Tag: taxes

Johnson budget spends and taxes more

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2027 budget proposal includes a new package tax, a new tax on large employers and several tax increases.

Johnson introduced his $17.6 billion spending plan on Wednesday, up from $16.7 billion this year.

The mayor said his budget ensures that every Chicagoan receives their fair share of the city’s investments, services and opportunities.

“Funded by responsible spending cuts that protect essential services and by asking the wealthy and the largest corporations in this city to pay their fair share,” Johnson said.

The budget includes a 15-cent tax on non-medical and non-food containers and packages, plus a $25 per employee monthly tax on large businesses outside of socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.

The mayor’s office said the Equitable Employer Tax would bring in an estimated $113.8 million. The tax would fall on companies with 125 full-time employees or more. Johnson’s budget says that it impact 3% of the city’s registered businesses.

Last month, a group of 29 Chicago aldermen advised the mayor they would work on a budget that includes no head tax or tax on employers.

“If we can show the public that we’re being good fiscal stewards and looking at what the right size of government should be, creating technology efficiencies and then looking at revenue last, I think that’s a better narrative versus what this mayor is proposing,” Alderman Gilbert Villegas told The Center Square.

Aldermen rejected Johnson’s head tax proposal last year and passed an alternative budget, which the mayor allowed to take effect without his signature or veto.

Johnson’s new budget raises the Personal Property Lease Transaction tax from 15% to 20% and the sports wagering tax from 10.25% to 20%.

The PPLT tax hike is projected to raise an additional $234 million and the betting tax hike is expected to bring in an extra $37 million.

Illinois Hotel & Lodging CEO Michael Jacobson said Johnson’s proposed head tax, PPLT increase and liquor tax increase would add to rising cost burdens for hotels and businesses.

“City leaders must reject these proposals and pursue a budget that supports local businesses,” Jacobson said in a statement.

The spending plan calls for using $42.9 million in tax increment financing surplus and $37.7 million in catalyst fund revenue.

The mayor touted a $30.9 million subsidy to Chicago Public Libraries and prioritized funding for community violence intervention.

“We are making a historic $40.6 million investment in CVI, activating 390 street outreach workers and 800 peacekeepers,” Johnson said.

The mayor also called for the permanent establishment of the Department of Community Wellness and Safety.

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DISGUSTING! Minnesota Democrat Senate Candidate Peggy Flanagan and Gov. Tim Walz Funneled Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to ‘Booty Bumping’ Kits That Help Junkies Shove Heroin, Meth, and Ketamine Up Their Buttholes

While hardworking Minnesotans struggle with soaring costs, crime, and the aftermath of massive welfare fraud scandals under Democrat rule, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s administration, working hand-in-hand with Gov. Tim Walz, steered millions of your tax dollars to a “harm reduction” nonprofit that hands out free kits complete with lube and step-by-step instructions for drug users to “safely” ingest hard drugs through the rectum.

According to a bombshell report from the Washington Free Beacon, the Walz-Flanagan team highlighted grants to Minneapolis-based Southside Harm Reduction Services as part of a $100 million state program announced for “Minnesotans facing homelessness.”

Flanagan, now the Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate against Republican Michele Tafoya, touted the money with the usual progressive platitudes: “These grants will ensure that everyone can access the supports they need to find and secure safe, stable housing.”

What the fine print and the nonprofit’s own materials reveal is far more grotesque. Southside supplies free lube and other items specifically for “booty bumping” (also called “boofing”), allowing users to ingest heroin, methamphetamine, ketamine, and other drugs “through the rectum (anus, butthole).”

The group’s pamphlets instruct users: “Try to poop before. This is so your drugs are absorbed better. Stand, squat, or lay on your side in a comfortable position. It never hurts to have a boofing buddy!”

According to the Washington Free Beacon, state spending records show Minnesota has awarded $7.9 million in grants and contracts to Southside Harm Reduction Services since 2023.

That includes a $432,000 award in 2024 for “low-barrier access” to harm reduction supplies and a $2.5 million contract dated October 1, 2025, for 24/7 outdoor vending machines stocked with Narcan, “safer use” supplies, and hygiene items. The Free Beacon first flagged similar funding during Walz’s failed vice-presidential run.

