Tag: taxes

Despite Media Claims, USAID Cuts DID NOT Kill 14 Million People

Critics of the U.S., along with mainstream media and Democratic lawmakers, have claimed that Elon Musk’s cuts to USAID have killed 14 million people. This claim fails on multiple levels. Musk did not cut USAID. As head of DOGE, he held no formal legal authority to cancel contracts or eliminate programs, and the formal cancellations were executed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The death toll figures circulating in the press are not confirmed counts but forward projections spanning up to five years, derived from economic models that assume no alternative funding was found, no internal reallocation of funds occurred, and no recipient government, third-country government, or global aid organization stepped in to fill gaps, assumptions the evidence does not support. An examination of the countries most dependent on USAID funding finds no verified excess mortality data for 2025 or 2026 attributable to the cuts; what exists are modeled estimates, not death registries.

The White House stated in court that Musk was a senior presidential adviser with no formal decision-making authority. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that DOGE played a role in the dismantling of USAID. However, the court found that the cuts were approved by government officials. It also ruled that Musk’s social media statement claiming he had “fed USAID into the wood chipper” did not legally constitute evidence that he made those decisions.

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Tennessee Taxpayers to Pay $1.9 Million Settlement to Fired Professor Who Celebrated Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

The University of Tennessee has agreed to pay former assistant professor Tamar Shirinian $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit after she was fired over a social media post celebrating the death of Turning Point CEO and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Under the settlement, approved by the University of Tennessee System Board of Trustees, Shirinian will not return to her teaching position.

The agreement still requires approval from Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and Gov. Bill Lee.

“My client is pleased that the parties reached a resolution,” Shirinian’s attorney, Robb Bigelow, said.

“We believe the resolution reflects the seriousness of the issues while allowing everyone to move forward.”

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DOJ Sues States Over Alleged Failure To Turn Over Food Stamp Data

The Trump administration has sued four states, accusing them of withholding crucial data on food stamp applicants.

Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania refused to turn over information to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that would let federal officials identify fraud, Trump administration lawyers said in lawsuits filed on June 26 against the states.

Officials are asking judges to enter injunctions that would force state authorities to hand over the last five years of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program known as SNAP.

The USDA requested the SNAP data in 2025, citing an executive order from President Donald Trump that directed agencies to stop waste, fraud, and abuse, and many states complied with the request.

Data from those states showed that states had enrolled some 186,000 people in SNAP despite those people being deceased, among the discrepancies that added up to $3 billion in wasteful spending, the department said in a report.

The government spends nearly $100 billion a year on SNAP.

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The US Economy In A Nutshell: Privatize The Gains, Socialize The Costs

In my post Five Dynamics That Make Sense of an Increasingly Chaotic World, #3 is the distribution of risk, costs and consequences to a diffused populace while concentrating the gains into the pockets of insiders/owners:

Those seeking to reduce their private risks and increase their private gains seek to concentrate the gains generated by control structures and distribute the risks and costs to others. Pull the strings that diffuse the costs and risks over a large populace and gather the gains into the hands of the insiders that manage the control structure, typically some form of monopoly, either public or private, or a fusion of public-private rackets.

So corporations face low risks while the gains are extremely enticing. This diffusion of risk and concentration of potential gains establishes perverse incentives to increase extractive, exploitive, well-hidden rackets that impoverish and immiserate the many, but in doses small enough to avoid triggering push-back.

In a system that concentrates gains and diffuses risk, the “rational actor” seeks to maximize rackets that distribute impoverishment and immiseration to the many in small doses over time that attract little attention and are not significant enough to trigger an emotionally potent resistance.

Correspondent Simons Chase (x.com/slchase and Selflet.ai) insightfully summarized this dynamic: Privatize the Gains, Socialize the Costs. Here is Simons’ explanation:

“Junk food is a kind of leveraged recapitalization — short-term gains privatized, long-term costs socialized as horrific health outcomes: pay a little now and a shortened, diseased life later. Dan Munro folded that framing into his Forbes piece tying roughly a trillion dollars a year in U.S. healthcare spending to sugar: Sugar Linked To $1 Trillion In U.S. Healthcare Spending (forbes.com, 2013). The mechanism is the point: privatize the gain, socialize the cost. Once you see it, you see it everywhere.

