Tag: taxes

While Federal Workers Go Without Pay, 30 Members of Congress Spotted Vacationing at Scottish Castle on Taxpayer Dime

  • While hard-working federal employees at the Department of Homeland Security are scraping by without full paychecks amid this partial government shutdown, dozens of out-of-touch members of Congress decided it was the perfect time for a lavish, taxpayer-funded vacation overseas.

Left-wing TMZ continued to flip the script and has gone international with their investigation into congressional junkets, and what they uncovered is pure DC swamp corruption at its finest.

Approximately 30 members of Congress were caught red-handed touring Edinburgh Castle in Scotland while the rest of America deals with the chaos they created by failing to fund critical agencies.

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Golden Dome, ships and missiles top Trump’s $1.9 trillion fiscal 2027 defence wish list  

US President Donald Trump is set to unveil a US$1.5 trillion (S$1.9 trillion) defence budget request for the next fiscal year on April 3, by far the largest year-over-year increase in defence spending in the post-World War II era.

Funding for Mr Trump’s marquee but controversial US$185 billion “Golden Dome” missile defence shield is expected to be included in the budget request, as well as Lockheed Martin F-35 jets and warships.

Procurement of Virginia-class submarines made by General Dynamics, and Huntington Ingalls Industries as well as other top shipbuilding priorities is expected.

In 2025, Mr Trump asked Congress for a national defence budget of US$892.6 billion then added US$150 billion through a supplemental budget request, sending the total price tag over US$1 trillion for the first time in history.

While the budget request framework for the fiscal year ending Sept 30, 2027, is set to be unveiled on April 3, a Pentagon official said more details on the defence budget will be announced on April 21.

Earlier this year the administration was contemplating whether the US$1.5 trillion budget request could be in the form of a US$900 billion national security budget, with a US$400 billion to US$600 billion additional request, similar to the structure used in 2026.

The administration plans to use funds for more weapons production in the hopes of deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region and to rebuild weapons stocks depleted by conflicts in Israel, Iran and Ukraine.

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Massachusetts Senate President announces she will use the millionaires tax to fund additional lawyers for illegal migrants facing deportation

Massachusetts has a program that pays for lawyers for immigrants facing deportation. Senate Democrats want to put more money into it.

Senate President Karen Spilka plans to include an additional $1 million for the Massachusetts Access to Counsel Initiative in a supplemental spending bill set for release Thursday, WBUR reported.

The program, created in the state’s fiscal year 2026 budget, funds free legal representation for immigrants in deportation proceedings — who, unlike criminal defendants, have no right to a court-appointed attorney.

The additional $1 million would come from the same source as the original $5 million: the so-called millionaires tax, a 4% surtax on Massachusetts incomes above $1 million.

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NY assembly to get million-dollar lounge —while demanding huge tax hikes on hardworking New Yorkers

State assembly members are set to personally enjoy a million-dollar renovation for their lounge space just off the chamber floor — even as they push to hike taxes on businesses while driving up spending, The Post has learned.

The Office of General Services, a division of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration which handles much of the capitol complex, is moving forward with plans to renovate the space with the price tag potentially exceeding $1 million, according to bidding documents reviewed by The Post.

The move comes as the same pols who exclusively get to recline on the couches in the antechamber and chomp down on treats prepared in the lounge’s kitchenette demand Hochul hike taxes on businesses amid next year’s proposed $263 billion state budget.

“Albany Democrats always find money for themselves while asking New Yorkers to pay more. They are completely out of touch,” upstate Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), a former assembly woman, told The Post.

Ex-Assemblyman Andy Goodell (R-Chautaqua) added, “The assembly members should work harder rather than ‘lounge’ around.”

A source confirmed to The Post that OGS had received a request from the Assembly for the project.

Lawmakers ran for the hills Wednesday for Passover break after failing to come to an agreement with Hochul on her proposed $263 billion state budget proposal.

Despite being on a scheduled two-week recess, lawmakers will likely have to gather to vote Tuesday on another stopgap spending bill to keep state workers paid.

At least some will likely skip the tally in person, Goodell said.

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NASA’s Artemis Program Is a Monument to Government Waste. It Can Only Go Up From Here.

If the pending Artemis II mission is successful, it will not just send Americans around the moon and back for the first time in more than half a century—it will send them further than any human being has traveled into space. If the rest of the Artemis program proceeds on schedule, astronauts will return to the lunar surface by the end of the decade.

That’s been a long time coming. The government has been working to get Americans back on the moon since the Bush administration created the Constellation program in the mid-2000s. Wondering why it’s taking so long, given that the original moon mission required only seven years? The answer involves the familiar forces of government inefficiency and pork barrel congressional politics.

