS make out your tax return and simply send you a bill for what the IRS thinks you owe.

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US Hits Highest Number of Overdose Deaths in History as White House Adds Billions to Drug War Budget

In March, the Biden administration announced a historic and massive increase in funding for National Drug Control Program agencies. For FY 2023, the US plans on spending $42.5 billion to continue fighting the failed war on drugs. This month, the Centers for Disease Control also released some historic numbers — as the US spends more on the drug war than ever in history, more people have died from drug overdoses than any recorded time in American history.

107,000 — that is the number of people who overdosed on drugs in 2021. Overdoses involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed 71,000, up 23% from the year before. There also was a 23% increase in deaths involving cocaine and a 34% increase in deaths involving meth and other stimulants, according to the CDC.

Upon releasing these numbers, the White House called the sharp increase in overdose deaths “unacceptable” and promised to spend more money fighting an already failed drug war. While some of that budget will go toward treatment, most of it will go toward enforcement — because it has worked so well in the past.

“The net effect is that we have many more people, including those who use drugs occasionally and even adolescents, exposed to these potent substances that can cause someone to overdose even with a relatively small exposure,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said in a statement, calling this latest increase “staggering.”

It is indeed staggering. Most people in this country now know someone who has died from an overdose and despite this massive increase in deaths, the United States government is going to attack it with more of the same — and it is costing taxpayers dearly. In the last 4 years, enforcement has gone up — at a rate of 5,000 percent — clearly illustrating that it is having no effect at all.

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Gov. Newsom Proposes Eliminating One of California’s Many Marijuana Taxes

The latest California budget submitted by Gov. Gavin Newsom could go a long way in fixing the state’s ailing recreational marijuana industry by fully eliminating an oppressive cultivation tax.

Newsom’s May revisions to the 2022–23 fiscal year budget call for some significant statutory changes to the state’s cannabis tax system. The biggest change would be zeroing out the cultivation taxes beginning in July. The excise tax of 15 percent would remain intact.

When Californians voted to legalize recreational marijuana cultivation and sales back in 2016, the industry ended up saddled with state and local taxes that make it inordinately costly to attempt to sell or buy cannabis legally. As a result, the black market for marijuana still dominates sales in a state where it’s legal to buy it. Industry analysts estimate about $8 billion in black market marijuana sales annually in California—double the amount of marijuana purchased through licensed dispensaries.

The cultivation tax has been consistently eyed by industry analysts as a problem. This particular tax is unique among agricultural products in California, and due to the legislation passed in 2017 to establish tax authorities, it’s regularly adjusted for inflation. As a result, cultivation tax rates actually increased at the start of 2022 despite this big black market problem.

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Pelosi House ramps up perks like Peloton, liquor store while Americans scramble for baby formula

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi belatedly jumped into America’s baby formula crisis on Friday, calling nationwide shortages “unconscionable” and setting an emergency vote next week. But while she tried to get Democrats caught up on a crisis that caught them by surprise, her administrative office was busy ramping up new perks for lawmakers.

House members were alerted to two new perks this week compliments of the chamber’s Democrat leadership: fully paid memberships to Peloton gyms as well as a brand new liquor and drinks outlet.

Republicans immediately seized on the optics, saying doling out additional benefits to lawmakers when everyday Americans are struggling to fill gas tanks, grocery carts or baby bottles was a bridge too far, even for Washington.

“Washington Dems couldn’t be more out of touch,” Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) wrote as he tweeted out a new announcement by the House Chief Administrative Officer announcing a new “House Drinks storefront” in the Rayburn House Office Building where lawmakers and staff can buy beverages, wine and liquor.

“Whether you’re hosting a meeting or an office event or just want to stock up on your favorite drinks, House Drinks sells water, soda, juice, alcohol and spirits,” the announcement boasted. “Six, twelve and 24-packs are available depending on the drink.”

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House of Representatives to give staff free Peloton memberships, costing taxpayers

The House of Representatives is planning to announce they will give staffers in Washington, D.C., and in district offices, free Peloton memberships using taxpayer dollars each month amid skyrocketing inflation.

According to a draft email obtained by FOX Business from the office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), the “premier employee benefit,” which will also be made available to all Capitol Police, will provide staffers with both Peloton All-Access and a Peloton App membership at no monthly cost.

Beginning May 18, the government contract with fitness giant Peloton, under efforts from the House Center for Well-Being, will be offered to the estimated 10,000 people on staff working for the House of Representatives and about 2,300 Capitol Police officers.

A source familiar with the matter told FOX Business that the contract cost is a $10,000 upfront payment to Peloton, plus an extra $10 per month charge for each staffer or officer that utilizes the benefit. If 12,000 staffers took advantage of the benefit, it would cost taxpayers $120,000 a month.

For other Americans, a Peloton All-Access Membership costs $39 per month and a Peloton App Membership costs $12.99 per month.

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The Bizarre, Unanimous Dem Support for the $40b War Package to Raytheon and CIA: “For Ukraine”

After Joe Biden announced his extraordinary request for $33 billion more for the war in Ukraine — on top of the $14 billion the U.S. has already spent just ten weeks into this war — congressional leaders of both parties immediately decided the amount was insufficient. They arbitrarily increased the amount by $7 billion to a total of $40 billion, then fast-tracked the bill for immediate approval. As we reported on Tuesday night, the House overwhelmingly voted to approve the bill by a vote of 388-57. All fifty-seven NO votes came from Republican House members. Except for two missing members, all House Democrats — every last one, including all six members of the revolutionary, subversive Squad — voted for this gigantic war package, one of the largest the U.S. has spent at once in decades.

While a small portion of these funds will go to humanitarian aid for Ukraine, the vast majority will go into the coffers of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the usual suspects. Some of it will go to the CIA for unspecified reasons. The extreme speed with which this was all approved means there is little to no oversight over how the funds will be spent, who will profit and how much, and what the effects will be for Ukraine and the world.

To put this $54 billion amount in perspective, it is (a) larger than the average annual amount that the U.S. spent on its own war in Afghanistan ($46 billion), (b) close to the overall amount Russia spends on its entire military for the year ($69 billion), (c) close to 7% of the overall U.S. military budget, by far the largest in the world ($778 billion), and (d) certain to be far, far higher — easily into the hundreds of billions of dollars and likely the trillion dollar level — given that U.S. officials insist that this war will last not months but years, and that it will stand with Ukraine until the bitter end.

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