Tag: taxes

Study Reveals Taxpayer Funds Meant to End Homelessness Are Being Used to Fund the Radical Left’s Agenda

A new study has exposed waste and abuse in the industry that is meant to ‘end’ homelessness. It revealed that taxpayer dollars that have been earmarked for this problem have been funneled to radical left wing causes for political reasons.

It actually makes perfect sense. There are lots of people who make a ton of money fighting homelessness. Why would they want the problem to be solved? That would mean an end to their industry.

This is a reminder that progressives do not actually care about the homeless. They see them as a means to an end. A way to fund their preferred political causes.

FOX News reports:

A new study just exposed the corruption behind America’s homelessness crisis

A groundbreaking investigation, “Infiltrated” – backed by more than 50 pages of documentation from the Capital Research Center in cooperation with Discovery Institute – pulls back the curtain on a vast system of corruption. It reveals how billions in taxpayer funds intended to lift people out of homelessness have instead bankrolled radical activism and anti-American political agendas, betraying both the taxpayers who fund it and the homeless they were meant to help…

It exposes how radical networks have quietly embedded themselves within leading homelessness nonprofits, sharing infrastructure, donors and ideology.

What began as a movement rooted in compassion has metastasized into what can only be described as a Homelessness Industrial Complex – a sprawling web of nonprofits, bureaucrats and activists feeding off the very crisis they claim to solve.

They’ve built an empire of corruption draped in “evidence-based” slogans that shield politics, protect paychecks and betray the vulnerable.

The report lays it bare: these networks posture as defenders of America’s homeless, yet in truth, they have become their greatest exploiters, dependent on failure to sustain power.

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Senate Republicans Reject Bill to Fund SNAP Benefits During Shutdown

Senate Republicans on Tuesday voted down a Democratic bill to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through the government shutdown.

As tens of millions of Americans stare down the prospect of going hungry beginning Nov. 1, Senate Republicans rejected a unanimous consent bid by Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) to keep the program funded.

SNAP allows those with low to no income to buy food and beverages at grocery stores.

While this benefit is mandatory—unlike Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—it is funded through appropriations.

SNAP benefits were scheduled to be handed out on Nov. 1, but without government funding, that assistance will not be administered.

An earlier, now-deleted Sept. 30 post from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled “Lapse of Funding Plan,” said that SNAP benefits would continue flowing during the shutdown. The agency is now contradicting that earlier memo.

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New Report Exposes Billions in Funding for the ‘Homeless Industrial Complex’

Americans spend billions of dollars to combat homelessness, through donations and taxpayer funding, but the “Homeless Industrial Complex” uses this money for political activism that actually demonizes the policies more likely to solve the crisis, according to a new report.

“Fringe groups in the Homeless Industrial Complex like to characterize homelessness as a symptom of societal injustices, such as systemic racism, police violence, or capitalism,” Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, which released the report, told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “Anyone who disagrees with their tried-and-not-true policy recommendations is called uncompassionate or greedy.”

The report, “Infiltrated: The Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy,” focuses on the 759 organizations that filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024), arguing that laws against camping on the sidewalk violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Supreme Court disagreed, but the nonprofit support for this claim illustrates how organizations founded to help solve the homelessness crisis engage in activism that arguably exacerbates it.

The Capital Research Center report finds that the nonprofits collectively have $9.1 billion in total revenues and received at least $2.9 billion in government grants (32% of their revenues), according to IRS filings.

Attacking Trump and Conservatives

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing nonprofit that puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” alongside the Ku Klux Klan and has an endowment of more than $700 million, was the second-largest nonprofit to sign an amicus brief in the Grants Pass case.

The SPLC’s involvement “illustrates the disconnect between those charities that provide genuine services to the needy, and those that use their resources to advance a left-wing ideological agenda,” Walter said.

“When President [Donald] Trump signed a series of commonsensical executive orders in 2025 to protect public safety and address the root causes of homelessness, the SPLC and other allied groups accused him of human rights violations,” he noted.

Trump’s order “Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets” notes that America hit a grim milestone when 274,224 people lived on the streets on a single night in January 2024, and that most of the homeless “are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.” His order directs the federal government to enforce bans on open illicit drug use and on urban camping and shifting the homeless into “long-term institutional settings for humane treatment.”

In response, SPLC Deputy Legal Director Kirsten Anderson accused Trump of “resurrecting unlawful and outdated approaches to housing that are rooted in racist stereotypes and bias against people with disabilities.”

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Senate Votes 52-48 to Nuke Trump’s Tariffs on Brazil — These Five RINOs Voted with the Democrats

The Senate on Tuesday voted 52-48 to nuke President Trump’s 50% tariffs on Brazil.

House Speaker Mike Johnson will not hold a vote on the measure, so the Senate’s vote was a waste of time.