How We Got Here

After the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated while reentering the atmosphere in 2003, the Bush administration decided to shift the space program away from the Space Shuttle program. The result was the more targeted, purpose-driven Constellation program, which focused on completing the International Space Station and laying the groundwork for a “return to the Moon no later than 2020.” This, officials hoped, would be a stepping stone toward a crewed mission to Mars not long afterward.

By the time President Barack Obama took office, the Constellation program was already on the way to cancellation; the new administration declared the program “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation.” When the Shuttle program retired in 2011, no vehicle was set to take its place. So in 2010, Congress mandated that several legacy aerospace companies create the Space Launch System (SLS), both to take over the missions that the shuttle had been servicing and to provide for future space missions.

As development began on the rocket, the projected budget cost through 2017 was $18 billion, a number that would soon start growing. Early in development, each launch was projected to cost $500 million, a number very optimistic in hindsight: According to the White House’s 2026 budget proposal, an SLS launch costs about $4 billion. Through last year, the total cost of the program has exceeded $60 billion.

The SLS program isn’t just way over budget. It’s way behind schedule too. Congress told it to fly by 2016, but the first launch didn’t come until 2022. The second launch will be Artemis II.

When the first Trump administration started the Artemis program in 2017, the vision was to send Americans to the moon and then Mars. As the program developed, officials set a goal of having humans on the moon again by 2024. In April 2021, SpaceX won the bidding process to build the Human Landing System—the lunar lander that would deliver the astronauts to the moon’s surface. Blue Origin then sued NASA over losing out to SpaceX, and NASA had to pause work until the lawsuit ended. The suit was resolved in November, at which point SpaceX and NASA returned to work. 

Infrastructure issues plagued Artemis, with repairs spanning months. Rocket launches require good weather, and launch windows can be tight, so a few days of bad weather can postpone a launch by weeks or months.

After Jared Isaacman became NASA administrator last year, the Artemis mission schedule underwent substantial structural changes. Artemis III, which had been set to be the mission that would send astronauts to our satellite’s surface, has now become Artemis IV, scheduled for 2028; the new Artemis III will test on-orbit capabilities but will stay in low Earth orbit. Further missions down the line are supposed to begin assembly of a U.S. lunar base. The current slate of missions run through Artemis X, projected to have a 2035 launch date.

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Judge Rejects Anti-Marijuana Groups’ Motion To Block CBD And THC Medicare Coverage Plan, Setting Hearing For 4/20

A federal judge has denied a request from a coalition of anti-marijuana organizations that sought to immediately block the Trump administration’s initiative to cover hemp-derived CBD and THC products through Medicare from launching on Wednesday.

The groups’ overall lawsuit challenging the policy is still under consideration, however, with a hearing on their separate motion for a preliminary injunction scheduled for April 20, which coincidentally is known as the unofficial cannabis cultural holiday 4/20.

Judge Trevor N. McFadden on Tuesday rejected the request from Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and nine other drug prevention groups to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the federal cannabis initiative, which is being facilitated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), from taking effect.

McFadden, in his one-page order, quoted case law holding that a temporary restraining order is an “extraordinary and drastic remedy” that can only be granted if a party makes a “clear showing that four factors, taken together, warrant relief: likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, a balance of the equities in its favor, and accord with the public interest.”

“Having considered the arguments in Plaintiffs’ motion and at a motions hearing, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have not met this high standard,” the judge wrote. “The motion for a temporary restraining order is thus denied. The Court will consider Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and motion to stay upon the completion of briefing.”

Defendants in the lawsuit—CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—now have until April 9 to file briefs responding to the prohibitionist groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs then have a reply brief due on April 13, a week ahead of the 4/20 hearing on the matter.

The lawsuit comes as CMS is set to start covering CBD and THC products under select federal health insurance programs as a Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive (BEI) beginning on Wednesday.

Under the BEI, patients enrolled in specific federal health insurance programs could have up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products covered each year. The CBD-focused plan will also allow a certain amount of THC in products, but the agency said that the rules are subject to change if federal hemp policy changes, as is currently expected under a law set to take effect later this year.

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You Are Paying for Retirees’ Lavish Lifestyles

As he celebrated the 50th anniversary of Social Security, then–Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D–Mass.) hailed the program’s epic accomplishments.

In the days before Social Security was born, O’Neill said, “Life for the elderly is filled with uncertainty, dependency, and horror. When you get old, you are without income, without hope.” The federal government’s payments to retirees, he continued, meant that Americans no longer had to live in “fear and dependency” in old age.

It was a tidy summary of the conventional wisdom surrounding America’s old-age entitlement state—which includes not just Social Security, but also Medicare and many other taxpayer-funded efforts to subsidize the supposedly nasty, brutish, and not-so-short lives of the over-65 crowd.

