Tag: taxes

8 Ridiculous ‘Green New Deal’ Programs in Democrats’ Bloated Spending Bill

Both chambers of Congress are focused on a raging debate over whether to pass a 2,465-page, $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill. With the legislation almost guaranteed to have no Republican support, different factions of Democrats are locking horns over the bill’s fate.

Progressives want to spend recklessly, which is much easier to do when you’re using other people’s money. In contrast, moderates are alarmed about what effect yet another federal spending blowout would have on already-high inflation and the dangerously huge national debt.

It is vitally important to have a discussion about overall spending levels. It is equally important to understand what those taxpayer dollars would be used on.

A key component of the bill is enacting a “Green New Deal” agenda, which is a top priority for left-wing activists.

The energy and environmental sections would spend hundreds of billions on a massive scheme that would only affect global temperatures by about 0.04 degrees Celsius in 2100.

Rather than delivering tangible environmental benefits, the bill would do far more to centralize power and control over the daily lives of Americans in Washington and provide handouts to political pet causes and special interest groups.

These nine items are just a sampling of the “green” insanity in the bill.

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How Democrats Could Hide $2 Trillion in New Spending With Budget Gimmicks

It now seems fairly certain unlikely that President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” will make it through the U.S. Senate as a $3.5 trillion spending plan.

Instead, the final version of the bill will probably have a topline spending figure of less than $2 trillion. Even Biden is now admitting as much. But it could have up to $2 trillion in additional, hidden costs, too—thanks to at least two potential changes that one budget watchdog group calls “blatant” gimmicks involving the expanded child tax credit and the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are reportedly considering a one-year extension of the expanded child tax credit, which pays parents $3,000 annually for every child (and an extra $600 for kids under age 6) and is paid out as a refund even for families that owe no federal taxes. Previously, Biden’s plan called for a five-year extension of the child tax credit. As I wrote in September, the five-year extension was a budget gimmick designed to make the tax credit appear to be roughly $700 billion less expensive than it otherwise would be within the standard 10-year budget window. In short, Democrats were signalling that the expanded child tax credit would be permanent, but they were only accounting for half of what it would actually cost to make it permanent.

A one-year extension would be mashing that same “gimmick” button even harder.

In a similar way, Democrats are also reportedly considering a shorter-than-planned extension of the expanded Obamacare subsidies made available during the pandemic. Instead of being extended permanently, those provisions would technically expire after three years—even though everyone knows they are likely to be extended past that sunset date.

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NIH Funds ‘Toxic Brain Injection’ Monkey Experiments, Holes Drilled Into Skulls, Devices Implanted Into Brains

The National Institutes of Health is allegedly spending $16 million in taxpayer money on horrifying experiments where doctors “cripple monkeys with toxic brain injections.”

A disturbing report from the White Coat Waste Project has exposed cruel and inhumane monkey experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health.

According to the report, “WCW has filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after uncovering cost disclosure violations by all seven National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs), the nation’s largest taxpayer-funded monkey labs imprisoning a combined 22,000 primates and receiving more than $100 million annually.”

Some of the experiments done by the NIH-funded NPRC’s involve:

  1. Turning monkeys into “binge-drinker” alcoholics (Oregon NPRC);
  2. Surgically-inducing heart attacks in monkeys (Washington NPRC);
  3. Exposing monkeys to biological weapons (Tulane NPRC);
  4. Intentionally threatening monkeys to cause fear and anxiety (California NPRC);
  5. Psychologically tormenting baboons (Southwest NPRC);
  6. Drilling into monkeys’ skulls and injecting them with the ADHD-drug Ritalin (Wisconsin NPRC); and
  7. Drilling to monkeys’ skulls and injected toxins to destroy their brains and cripple their limbs (Yerkes NPRC)

The organization unearthed a video from Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Center, detailing how monkeys are locked alone in small cages where they have holes drilled into their skulls. After the holes are drilled, doctors reportedly screw in metal head restraining devices, implant electrodes and inject toxins into the monkey’s brains.

