Tag: taxes

NYC to Open Nation’s First Trans-Only Homeless Shelter — Will Cost Taxpayers $65 Million

The city of New York is opening the nation’s first transgender-only homeless shelter.

The shelter, a partnership between a local LGBTQ nonprofit and the city government, will cost the city an extraordinary $65 million and will be the first transgender homeless shelter in the nation.

Further details were outlined in a joint press release:

There will also be a full-time psychiatric nurse practitioner onsite who will work closely with the social workers and other credentialed staff to provide comprehensive mental health support.

On-site clinical staff will provide health education through coaching and counseling with the end goal of improved health outcomes and increasing clients’ self-sufficiency.

This model will offer specialized services to address depression, anxiety, and other challenges our residents may experience.

Destination Tomorrow will also employ holistic approaches to health and mental wellness with programs offering yoga and meditation.

In addition, Destination Tomorrow is developing a work study program for culinary arts, this will provide hands-on experience and internship opportunities for residents seeking careers in hospitality and food service.

DSS and Destination Tomorrow will work closely with key community stakeholders to identify collaborative ways to better serve and support New York City’s thriving LGBTQ+ community.

“ We’ve watched so many other corporations and foundations and businesses just like completely turn their back on the community and the city didn’t do it,” said Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of Destination Tomorrow, the nonprofit that will manage the shelter for the city.

“The city is keeping in line with what New York City has always been, a sanctuary city, a safe haven, but more importantly, a trendsetter when it comes to LGBTQ rights.”

City officials are openly championing the initiative, with Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park declaring they “could not be prouder” of the announcement.

“Ace’s Place will offer Transgender New Yorkers a safe place to heal and stabilize in trauma-informed settings with the support of staff who are deeply invested in their growth and wellbeing,” she added.

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For B-21, Quantity Is Its Most Critical Quality Top Bomber Officer Says

For all the new capabilities the B-21 Raider will bring as an individual aircraft, the U.S. Air Force’s top bomber officer says he is most excited about the sheer numbers of those aircraft that are set to enter service in the coming years. The Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities underscored how vital existing B-2 stealth bombers are to U.S. national security, but also the inherent limitations imposed by how few of them were ever built.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Jason Armagost touched on the B-21 and related topics during an online talk that the Air & Space Forces Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies hosted today. Armagost is the commander of the Eighth Air Force, to which the Air Force’s current B-2, B-1, and B-52 bombers are all assigned, as well as the officer in charge of the Joint-Global Strike Operations Center (J-GSOC) at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

At present, the Air Force plans to acquire at least 100 B-21s, but senior U.S. military officials have been increasingly advocating for a fleet of 145 of the bombers. A single pre-production Raider is now in flight testing, with a second expected to join it soon. At least four other B-21s are in various stages of production, and a number of non-flying airframes are being used to support ongoing test work. The Raider is expected to eventually replace the Air Force’s current fleet of 19 B-2 bombers, as well as its more than 40 remaining B-1s.

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North Carolina DMV Hits All DEI Targets, Misses Road Safety Goals

North Carolina’s Division of Motor Vehicles achieved 100 percent of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) benchmarks in 2024 but failed to meet several core performance goals related to safety, infrastructure, and fiscal responsibility, according to the Department of Transportation’s most recent annual report.

The report from the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) reveals that the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) reached its DEI target for 2024 while falling short on several other key performance metrics, including road safety, infrastructure maintenance, and fiscal management.

According to the 2024 Annual Performance Report (page 65), the DMV fulfilled its DEI goal entirely. However, it did not achieve full success in four other categories:

  • “Maintain fiscal responsibility”
  • “Make transportation safer”
  • “Improve the reliability and connectivity of the transportation system”
  • “Deliver and maintain our infrastructure efficiently and effectively”

The report comes as former Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who appointed DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin in 2022, has launched a campaign for U.S. Senate in the 2026 race.

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Waste of the Day: No Effort to Claw Back Improper Covid Grants

Topline: The Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators grant program made $544 million of improper payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the SBA has not even tried to recover most of the funds, a new audit from the agency’s inspector general found.

Key facts: The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program gave $16.3 billion in grants to movie theaters, concert halls and other performance venues that had to close during the pandemic.