President Trump would never sign the measure into law anyway.

Five RINO Republicans voted with the Democrats to repeal the tariffs on incoming materials:

  • Rand Paul (KY)
  • Thom Tillis (NC)
  • Susan Collins (ME)
  • Lisa Murkowski (AK)
  • Mitch McConnell (KY)

Earlier this year, the Senate voted to nuke President Trump’s Canadian tariffs.

RINOs Murkowski, Collins, McConnell, and Rand Paul voted to repeal those tariffs.

President Trump is currently in the Supreme Court fighting to keep his tariffs in place after a court said Trump exceeded his authority.

Last month, the US Supreme Court agreed to fast-track President Trump’s tariff case.

In May, the Court of International Trade in New York said President Trump exceeded his authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA).

The DOJ immediately appealed the federal appeals court’s ruling on Trump’s tariffs.

President Trump ripped the judges over the summer.

“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end. If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong,” Trump said in August.

The U.S.A. will no longer tolerate enormous Trade Deficits and unfair Tariffs and Non Tariff Trade Barriers imposed by other Countries, friend or foe, that undermine our Manufacturers, Farmers, and everyone else.”

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Trump Administration Overhauls Biden’s DEI Broadband Program that Connected Zero Households in 4 Years

Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Arielle Roth, outlined the Administration’s policies for reforming the wasteful Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in a speech at the Hudson Institute this week. According to Roth, “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.”

As Breitbart has previously reported, BEAD was filled with DEI mandates, climate-regulation burdens, and a fiber-technology bias that virtually banned viable satellite and fixed-wireless solutions — despite fiber being inefficient in sparsely populated areas. Rather than prioritizing connecting rural Americans most cost-effectively, BEAD under Biden became an ideological vehicle — so much so that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) admitted four years after the bill’s passage that it hadn’t connected a single household.

The $42.5 billion federal program prioritized woke corporate mandates and handouts to the politically connected fiber and broadband lobby, while discriminating against far more efficient Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite technology, such as SpaceX’s Starlink. Four years after it passed, it proposed spending tens of thousands of dollars per household, but failed to connect a single American.

Assistant Secretary Roth agreed, noting that “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.” However, she alluded to the problem of state governments undermining the Trump administration’s priorities on BEAD, explaining, “As BEAD moves toward final plan approvals, delivering results means keeping defaults to an absolute minimum.  A program this large and unprecedented must be managed with discipline and careful oversight.  That means meticulously reviewing state proposals to ensure compliance, prevent distortionary outcomes, and protect against waste.”

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Trump Says SNAP Benefits Will Be Solved for Next Month

President Donald Trump said that he believes Republicans will solve how to fund food stamps, when he was asked about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the government shutdown.

SNAP is slated to expire by Nov. 1, potentially ending benefits for millions of people across the United States.

“We’re going to get it done,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Oct. 29. “The Democrats have caused the problem, unfortunately. All they have to do is sign, and if they sign, I’ll meet with them.”

The president then suggested that the shutdown is linked to broader talks on health care and an extension of subsidies. Senate Democrats have refused 13 times to pass bills to reopen the government because those measures do not include health care provisions, including an extension of Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) subsidies slated to expire at the end of the year.

“We have to fix health care because Obamacare is a disaster,” Trump said, referring to the Affordable Care Act. “When you see the increases in Obamacare, it never worked, it never will work, and we could do something with the Democrats much better than Obamacare. Less money and better health care.”

Trump then said that health insurance companies are “making too much money” and said that talks are needed between Republicans and Democrats when the shutdown ends.

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Illegals vs. the Deserving American Poor

The other day I was driving on a small mountain road and came upon a road construction project. At both ends of the work the flag crew consisted of two older women bundled up against the cold — yes, it’s starting to get cold in the Colorado mountains.

What struck me was their age. They were surprisingly old. I have never met these women in my life, but I’d bet a lot of money they were out working on this job not because they like the fresh air but because they need the money.

You see the same thing in Walmart, grocery, and other retail stores, and in thousands of other unseen occupations. Older workers struggling to get by, doing whatever jobs are open to people of their age and ability.

And it annoys me beyond belief. I would also bet a lot of money that the vast majority of these people either personally bled for this country or have relatives who have — far too many actually giving their lives for this great country. 

What greater sacrifice can one make for their country? I can think of none. Yet these people are kicked to the curb by our government and the elites while money that could go to them is instead showered as free stuff for illegal aliens.

Remember, that’s what the illegal part is all about — they shouldn’t have been allowed in the country in the first place. 

What could Social Security payments and others be if all this money went to only U.S. citizens? A few hundred a month could make a huge difference in these citizens’ lives. Perhaps big decreases in health insurance costs for the average working schmoe?