The receipt is real–Credit Suisse put 30%-40% of U.S. healthcare spending at the feet of excess sugar, and the 2012 Global Burden of Disease report found obesity a bigger global threat than hunger. That last fact is the whole thesis in a line, and I put it on X more recently: obesity is a form of starvation — understand that, and you grasp the U.S. economy:

Abundance, not scarcity, is the adversary now. The economy has already filed the invoice: the top employer in most states flipped from manufacturing to health care in a single generation. We stopped making things and started billing the disease. The damage became the GDP.

Debt is the same recapitalization run on the whole economy–today’s abundance privatized, tomorrow’s cost socialized onto a future that didn’t vote. And the defining project of my lifetime has been that operation run on foreign policy: borrowed against what we couldn’t pay for at home, the costs socialized onto people far from the ledger, each chapter sold as help.

AI is simply the newest instance, and the most intimate. Cheap, fluent, frictionless cognition now; the homogenization bill later. The engagement is privatized; the flattening of the culture is socialized onto all of us– and, exactly as you say, nobody notices the loss because nobody knows how to look for it.

Thank you, Simons, for this illumination.

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Senate Farm Bill Defunds USDA Animal Labs in China, Russia, and Other Adversarial Nations in Response to White Coat Waste Investigations

The Senate’s newly released version of the 2026 Farm Bill includes White Coat Waste-backed language that prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from funding animal research laboratories in China, Russia, and other adversarial nations.

The provision, led by Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, appears as Section 7130 on page 495 of the bill and marks a major step toward protecting American taxpayers from subsidizing cruel and wasteful experiments in foreign laboratories.

Section 7130, titled “Limitation on certain research in countries of concern,” bars the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics, from conducting or funding any research, education, or extension activities involving vertebrate animals in “the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, or any other foreign country of concern.”

The restriction applies to work done in those countries or in collaboration with them.

A narrow waiver will be available on a case-by-case basis only when necessary for national security, animal or crop health, or public health, safety, or welfare, but any waiver requires at least 30 days’ advance notification to congressional committees with detailed justification, including the location, collaborators, species of animals involved, costs, and duration.

This follows years of White Coat Waste investigations that uncovered shocking examples of USDA money flowing to dangerous animal experiments abroad.

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Newsom Scrubs ‘$100 Million’ Slippery Slope From National ‘Billionaire Tax’ Pitch – And He’s Coming After Inheritance Too

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called for a national tax on billionaires. Except, in the original version, it was anyone with a net worth of at least $100 million – as quoted by multiple outlets, citing a post from Newsom’s Substack account. 

As originally reported by Politico:

His plan to address the country’s yawning wealth gap includes “a true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million” and creating a national public equity fund to give all Americans a stake in the economic gains created by artificial intelligence companies. 

The post now reads:

“So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay.”

Bitch please. 

Newsom also wants to tax inheritance – writing “We also need to rewrite our inheritance rules. Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about.”

Notice he cites the massive wealth transfer, but not the level of inheritance he’s targeting – as most slippery slopes begin.

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Doug Casey on Swap Lines, Secret Bailouts, and the Weaponization of the Dollar

International Man: While the term “swap line” sounds technical and harmless, it seems like it’s just a euphemism for a bailout.

What does it say when Washington starts extending swap lines to countries like Argentina and the UAE?

Doug Casey: First, we should define what a swap line is. It basically amounts to the US giving a foreign country X amount of currency in dollars, and the other country paying for it by giving the US the same amount in their currency. For decades, US dollar swap lines were mostly reserved for major allies and core financial centers around the world.

It’s a problem, however, with countries whose currencies have no value outside of their boundaries. A country that gets a swap line from the US is trading its paper for liquid and fungible dollars. The US may then get stuck with UAE dirhams or Argentine pesos. It’s trading real money for play money, Monopoly money.

In the case of Argentina, that swap line may never be repaid. The US might wind up being stuck with a bunch of worthless Argentine pesos.

When the US gives a foreign country a swap line, it basically creates those dollars out of nothing. They enter the banking system and debase the dollar. Doing so gives the US some leverage over a country that takes the swap.

But it’s a pretty expensive way of getting leverage.

International Man: In Argentina’s case, the US framed the swap line as a stabilizing measure. But was this really about financial stability, or was it about propping up a politically important ally at a critical moment?