The toxic brain injections reportedly “destroy monkey’s brains and cause them to lose control of their limbs, mouths, and other body parts.”

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Federal Gov Pays University $750k to Create Tool That Warns Journalists Against Publishing “Polarizing” Content

The NSF project titled “A System for Mapping the (Local) Journalism Life Cycle to Rebuild the Nation’s News Trust” will warn journalists when content may be “triggering” of unfavorable discourse.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided a $750,000 grant to Temple University researchers for developing a product that tracks local journalism cycles, which is part of their new “Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems” initiative.

The “America’s Fourth Estate at Risk: A System for Mapping the (Local) Journalism Life Cycle to Rebuild the Nation’s News Trust” project aims to create a data-based tool that informs journalists when publishing content might result in “negative unintended outcomes” like “the triggering of uncivil, polarizing discourse, audience misinterpretation, the production of misinformation, and the perpetuation of false narratives.”

The researchers hope to help journalists measure the long-term communication impact of stories, extending beyond existing metrics such as initial reactions, likes, and shares.

In an interview with Campus Reform, grant principal investigator and Temple University professor Eduard Dragut said the team will “use natural language processing algorithms along with social networking tools to mine the communities where [misinformation] may happen.”

“You can imagine that each news article is usually, or actually almost all the time, accompanied by user comments and reactions on Twitter. One goal of the project is to retrieve those and then use natural language processing tools or algorithms to mine and recommend to some users [that] this space of talking, this set of tweets, which may lead to a set of people, like a sub-community, where this article is used for wrong reasons,” he said.

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Democrats’ Carbon Tax Would Force Struggling Americans To Pay For The Emissions Of The Rich

As if middle-class Americans didn’t have enough inflation to cope with, Democrats want to squeeze struggling families even more. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the opposition of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., a key element of President Biden’s agenda has some Democrats considering adding a carbon tax in their $3.5 trillion spending extravaganza.

Imposing a carbon tax would represent but the latest instance of Democrats violating President Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.

Claims in tweets aside, Biden’s record shows he does not practice what he preaches—not on rich people “paying their fair share,” and certainly not on taking action against global warming. Instead, Biden’s carbon tax would raise prices on struggling families to offset the massive carbon emissions of he and his wealthy friends.

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Psaki says Biden owing $500K to IRS was ‘debunked,’ but experts disagree

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday claimed allegations that President Biden owes as much as $500,000 in unpaid Medicare taxes have been “debunked” — despite experts saying otherwise.

The issue re-emerged last month when Republicans accused Biden of hypocritically pushing for other wealthy people to pay their “fair share” to fund new social spending.

Psaki grew visibly annoyed when asked about the issue by The Post at her daily press briefing and cut off the line of questioning after an expert was cited, who affirmed Biden might indeed owe taxes.

“This is a very long question. I think I know what you’re getting at. This has been debunked, as you probably know. Also he’s released many, many years of his tax returns so people can check them out,” Psaki said.

She made the declaration despite being presented with a quote from tax law expert Bob Willens, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s business school, who recently said that “in my view, the case can easily be made” that Biden owes back taxes. 

When The Post pointed out that “it hasn’t been debunked though, I just cited an expert,” Psaki cut off the inquiry and asked another reporter to ask a question.

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Taliban Says US Will Provide Humanitarian Aid to Afghanistan

The U.S. has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, while refusing to give political recognition to the country’s new Taliban rulers, the Taliban said Sunday.

The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of August.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. on the weekend meeting.

The Taliban said the talks held in Doha, Qatar, “went well,” with Washington freeing up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after agreeing not to link such assistance to formal recognition of the Taliban.

The United States made it clear that the talks were in no way a preamble to recognition of the Taliban, who swept into power Aug. 15 after the U.S.-allied government collapsed.

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