Tag: taxes

US TAX DAY: Americans Send Average of $2K to Military

Most of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time.

You’ve probably heard a lot about corporations not paying taxes. Last year, individual Americans contributed six times more in income tax than corporations did.

But have you heard about how many of citizens’ tax dollars then end up in corporate pockets? It’s a lot — especially for corporations that contract with the Pentagon. They collect nearly half of all military spending.

The average U.S. taxpayer contributed about $2,000 to the military last year, according to a breakdown my colleagues and I prepared for the Institute for Policy Studies. More than $900 of that went to corporate military contractors.

In 2020, the largest Pentagon contractor, Lockheed Martin, took in $75 billion from taxpayers — and paid its CEO more than $23 million.

Unfortunately, this spending isn’t buying us a more secure world.

Last year, Congress added $25 billion the Pentagon didn’t ask for to its already gargantuan budget. Lawmakers even refused to let military leaders retire weapons systems they couldn’t use anymore. The extra money favored top military contractors that gave campaign money to a group of lawmakers, who refused to comment on it.

Then there’s simple price-gouging.

There’s the infamous case of TransDigm, a Pentagon contractor that charged the government $4,361 for a metal pin that should’ve cost $46 — and then refused to share cost data. Congress recently asked TransDigm to repay some of its misbegotten profits, but the Pentagon hasn’t cut off its business.

Somewhere between price-gouging and incompetence lies the F-35 jet fighter, an embarrassment the late Sen. John McCain, a Pentagon booster, called “a scandal and a tragedy.”

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New IG Report Reveals Biden Regime Wasted $17 Million on UNUSED Hotel Rooms Meant for Illegals and ICE Contractors

In yet another brutal indictment of the Biden Administration’s handling of the Southern Border, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a new report this week detailing several procedural violations and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars through border operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and contractors.

Following the $80 million-plus contract that the Biden administration awarded to the non-profit group Endeavors to provide hotel room lodging for illegal immigrants, the IG report found a lack of “justification” given for the exorbitant amount of money being allocated, leading to millions in wasted dollars. In all, a whopping $17 million was wasted on empty rooms in six hotels between April and June 2021.

The decision to award Endeavors the housing contract for illegals was also criticized at the time because the Biden administration subverted the traditional selection process and allowed the non-profit to secure the contract without opening it up to any competition, also called a no-bid contract. In other words, this relationship has been shady since the beginning.

Although the amount is fairly modest when compared to the recently passed trillion-plus-dollar spending package, or even the 3 billion that’s been sent to Ukraine so far, the complete waste of millions in taxpayer dollars is a notable issue. The fact that over 3 million illegals that we know of have crossed the border since Biden took office  and the subsequent overcrowding in ICE facilities, should suggest that there would be no vacancies in any of the hotel rooms. How did almost 1/4th of the money end up being spent on nothing?

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Bellingham, Washington School District Pays Middle School Students $2,000 to Perform Drag Show

A Bellingham middle school awarded children $2,000 to perform a drag show.

Whatcom Middle School’s Gender Sexuality Alliance club (yes, for 10-12 year olds) came up with the idea to host the “Drop Dead Gorgeous Drag Show.”

Totally normal.

But don’t worry because the school insists the drag show will be “behaviorally appropriate,” KGMI reported.

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IRS Data: Democrat Billionaire Mike Bloomberg Pays Less than Half the Tax Rate Paid by Average American

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the failed Democrat presidential primary candidate and former New York City mayor, is paying less than half the federal income tax rate the average American taxpayer pays, newly published Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data reveals.

The revelation is part of a broad investigation by ProPublica that gives a glimpse into the tax loopholes that the richest 400 Americans utilize every year to dodge billions in federal income taxes that most Americans are required to pay.

“To make it into the top 400, each person on this list had to make an average of at least $110 million each year,” the investigation states. “A typical American making $40,000 would have to work for 2,750 years to make what the lowest-earning person in this group made in one.”

Bloomberg, ProPublica reports, “achieved one of the lowest tax rates in the top 400” richest Americans from 2013 to 2018 “partly by taking annual deductions of more than $1 billion, mostly through charitable contributions.”

During that time frame, Bloomberg paid an average federal income tax rate of just four percent — less than half the rate that the average American taxpayer, at 13.3 percent, pays every year. In fact, Bloomberg’s average rate is just 0.5 percent more than what the bottom 50 percent of income earners pay on average.

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Biden Sends Nearly $1 Billion to Afghanistan Since Taliban Takeover

Over two decades, the United States and its international partners poured billions in humanitarian aid into Afghanistan. Much of that aid went into the pockets of the Taliban.

After Biden’s retreat, the Taliban have consolidated control over Afghanistan. And over all the hungry children, the girls deprived of an education, and all the other sob stories that kept a river of private charity and taxpayer money flowing into a hellhole in which nothing ever got better.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

At an aid conference hosted by the UN, the UK, Germany and the Islamic terror state of Qatar, which backs the Taliban, $2.4 billion was raised for Afghanistan. The hosts had demanded over $4.4 billion, which would have been the largest amount ever raised for any nation.