Doug Casey: Since Milei is Trump’s new BFF, the swap was intended to help Argentina’s perennially weak economy, thereby helping Milei. That’s great for the moment, but now Argentina has to deal with another $30 billion of debt. I would’ve recommended Milei default on all of Argentina’s debts to the IMF, the World Bank, and the US—that might have worked during Milei’s first few months. “I’m sorry, everyone. We just don’t have the ability to pay right now. Wait until I set things straight.” I’m not sure that Argentina would’ve been punished badly for that. Third World countries default all the time.

Instead, Argentina taking the swap just indebts them by another $30 billion. The way to look at this is that future generations of young Argentines are being turned into serfs in order to repay that swap line, along with the rest of the debt.

Milei should have called a spade a spade and admitted bankruptcy instead of going further into debt to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

Argentina’s financial situation under Milei is very strange. The country theoretically owns two million ounces of gold. A million of those ounces were already sitting in London. But then, as soon as Milei got into office, he physically transferred another 440,000 ounces to London, saying that they were safer there. Which is an obvious lie; there’s no reason to think they’ll ever return.

That’s on top of buying 24 F-16s from Denmark—totally useless planes for Argentina—for another $350 million, plus $150 million per year in maintenance. And failing to abolish the central bank, which was a centerpiece of his election campaign. And worse, using the central bank to maintain the peso at ridiculously high levels, which is serving to bankrupt thousands of small businesses.

These stupidities might make the $30 billion swap seem necessary.

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A Million Obamacare Users Enrolled Without a Social Security Number

Obamacare is expensive, unconstitutional, socialist, and bloated. It is also — surprise, surprise — riddled with fraud.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz revealed the stunning number of Obamacare users who never provided a Social Security number, raising serious questions about the scope of fraud in the government healthcare insurance program.

In a Saturday video, Kennedy and Oz updated the American people on efforts to uncover and root out fraud. The HHS secretary began, “The Obamacare marketplace is plagued by fraud, in large part because the Biden administration dismantled basic program integrity guardrails. [And] partisan lawfare blocked common sense efforts to protect taxpayers. Today, Dr. Oz and I are exposing one of the latest examples of fraud that we’ve uncovered — more than a million people enrolled in Obamacare without Social Security numbers on file. That is a glaring warning side of fraud. If even a single person was on Obamacare with no Social Security number, we should have found out. Why are we paying people we don’t know if they actually exist?” Why indeed. Probably because Democrats love to redistribute money no matter how many criminals benefit.

Oz picked up the thread of the explanation. “Shady insurance agents and other bad actors have been getting paid to enroll unsuspecting Americans in health plans they never signed up for,” he exclaimed. “These rogue agents have been flooding into healthcare.gov. That’s the Obamacare marketplace. They submit applications for fake people, enroll stolen identities, all to collect millions of dollars, improper fees, from insurance companies for selling plans they never legitimately sold. Some of these agents refuse to follow basic rules like providing their clients’ Social Security number. That, my friends, is a huge red flag.”

Under the current administration, HHS and CMS are actually paying attention to red flags. As Kennedy said, “These fraudsters deliberately pick plans with no premiums. No premiums means no bill. No bill means most people never know that they’ve been enrolled in a plan that you and I are paying for with our taxpayer dollars. The only people who benefit are the fraudsters.”

But the current administration has a zero tolerance attitude toward fraud, Oz emphasized. “So here’s what we’re doing about it,” he said. “In May, we took swift action to block this fraudulent behavior directly on healthcare.gov and to our marketplace Call Center. If an agent wants to be paid, [he] must follow the rules. No ifs, ands or buts. They are gonna have to provide government-verified information for their clients to be enrolled.”

This effort is bearing fruit, Kennedy stated. “Thanks to this aggressive enforcement strategy, we’ve already eliminated thousands of fraudulent policies, and we’re just getting started. We’re also working with insurers to cancel every policy that should never have been issued and recover every taxpayer dollar that was fraudulently paid out,” he assured Americans.

Oz agreed, “We’re also scaling up our enforcement efforts to prevent these bad actors from finding new ways to manipulate the system ahead of the open enrollment system this fall, because we know that bad actors don’t simply stop when you cut off one vulnerable area. The Biden administration let healthcare fraudsters run wild. Thanks to President Trump, those days are over.” The battle is ongoing, but there have already been victories.

Kennedy warned, “To every unscrupulous insurance agent and fraudster exploiting the American people, here is our message. If you steal from the American taxpayer, or if you defraud American families, HHS will find you, and we will hold you accountable.” Oz chimed in, “If you’re a fraudster, here’s our advice to you. Do not walk away from us, run, because we are gonna find you.”