The SBA realized in 2024 that $544 million was paid to 579 businesses that may have been ineligible for the grants or did not fill out their paperwork properly. Federal law requires agencies to “promptly” send demand letters asking businesses to return the improper payments, but the SBA has only sent one demand letter.

SBA officials wrote a policy for sending demand letters in August 2023, but the policy had still not been approved as of November 2024. Some officials wanted the SBA’s Office of Hearing and Appeals to mediate disputes over improper payments, but the Office claims it does not have the authority to do so.

No demand letters can be mailed until the SBA figures out its policy. The longer it takes, “there is an increased risk that the government will not be able to collect improperly paid funds. The ability of an agency to collect delinquent debts generally decreases as debts get older,” according to the inspector general.

There were 220 grant recipients who voluntarily returned a total of $44 million without a demand letter.

The federal government lost $161.5 billion to improper payments in 2024.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

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Bipartisan bill would require IRS to notify taxpayer if seeking private financial info

Taxpayers will have more control over how the Internal Revenue Service acquires their personal information if a newly-introduced bill becomes law.

The bipartisan Taxpayer Notification and Privacy Act, brought forward Thursday by Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., would require the IRS to inform taxpayers of the exact tax information it plans to seek from third parties, such as employers or banks, at least 45 days before doing so.

During that time period, taxpayers would have the option to provide the IRS directly with their personal financial information (used to calculate whether a person owes taxes) rather than have third parties – such as their bank or employer – do so.

According to Warnock and Barrasso, the bill is meant to protect taxpayer privacy and reputation and increase IRS transparency.

“[T]axpayers shouldn’t have to worry about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) soliciting personal financial information behind their backs. They deserve to have the option to provide this sensitive information to the IRS directly,” Barrasso said.

“By providing that opportunity, our bipartisan bill will safeguard the reputation of taxpayers and small business owners across the country. It will also force the IRS to be as transparent as possible when it comes to the privacy of hardworking Americans,” he added.

Currently, if the IRS contacts third parties for tax information, it needs to notify the taxpayer that it is doing so, but it does not need to reveal which information it is seeking or from which entities. If passed, the bill would change that within 12 months of its being enacted.

The bill does include an exception, however. If the IRS determined that the information sought from a third party “is necessary notwithstanding whether the taxpayer could independently provide such information,” the IRS would not be subject to the extra reporting requirements stipulated by the bill.

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How To Make America Great Again

Donald Trump and his supporters were certain that by restoring him to the presidency, they could make America great again. They are going to be as sorely disappointed at the end of Trump’s term in office as they were after his first term in office. Trump will not make America great again.

The problem, however, is not Donald Trump. The fact is that no one can make America great again — at least not if America maintains the same political and economic systems that have characterized our nation for almost 100 years. It is those systems that constitute an insurmountable obstacle to making America great again, no matter who is elected president.

Unfortunately, however, conservative Americans are not ready to accept that. They are convinced that by electing Trump and then vesting him with unchecked, omnipotent power, he will be the “man on the white horse” who will make America great again.

It won’t happen. At the end of this road to national “greatness” lies an increasingly weakened, dysfunctional society — one in which liberty and privacy have been destroyed — one in which the American people will be existing as subservient, dependent, and fearful serfs whose purpose in life is simply to serve the state and the greater good of society.

There is one — and only one — way for America to be great again. That way is to restore the sound, founding principles of liberty of our nation and then build on them.

Obviously, this entails deep soul-searching of how we started as a nation and how we ended up where we are today. It also requires Americans to think at a higher level — one that involves principles and ideals. Let’s examine what needs to be done to restore greatness to our land.

The national-security state

America’s founding political system was a limited-government republic, one that was characterized by three separate and independent branches, with a very small military force falling under the control of the executive branch. The Constitution, which called the federal government into existence, prohibited the government from killing people without “due process of law,” a term that encompasses notice of charges and a hearing or trial where the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused has committed some crime. The Bill of Rights guaranteed that the accused had the right to trial by a jury composed at random from regular citizens in the community. The Bill of Rights also prohibited the imposition of cruel and unusual punishments.

All that changed in the late 1940s, when the federal government was converted into what is called a national-security state. It effectively involved a fourth branch of government consisting of the Pentagon, a vast and powerful military establishment, an empire of domestic and foreign military bases, the CIA, the NSA, and, to a certain extent, the FBI.