The Biden administration kicked in another $204 million.

That’s on top of the $782 million in “humanitarian aid” allocated to Afghanistan last year since the Taliban took over. This year, Biden signed an executive order allocating $3.5 billion of the Afghan assets held in the Federal Reserve for the same purpose. But even not counting those funds, Biden has dedicated $986 million to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over.

That’s nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money and nearly $4.5 billion in total funds.

The Biden administration keeps insisting that the money won’t go to the Taliban. That’s as plausible as its previous claims that the Afghan government wouldn’t collapse, that if it did we would be ready, and that all Americans would be evacuated before Kabul fell to the enemy.

There’s no one with less credibility on Afghanistan than a member of the Biden administration.

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How the U.S. Paid for Putin’s War on Ukraine

Did the US inadvertently finance Putin’s war on Ukraine with short-sighted, politically motivated, and irrational energy and climate policies? And did those failed policies fuel inflation to the obscene rate of 7.87%? Were the geopolitical consequences and the enormous economic costs of those policies predictable and avoidable? The short answers are yes, yes, and yes. Anyone in the Biden Administration could have “done the math” and seen how rising energy prices would continue to fill Putin’s coffers, funding his military build-up, and contribute to runaway inflation here at home.

The oil and gas industry is the cornerstone of the US economy and will continue to be for years to come. Crude oil and natural gas prices impact not only the price of gas at the pump but virtually everything we buy. Petroleum is an ingredient in all types of consumer goods, which are then transported using ships, planes, trains, and trucks fueled with petroleum products. Natural gas powers over 40% of our electrical grid, heats our homes, and is a substantial component in the cost of manufacturing almost everything.

Crude oil and natural gas prices also impact the economic health and behavior of global adversaries like Russia and China. Russia is one of the top three largest oil and natural gas producers in the world. According to the Russian Ministry of Finance, oil and natural gas export revenues constituted 36% of their total federal revenues in 2021. That amounts to over 9 trillion rubles or $121 billion in 2021 alone. Russia sold 48% of its oil and 72% of its natural gas production to European countries.

By contrast, in 2021, America bought only 1% of Russia’s crude oil and none of their natural gas in 2021. 1% doesn’t sound like much but it does amount to 245 million barrels and over $16 billion in revenue to Russia (@$65/barrel average). But our imports of Russian crude are only a small part of the story.

The real story of how Putin financed his war on Ukraine is about the rapidly rising price of crude oil and natural gas over the past several years. If the market price of oil and natural gas had remained relatively stable, Russia would only have made modest profits on its fossil fuel exports. As prices rose, Putin began making a killing and is using those windfalls to build and maintain his war machine.

Russia’s total cost (excluding taxes) of crude oil production is estimated to be between $32 and $44 per barrel. In 2019, the average price for crude was about $60 per barrel. Assuming a production cost of say $40 per barrel, Russia earned a profit of $20 per barrel. But when the average price reached $100 per barrel, their profits triple to $60 per barrel. For reference, Russia’s baseline oil production rose to 11.5 million barrels per day in 2021 and they exported 4.7 million barrels per day.

This translates to a total of 1.7 billion barrels exported in 2021 alone (4.7 x 365). A reasonable crude oil price of $60 per barrel and a profit of $20 per barrel nets Russia $34 billion per year. When crude is over $100 as it is today, Russia makes $60 a barrel and a whopping $102 billion per year! That’s a $68 billion windfall ($102-$34), simply because the US allowed the market price of crude to become artificially and unnecessarily high.

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Census Bureau will Spend $10 Mil to Study How to Best Add Gender Identity Questions on Surveys

In a fierce governmentwide effort to provide special accommodations to less than one percent of the American population, key federal agencies are implementing significant—and costly—measures to support residents who identify as transgender. This includes the U.S. Census Bureau spending $10 million to research how to best add questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on surveys. The Biden administration calls it “critical research” in a recent announcement issued by the White House on Transgender Day of Visibility. It is essential to invest in the research because the data collected by the Census Bureau will help the federal government “better serve the LGBTQI+ community by providing valuable information on their jobs, educational attainment, home ownership, and more,” the White House statement reads.

The administration took the opportunity on Transgender Day of Visibility to also reveal additional measures that other federal agencies will implement to accommodate transgender people, those whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth. For instance, the State Department will allow all American citizens to select an X as their gender marker on U.S. passport applications. This will deliver on the president’s commitment to expand access to accurate identification documents for transgender and non-binary Americans, according to the announcement. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is strong-arming air carriers to “promote the use and acceptance of the X gender marker to ensure more efficient and accurate passenger processing.” The DHS agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation’s transportation system, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), will update its Standard Operating Procedures to remove gender considerations when validating a traveler’s identification at airport security checkpoints. TSA PreCheck and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler Programs will also get updated to include X gender markers to “enhance access for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming travelers.”

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