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Why is Ottawa’s anti-racism fund paying $217,200 for an Atlantic ‘inclusive politics’ project?

Canadian Heritage’s anti-racism fund has committed $217,200 to the PEI Coalition for Women’s Leadership for a project called the Atlantic Alliance for Inclusive Politics, under an agreement listed as running from April 6, 2026 to March 30, 2028, according to the federal grants disclosure. The coalition’s interim executive director is Hannah Bell, who sat in the Prince Edward Island legislature as a Green Party member from 2017 to 2023 and ran for the provincial Green leadership in 2025, finishing with 147 votes.

The grant record describes the project only as “Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program – CAHAP – Projects”. A July 22, 2026 call for applicants on the coalition’s website says “The Atlantic Alliance for Inclusive Politics is a project to address rising hate, harassment, and the exclusion of marginalized people from political spaces in Atlantic Canada.” The only component advertised so far is a youth advisory council: “A minimum of three members per province”, “One year, with four group online meetings overall”, a “$250 honorarium” each, and “Themes discussed will include experiences and impacts of polarization, hate, and racism.” The page says “This project funded by the Government of Canada.” No Canadian Heritage news release announcing the grant could be found.

Rebel News listed the grant on October 16 among 78 anti-hate projects worth $11 million. The programme’s stated objectives are to “advance anti-racism, foster ethnocultural diversity and inclusion and promote intercultural and interfaith understanding” and to “provide equitable opportunities for equity-deserving populations”; its page does not mention political participation. Nothing on the record ties the project to any party.

The coalition, known until September 2024 as the PEI Coalition for Women in Government, has received federal money before: $246,557 from Status of Women Canada in 2015 for a project on women on provincial agencies and boards, and $360,000 announced by Women and Gender Equality Canada in February 2021 for capacity building and governance.

Marc Miller was Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, the minister for Canadian Heritage, when the agreement started, appointed by Prime Minister Mark Carney on December 1, 2025. The department’s organizational chart lists Annalisa Bonardi as Acting Director General, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism.

A group led by a former Green MLA gets $217,200 of anti-racism money for a project on politics whose only advertised piece is a youth council with four online meetings.

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What Is The Hope Florida Scandal and What Does It Say About Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: A History Of Treachery

When it comes to corruption in the State of Florida, there is no criminal more guilty than Governor Ron DeSantis, and his wife Casey DeSantis, who stole $10 Million from the poorest of Floridians.

The Hope Florida scandal that has enveloped the DeSantis’ throughout the last year has reached a new fevered pitch as CBS News Miami has leaked the entire grand jury presentment against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis.

The leaks reveal damning evidence that the grand jury found evidence of severe, and even potentially criminal conduct by the First Family as it pertains to the Centene settlement, in which their appointed officials illegally steered $10 Million into Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida charity.

Now the DeSantis’ are trying to cover up the information by suing those attempting to expose this information before the midterm elections.

We will examine the depth of the DeSantis’ treachery as it pertains to their theft of $10 Million later within the article, but first, let’s look at DeSantis’ own statements on the matter.

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Hochul Weighs Ending $500 Million Medicaid Adult Day Care Program After Fraud Raids

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has directed the state Department of Health to consider ending the state’s Medicaid social adult day care benefit.

The directive came on the same day that state and federal investigators carried out a crackdown on providers suspected of fraud, and on the same day that Hochul announced 16 arrests in a separate auto insurance fraud investigation.

Hochul, a Democrat, stated at an Oct. 20 press conference that she had told the department to look at “all options to eliminate continued fraud, waste and abuse.” Those options include phasing out the benefit and moving participants to other services for older New Yorkers. The department’s recommendations are due by Dec. 31.

Social adult day care is a non-medical benefit offered through New York’s Medicaid managed long-term care program.

It provides daytime supervision, meals, social activities, and personal care in a community setting. More than 400 programs serve about 45,000 Medicaid members at an estimated cost of more than $500 million a year, according to the governor’s office. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approves the benefit and helps fund it.

The announcement followed what the governor’s office called a months-long investigation targeting more than 100 providers. The state Department of Health, the state Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, and the state attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit worked with the FBI and the federal Health and Human Services inspector general.

FBI agents and state officials raided programs across New York City on Oct. 20. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz called the operation the largest enforcement action of its kind.