Is there a greater insult a country could send to its citizens than this? You or your kin gave blood and sometimes lives for this country, but when in need, the sacrifice is ignored and non-citizen criminals — they broke the law coming here and they break it every day they remain — are placed ahead of you.

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Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Missile Defense Could Cost $3.6 Trillion: Report

President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars, promised to create a missile defense system so effective it would eliminate the threat of nuclear war forever, at a cost of around $70 billion. As it turned out, the technology just wasn’t feasible. And the Soviet Union figured out how to overwhelm the missile defense system at five percent of its cost. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, scaled Star Wars down to a much more modest program called Global Protection Against Limited Strikes, emphasis on limited.

Now President Donald Trump is promising that, with today’s technology, he can create an impenetrable missile shield for $175 billion. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in May 2025 that the program could actually cost up to $542 billion over two decades. And according to independent analysis, the CBO may actually be underestimating the cost sixfold. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has calculated a $3.6 trillion price over two decades. Harrison and other experts spoke to The Washington Post for a bombshell report published on Wednesday.

The Golden Dome is designed as a “multi-layered” system. One layer would be ground-based missile batteries. Another would be a constellation of satellites orbiting the Earth, ready to shoot down incoming missiles from above. That latter part was also part of the Star Wars program. Proponents say that lower launch costs today—thanks, Elon Musk—make it more feasible today, according to The Washington Post. Harrison, however, estimates that it would take 950 satellites per enemy missile. The American Physical Society puts the number at 400 interceptors for a lower-end North Korean missile and 1,600 for a higher-end North Korean missile.

North Korea is estimated to have 50 nuclear weapons. And that’s the lower end of the threats that the Golden Dome is supposed to counter. China has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and Russia has thousands. “You need so many more interceptors than missiles, it becomes operationally impractical,” Harrison told the Post.

The Golden Dome program could also scale up ground-based missile defenses. The U.S. military maintains 44 interceptors at a base in Fort Greely, Alaska, designed to launch an “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” that would intercept an incoming ballistic missile in space. But even tests conducted “under scripted conditions and designed for success” show a 55 percent success rate for those interceptors, the American Physical Society reports. The Pentagon has been quite sensitive about that fact. After the recent movie A House of Dynamite depicted U.S. interceptors failing, the Missile Defense Agency wrote up a memo claiming that the system is 100 percent foolproof.

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Food Stamps To Be Paused For 42 Million Americans: What To Know…

Food stamps are set to be paused on Nov. 1 because of the government shutdown.

Some 42 million Americans will not receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) until Congress approves new funding, according to federal officials, although some states have taken steps to intervene.

Congress made money available for SNAP for October before failing to reach a new government funding agreement, which resulted in the government shutting down on Oct. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a letter to regional and state SNAP officials.

There is not enough money to pay full SNAP benefits to the approximately 42 million SNAP recipients in November, the USDA says.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA said on Oct. 25.

“At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”

As Ryan McMaken details below, via The Mises Institute, according to the Treasury Department’s report on federal spending for fiscal year 2025, total spending on food stamps—also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—was $106 billion for the twelve-month period ending September 30. Even in our post-covid age of runaway monetary inflation, 106 billion dollars is still, as they say, “real money,” and SNAP spending doesn’t even include other food-subsidy programs like WIC and school lunch programs.  

In spite of much talk about how the Trump administration is supposedly defunding these programs, they’re not going anywhere. For the calendar year of 2025, the US is on pace to see an increase of six to seven billion dollars over 2024’s SNAP spending total of $99.7 billion. This only continues the longer term upward trend in food-stamp spending. 

Indeed, since the Great Recession (i.e., 2008), when total SNAP spending was $52 billion, total spending on the program has doubled—even when measured in inflation-adjusted dollars. 

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Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate wants leftist media outlets to be state-funded

Seattle’s socialist mayoral candidate Katie Wilson, who has been nicknamed the “Mini Mamdani,” has raised concerns among critics about conflicts of interest and government overreach, this time over her plan to tax residents to subsidize media outlets that support her campaign and employ her.

In a recent interview on the Mostly Economics podcast, Wilson promoted a proposal she calls “News Notes”: a taxpayer-funded voucher program that would give every Seattle resident $100 to donate to local media outlets, to save failing outlets from the free market. To pay for it, she floated new property taxes, a capital gains tax, or a digital ad tax.

But the outlets she specifically named as beneficiaries, The Urbanist, Publicola, and South Seattle Emerald, are the same ones that routinely promote her political agenda. Many of them have endorsed her. Some have even paid her.

Wilson lists income from The Stranger, The Urbanist, and Publicola in her PDC filings, each below $30,000 annually, while all three also endorse her for mayor. These aren’t neutral newspapers. They’re progressive advocacy media that cheerlead for every new tax, anti-police measure, and socialist policy put forward in Seattle.

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