It is a narrative that deserves to be shoved off a cliff.

Today’s retirees, most of them from the baby boomer generation, are the wealthiest cohort of Americans. The median household headed by someone over age 65 is far wealthier than the average household headed by someone in their late 30s.

Despite that, roughly 22 cents of every dollar the federal government spent last year was funneled to retirees via Social Security. Medicare spending accounted for another 14 percent. Many of those dollars were extracted from younger, poorer Americans. (The rest were borrowed and added to the national debt.)

A retired couple today might possess a robust retirement account and own a million-dollar home, but the government still acts as if they live in the poverty-stricken hellscape that O’Neill described. And as the old have gotten wealthier, the taxpayer-funded benefits have only gotten more lavish.

Social Security provides inflation-proof monthly payments, keeping retirees ahead of the curve even as working-age Americans struggle to make ends meet. In many places, seniors are gifted special exemptions from taxes on homes and vehicles that aren’t available to younger Americans. Medicare, created to address seniors’ medical needs, now offers such taxpayer-funded perks as discounted golf course fees, ski resort lift tickets, even pet supplies and pickleball equipment.

In short: Today’s old-age entitlement system is not a last-resort guardrail against poverty and desolation. It is a sprawling, expensive lifestyle-subsidy program that steals from the poor to give to the rich—while also worsening the housing crisis and pushing the country toward a dangerous fiscal cliff.

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Children’s Health Defense Wins Settlement in Landmark Censorship Case

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a settlement in CHD’s landmark class action censorship lawsuit against key Biden administration officials accused of colluding with tech companies to censor social media content.

In a press release, the DOJ cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, Executive Order “acknowledging that ‘the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.’ 90 Fed. Reg. 8243 (Jan. 28, 2025).”

CHD, along with its then-Chairman Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sued the Biden administration in March 2023.

The lawsuit, Kennedy v. Biden, became CHD v. Trump after Trump became president of the U.S., and Kennedy, who first left CHD to run his own presidential campaign, was later named secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration.

The class action lawsuit against then-President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top administration officials and federal agencies alleged they “waged a systematic, concerted campaign” to compel the nation’s three largest social media companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.

Jed Rubenfeld, attorney for CHD, called the settlement a “tremendous win” against government censorship.

“We brought this case years ago to challenge the Biden administration’s assault on free speech,” Rubenfeld said. “Today, the government, under a new administration, acknowledged that assault. And via a previously issued Executive Order, the president prohibited government officials from pressuring social media companies in the future to trample on Americans’ First Amendment rights.”

As part of the settlement with CHD, the government agreed to pay attorneys’ fees.

The DOJ also settled a similar lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, and issued a consent decree in the case.

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Obama Judge Blocks Trump’s Executive Order Aimed at Ending Federal Funding For NPR, PBS

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Trump’s executive order aimed at ending federal funding for NPR and PBS.

US District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee lashed out at President Trump and said he targeted PBS and NPR for their viewpoints.

Last year, President Trump ended taxpayer subsidization of ‘biased media.

“National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the Trump White House previously announced.

“At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” the White House said.

“The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens,” the White House said.

“I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS,” Trump said.

On Tuesday, Judge Randolph Moss blocked President Trump’s executive order ending taxpayer subsidization to PBS and NPR.

“It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch,” Judge Moss wrote.

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Liberals Won’t Confront Fraud Because They Still Believe Government Is The Solution

At least the bombs are real.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has pulled out the hoariest of boomer liberal tropes, asking what the money spent on war could buy if redirected to welfare programs. Examples include “For less than three weeks of war, or $35 billion, we could run a nationwide pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds,” and “For $75 million, about an hour’s worth of war, we could provide three books free to every child in America who is living under the poverty line.” Ah yes, we could fund so many Minneapolis daycares and “Quality Learing” centers.

I don’t know how our campaign against the mullahs will turn out, but it has real bombs being dropped on real targets with people really dying. In contrast, the sorts of programs Kristof promotes as better recipients of taxpayer money tend to be more ephemeral in their results — and that’s assuming that the recipients even exist. To cite a few examples that even a New York Times columnist ought to have heard of, there is the Somali daycare piracy, the California wildlife bridge to nowhere, the California high-speed rail debacle, and the embarrassing spectacle of cities spending endlessly to end homelessness while not even reducing it.

Kristof and his ilk never seem outraged at these wasted and stolen billions. They might mildly tsk-tsk, but there is no visceral rage toward those who plunder billions that were supposedly for helping children. Yet if lefties really believe that government programs are the key to a wonderfully better society and world, shouldn’t they be furious at those running them into the ground or robbing them?

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