Hochul said she had gone to Washington to meet with Oz to discuss working together against Medicaid fraud, and that the investigation is targeting providers suspected of money laundering, kickbacks, and improper billing.

“We will find you, we will prosecute you, and we will hold you accountable,” Hochul said.

At the same press conference, Hochul announced that a joint investigation by the State Police and the Department of Financial Services had led to 16 arrests in auto insurance fraud cases.

The cases involved nearly $500,000 in attempted fraudulent claims in New York City and Suffolk, Onondaga, Monroe, and Erie counties. Hochul said New Yorkers pay about $4,000 a year for auto insurance, almost $1,500 more than the national average, and that she expects the arrests and insurance reforms in this year’s state budget to start lowering rates.

Reviewing Adult Day Care Claims

Regarding the crackdown on adult day care fraud, Hochul ordered the department and the state Medicaid inspector general to require health plans to review social adult day care claims before paying them and to pursue payment suspensions. A moratorium on new providers that the department imposed in July remains in effect until January 2027 and may be extended.

State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said the department will advise Hochul on whether further reforms can deliver accountability or whether participants would do better under other services.

“Medicaid is a lifeline for millions of New Yorkers,” Hochul said in a statement. “Protecting that lifeline means defending access to care and defending the integrity of the programs that provide it.”

The program has drawn scrutiny before. A February audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that managed care plans paid $2.4 billion for adult day care services from January 2019 through October 2024. Payments rose more than 141 percent from 2021 to 2023.

Auditors identified $285 million in questionable payments to centers for dates after at least one plan had dropped them from its network. That included more than $28.6 million to centers terminated for cause, such as fraud.

In one case, a center that one plan cut for fraud, waste, and abuse in 2021 stayed in the networks of 18 other plans and was paid more than $12.9 million afterward.

Auditors also found that a Flushing center with a legal capacity of 323 billed for 530 people on a single day in September 2022.

In its response to the audit, the Health Department said the comptroller’s sampling method could overstate how widespread the problems were. The comptroller’s office called that statement misleading.

Earlier this year, two people in Brooklyn pleaded guilty to a $68 million adult day care fraud scheme, according to the governor’s office.

Asked whether ending the benefit would require federal approval and what services the participants would move to, the state Health Department referred The Epoch Times to the governor’s announcement.

Hochul faces Republican Bruce Blakeman in the Nov. 3 governor’s race.

Blakeman’s campaign and CMS did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times before publication.

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Supreme Court Denies Trump Emergency Appeal to Restrict Transgender Surgeries for Inmates – Thomas, Alito Dissent

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday, in an unsigned order, denied the Trump Administration’s emergency appeal to restrict transgender surgeries for prison inmates.

Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

NBC News reported:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the Trump administration cannot enforce a new policy that restricts treatment for transgender inmates in federal prison.

The justices in a brief order rejected an emergency application filed by the administration that sought to block a lower court injunction against the proposal. There are about 1,000 transgender inmates in federal custody.

The policy is part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to roll back moves to expand transgender rights. It was announced in line with his January 2025 executive order telling federal agencies not to acknowledge the concept of gender identity outside of the “immutable biological classification” of male or female.

The court order included no explanation, saying only that two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, would have granted it.

In several different announcements, the Bureau of Prisons over the last 18 months has said it will not provide gender transition surgery, hormone treatments or “social accommodations” such as wigs, padding or makeup.

In January 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at protecting women and banning taxpayer money from funding transgender surgeries.

“Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology,” the executive order said.

“The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” the order said.

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Vance fraud task force uncovers $42M in food stamp thefts — including lewd rapper who literally set cash on fire

A Trump administration fraud task force has uncovered nearly $42 million in food stamp funds meant for needy families that were instead stolen to support criminal activities as well as the lavish lifestyle of a rapper with multiple arrests — including for repeatedly exposing himself to pee off his apartment balcony.

Vice President JD Vance and members of the Departments of Justice and Agriculture held a press conference in Cincinnati Wednesday highlighting the cases involving more than 40 defendants operating schemes that bilked the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and related programs.

“Two-hundred twenty thousand Americans could’ve eaten for the entire month of October if it were not for this $42 million in fraud,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said. “We’ve indicted men and women in 13 different districts just in the past seven weeks, and that effort will continue for as long as it takes.”