Secretary Kennedy stated that his priority is protecting Americans’ health and Americans’ money, now and always.

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Texas Supreme Court Blocks Harris County from Spending Taxpayer Dollars on Illegal Immigrants’ Deportation Defense

The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Harris County from spending taxpayer dollars on legal services for individuals facing federal deportation proceedings, marking a significant victory for state officials seeking to curb what they view as the misuse of public funds.

The order, issued Friday, halts further spending from Harris County’s Immigrant Legal Services Fund while litigation continues over whether the program violates the Texas Constitution. Although the court has not issued a final ruling on the merits, it concluded there is “serious doubt” about the program’s constitutionality and ordered the county to suspend additional disbursements until further notice.

The decision sends a clear message that local governments cannot use taxpayer money to advance politically driven immigration policies without constitutional scrutiny.

Harris County’s Deportation Defense Fund

Harris County established the Immigrant Legal Services Fund in 2020 with an initial $2 million appropriation to provide free legal representation for individuals in federal immigration proceedings. Since then, county leaders have continued funding the program, including a recent $1.34 million allocation to nonprofit organizations representing individuals facing deportation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenged the latest expenditure, arguing that using public funds for this purpose violates the Texas Constitution’s prohibition against granting public money for private purposes. The Texas Supreme Court agreed that the constitutional questions raised are substantial enough to justify immediately halting the spending while the lawsuit proceeds.

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With Friends Like This: GOP Senator Joins Forces with Elizabeth Warren to Push the Largest Tax Hike in Over FOUR DECADES

The one thing conservatives could generally count on from Republicans was their consistent opposition to tax increases. But one GOP Senator has decided to toss that principle aside and join forces with one of America’s most notorious leftists.

On Tuesday, Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren (D-MA) wrote an editorial published by the far-left New York Times, which outlined their plan to ‘save’ Social Security.

Moreno and Warren correctly note that Social Security is facing a major funding crisis. By late 2032, the fund from which most Social Security beneficiaries are paid will be severely depleted unless Congress takes action.

If Congress does nothing, Social Security benefits could be cut by more than 20 percent.

The Senators write that instead of reducing the benefits, the government should adopt what they call a common-sense solution: lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap.

Warren and Moreno say that this is one way to make the payroll tax and solve the Social Security funding crisis for “another generation.”

More From the New York Times:

For 2026, the payroll tax cap, or taxable maximum, is $184,500. Workers and their employers each pay 6.2 percent on wages up to that amount. (Self-employed individuals pay 12.4 percent.) Today, the maximum Social Security withholding for one worker is $22,878, or 12.4 percent of $184,500. Not a penny more, even if an individual’s salary far exceeds $184,500.

Since the vast majority of Americans make less than that, most people are paying Social Security taxes on 100 percent of their earnings, while the highest earners are paying on only part of theirs.

Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger share of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate lawyer? This is doubly unfair in an economy in which top earners’ wages, over time, have pulled far ahead of those of the average worker.

According to one estimate, eliminating the payroll tax cap would inject around $3 trillion into the program over the next 10 years. Lifting the cap so that all income is treated the same would generate substantial revenue that would extend the solvency of Social Security for another generation.

But what Warren and Moreno do not tell readers is that lifting the payroll tax cap would result in the largest tax increase in more than four decades.

This proposal would have a particularly devastating impact on sole proprietors, and costs would fall entirely on working Americans.

Moreover, the plan is more radical than any tax hike Joe Biden proposed.

Here is the National Review with the damning details:

That would represent a $3.4 trillion tax hike over a decade. As a share of gross domestic product, it would be the largest tax hike in over 40 years — eclipsing Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, according to the Tax Foundation.

Not only would it represent a stunning betrayal of his own voters, as Moreno signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge against any tax increases — it would even violate the $400,000-a-year Joe Biden threshold for tax increases.

Such a massive tax increase would also have crushing economic effects. Employers who don’t want to absorb the increase in payroll taxes will have to hire fewer workers or keep wages lower. It would place a significant burden on small business owners who operate as sole proprietors and pay self-employment taxes. And at a time when affordability has become a major issue, these costs would fall entirely on working-age Americans.

What makes Moreno’s turn to the hard left more distressing is that he has been one of the Senate’s most reliable MAGA warriors, particularly on immigration.

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