Although this conversion took place without a constitutional amendment, it constituted the most radical change in America’s political system in the history of the country. Over time, the national-security branch became the most powerful branch — the branch to which the other three branches defer, especially in foreign affairs.

Moreover, the constitutional limitations on the power of the federal government disintegrated with the conversion to a national-security state. The Pentagon and the CIA now wielded the power to engage in state-sponsored assassinations, thereby nullifying the constitutional prohibition against killing people without due process of law. They also wielded the power to inflict cruel and unusual punishments on people, including torture. They also now had the power to keep people incarcerated for as long as they wanted, ignoring the constitutional prohibition against indefinite incarceration without trial. They also wielded the power to engage in mass secret surveillance, especially through the NSA. Moreover, once U.S. officials launched their “war on terrorism” after the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon and the CIA wielded the power to nullify the right of trial by jury and employ trial by military tribunal instead.

It is worth mentioning that all of these omnipotent, dark-side powers apply not just to foreigners but also to American citizens. The fact is that Americans now live under a national-security state system in which their very own government wields the power to assassinate, torture, surveil, and indefinitely detain them. What makes the whole thing so perverse is that Americans have been indoctrinated into believing that all this tyranny is “freedom.”

It’s also worth mentioning that the conversion to a national-security state was accompanied by a foreign policy of foreign wars and interventions, as well as an empire of foreign military bases, which have been used to inflict massive death and destruction on people in foreign lands.

There is one solution to all this: Dismantle the national-security state and restore America’s founding system of a limited-government republic, with just a relatively small, basic military force — one that lacks the capability to engage in foreign wars, interventions, coups, and wars of aggression.

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Ernst Presses DOT to Reclaim $14 Billion from Overbudget Rail Projects After Audit

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced a new push to rescind or redirect $14 billion in federal transportation funding from what she calls “boondoggle” rail projects that are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, according to a letter sent this week to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.

In the letter, Ernst commended Secretary Duffy for releasing a long-delayed audit of California’s high-speed rail project and for canceling $4 billion in federal funding for the effort. The Department of Transportation’s 315-page report, required by a provision Ernst authored in the bipartisan infrastructure law (Section 11319 of Public Law 117-58), outlined what Ernst called a “trail of project delays, mismanagement, waste, and skyrocketing costs.”

DOT found that the California high-speed rail project failed to meet the terms of its federal grant awards, citing missed deadlines, budget shortfalls, and exaggerated ridership projections. The project, originally pitched to voters in 2008 as a $33 billion rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2020, has since ballooned to $128 billion with no high-speed tracks laid.

Ernst praised DOT’s review as setting “a new gold standard in accountability” and urged Secretary Duffy to apply similar scrutiny to other federally funded projects identified under her boondoggle law. She listed four projects currently receiving a combined $4.5 billion from taxpayers: Honolulu Rail Transit in Hawaii at $1,941,400,000; the Purple Line Transit in Maryland at $1,006,000,000; the Transbay Corridor Core Capacity project in California at $1,335,730,000; and the Queens Railroad Project in New York at $294,781,579.

The letter also highlighted three additional projects that Ernst said were omitted from the official audit despite being over budget and behind schedule. These include the Subway Extension to Silicon Valley, California, receiving over $5 billion; the San Francisco Transit Center at $3.38 billion; and the Minneapolis Light Rail project in Minnesota at roughly $939 million. According to Ernst, the Department of Transportation has committed $9.4 billion to these three projects alone.

“If these can’t be salvaged with better management, they too should be canceled,” Ernst wrote. She suggested that the total $14 billion could be redirected to higher-priority infrastructure needs or used to help pay down the national debt, which she noted has surpassed $37 trillion.

Although the audit of California’s high-speed rail project was over 300 pages long, Ernst noted that the DOT’s summary of the other 14 projects required by her provision was condensed into a one-page chart. She called for greater detail in future “boondoggle reports,” including information on budget overruns, schedule delays, and additional DOD-supported transportation efforts.

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Rutherford Institute Warns of Growing Threats to Religious Freedom, Challenges Ruling Denying Equal Treatment to Faith-Based Study Center

The Rutherford Institute is once again warning that if the government is allowed to deny freedom to one segment of the citizenry, it will eventually extend that tyranny to all citizens.