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A Majority of California Wildfire Relief Funding Went to Low Income Housing Without Requiring Them to House a Single Victim

Here is the latest edition of Democrats being Democrats.

California Democrats spent over half of the a billion dollars the US government allocated to wildfire relief funding on low-income housing in the state without requiring the developers to house a single fire victim.

Of course, this does not surprise anyone.

The funding took place in 2019 when Gavin Newsome was

The New York Post reported via Victory Girls Blog.

California funneled nearly $369 million in federal aid intended for victims of its deadliest wildfire year to low-income housing developers — without requiring them to house a single wildfire survivor, a California Post investigation found.

The staggering sum was awarded to developers while thousands of Californians struggled to rebuild their lives after the devastating 2018 fires, which killed 103 people and damaged or destroyed more than 24,000 structures.

Victory Girls continue:

Eventually, over a billion dollars was given to California from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The $1,017,399,000 allocation from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was intended to cover recovery costs not paid by insurance or other assistance.

California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) oversees the money, dividing it between helping homeowners rebuild and financing affordable rental housing in fire-ravaged communities.

Of the $222.4 million earmarked for homeowners, just $38 million had been spent rebuilding 110 homes by the end of 2023, according to state records. The Camp Fire alone destroyed 14,000 homes.

An NBC4 investigation found that only a portion of the $2.5 billion announced after the 2025 fires has been spent. Much of the money has been routed through state agencies.

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Oz Says Minnesota Fraudsters Bribed Moms $1,500 to Fake Autism Diagnoses

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said fraudsters in Minnesota bribed mothers roughly $1,500 per child to falsely claim their children were autistic, saddling the children with diagnoses they did not have.

Oz made the remarks at an appearance alongside President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, crediting the administration’s anti-fraud task force and independent reporting for exposing the scheme.

The CMS administrator framed the abuse as a theft of more than money.

“Fraud doesn’t just steal our money. Fraud steals people’s lives and it also steals our trust as a nation, and that is devastating to any country,” Oz said.

He said the scheme carried two victims. A child wrongly labeled autistic carries that record going forward, Oz said, while mothers of children who actually need the services are left unable to afford care.

Oz said that after reviewing the reporting, CMS examined providers operating in Minnesota’s 14 programs flagged as high-risk for fraud and found roughly a third could not be validated.

“One in three shouldn’t have been doing that job,” Oz said. The agency is pursuing dozens of cases, including criminal investigations, and has deferred about half a billion dollars in payments to the state, he added.

The administrator credited independent journalist Nick Shirley, whose video of Minneapolis daycare and autism centers that appeared vacant drew federal attention. Shirley told CNN he uncovered around $100 million in fraud in a single day.

Minnesota’s autism program grew from about $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in recent years, according to figures Oz has cited publicly. Prosecutor Joe Thompson has said the state’s 14 high-risk programs cost $18 billion since 2018 and that more than half of that amount may be fraudulent.

Trump appointed Vance to lead a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which held its first meeting at the White House earlier this year and drew in Cabinet secretaries along with Justice Department and Treasury officials. Oz in December gave Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) a 60-day ultimatum to restore the program’s integrity or lose funding.

Walz has called the federal effort a “campaign of retribution,” accusing the administration of “weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.”

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Trump Puts Bounty on Government Fraud With New Whistleblower Reward Program

Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump announced a new initiative aimed at rooting out fraud in federal government programs — and Americans who help uncover it could receive a financial reward.

During an Oval Office event alongside Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials, Trump unveiled the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, which will allow Americans to report suspected corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities.

Under the program, whistleblowers may receive a commission of 1 percent of the fraud uncovered, according to the announcement. The administration also announced a $25 million fund for the initiative, with individual rewards advertised at up to $30,000.

The administration is directing Americans to America.gov/fraud, where they can submit reports of suspected fraud involving government programs.

Trump pointed to several examples of fraud and improper payments that his administration says it has identified, including 160,000 deceased individuals removed from food stamp rolls, 275,000 illegal aliens removed from Social Security, and 562,000 fraudulent small-business loans discovered.

He also cited the elimination of $125 billion in Obamacare subsidies for foreign migrants and the termination of funding to hundreds of allegedly fraudulent hospice facilities that he said had received $1.4 billion.

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