The Institute’s warning comes in response to a trial court’s decision in Christian Scholars Network, Inc. v. Montgomery County and Town of Blacksburg to deny equal treatment to a faith-based campus study center—despite providing tax-exempt status to other religious and charitable organizations offering similar services. At issue is whether the Christian Scholars Network (CSN)—a nonprofit religious organization that holds Bible studies, worship services, prayer meetings, and faith-based community events at its Bradley Study Center—is entitled to the same tax-exempt treatment granted to other religious groups. The case raises critical constitutional questions about religious liberty, government neutrality, and equal protection for nontraditional faith practices under the First Amendment and the Virginia Constitution.

“The First Amendment forbids the government from picking and choosing which religious groups are ‘worthy’ of constitutional protection,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Whether it’s a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a campus study center, the principle is the same: all faiths must be treated equally under the law. When the government starts elevating one form of religious practice over another, it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens freedom of belief for everyone.”

The Rutherford Institute’s lawsuit on behalf of Christian Scholars Network (CSN) comes amid growing concerns about governmental attempts to define religion narrowly, often to the detriment of minority or nontraditional faith communities. In 2019, CSN, a nonprofit ministry exempt from federal income tax by the IRS under section 501(c)(3), opened the Bradley Study Center near the Virginia Tech campus to cultivate a thoughtful exploration of the Christian faith and how one’s faith connects to their studies, work, and life. CSN uses the Study Center property for worship services, prayer meetings, Bible and theological book studies, and a Fellows Program for Virginia Tech students to meet weekly for religious discussions and fellowship. Despite fulfilling a comparable mission as other religious organizations, CSN was denied a property tax exemption on the grounds that its activities allegedly did not constitute “worship” and that it is not a “religious association” under Virginia law.

In coming to CSN’s defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute argue that the government’s refusal to recognize CSN’s religious character violates the Establishment Clause, fosters religious discrimination, and imposes a narrow, outdated definition of worship that excludes faith communities outside traditional, hierarchical structures. Institute attorneys also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin, which affirms the right of faith-based organizations to operate free from government discrimination based on the structure or style of their worship and ministry. After the trial court refused to grant CSN an exemption, ruling that CSN must be like a traditional church to receive the tax exemption, attorneys with The Rutherford Institute appealed to the Virginia Court of Appeals.

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Trump signs EO enhancing oversight and eliminating wasteful Govt spending: ‘Every tax dollar should improve American lives’

President Trump has signed a new executive order (EO) requiring political appointees to oversee federal grant approvals, called the “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.”

The EO, signed on Thursday, targets increased scrutiny on federal grants, especially those previously awarded for research and administrative costs deemed controversial. This falls within a broader effort by the Trump administration to align federal spending with the “America First” agenda.

“Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests,” the EO reads in Section 1. “This often does not happen.”

The order went on to criticize the allocation of federal funds toward initiatives that promote “absurd ideologies,” citing projects ranging from “drag shows in Ecuador” to “transgender-sexual-education-programs.”

The EO also emphasizes the serious risks linked to wasteful spending, blaming the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for previously directing taxpayer funds to the “unsafe lab in Wuhan, China — likely the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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New Study Raises Concerns Over Universal Basic Income Plans

In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore how the American republic can survive in the 21st Century given unprecedented economic, technological, and political changes.

The book addresses the increasing calls for a universal basic income (UBI). Various Democratic cities are already implementing UBI systems.

Now, a new study finds (as did some prior studies) that UBI systems have not achieved significant improvements and may actually have some negative consequences for recipients.

A working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that UBI recipients did indeed spend more money, including a 13 percent increase on child-related expenses. There was also a slight increase in parental supervision of children.

However, there was no improved school performance and a slight increase in reported developmental and stress-related problems with children.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab is tracking more than 160 UBI projects in the U.S..

So far, the results are at best mixed.

One study in Compton showed that many recipients of the $500 monthly payment quit working part-time jobs.

Likewise, reports indicate that “a $400 monthly payment in Chelsea, Massachusetts, increased food spending and did not measurably reduce work, but it failed to produce results for the research team’s “primary downstream outcomes”—namely self-reported health and child school attendance.”

This follows earlier reports about the OpenResearch Unconditional Income Study (ORUS), an experiment in which lower-income Americans were given $1,000 a month for three years.

The result was a reduction in work and an increase in leisure activities.

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