Free Republic

It finally happened. After 22 years in Los Angeles -- 13 on its West Side -- I threw half my life into boxes, the other half into dumpsters, and returned to my native Arizona. It wasn't a decision I had been pondering for very long. After the first of the year I began to kick the idea around rather casually, then a few things fell into place quite unexpectedly and, by the middle of January, getting out seemed like the only logical thing to do.Emotionally, it was a different story. I love California. More specifically, I love Los Angeles. There...

You've seen the news reports. Sadly, so many on the right share them with glee. Yes, there are many people leaving blue states because of the high taxes, failing schools, tolerance (if not enabling) of illegal aliens, high crime, etc. The problem is too many believe liberals are not only fleeing for the same reasons, but have finally seen the errors of their ways and are now going to participate in Republican politics and vote accordingly. Big WRONG.

Maryland will sue the Trump administration for capping state and local tax (SALT) deductions in its new federal tax law, the state’s attorney general said Thursday. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by President Trump last year contains a provision capping SALT deductions at $10,000, and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said residents across the heavily-taxed state stand to take a hit as a result. “By eliminating the SALT deductions, Trump’s tax bill will jack up taxes for more than half a million Marylanders,” Mr. Frosh, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing his intent to sue the Trump...

In a daily feature it calls “California Today,” the New York Times expresses concern over the impact of stock market declines on California’s wealthy. It is not out of concern that risk-takers will be disincentivized from making future investments, however. Matt Stevens and Julie Turkewitz write: California has one of the highest top tax brackets in the country, and the state relies heavily on those top earners to fill its coffers. (In 2014, the top 1 percent of earners paid 48 percent of all state income taxes in California, according to a 2016 article in the Economist.) “Since the top...

Gov. Phil Scott has signed Vermont's marijuana legalization bill into law. A Scott administration official tells WCAX the governor signed the bill shortly before 2 p.m. Monday. Scott is now the first governor in the country to sign marijuana legalization into law. Eight other states legalized marijuana through public referendums. In a letter to lawmakers, Scott said he signed the bill, H.511, with "mixed emotions." The bill allows Vermonters over the age of 21 to have an ounce of weed and to grow a few plants. Once signed, the new law goes into effect July 1.

Lawmakers from California have proposed a bill that would compel companies making more than $1 million to turn over half their tax-cut savings to the state in order to fund programs that support low-income and middle-class families. Assembly members Kevin McCarthy, D-Sacramento, and Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, have proposed an Assembly Constitutional Amendment that would enact a tax surcharge on California companies, in order to help people who have been negatively affected by the GOP’s tax overhaul, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. -snip “Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase,” Ting said in a statement. “It...

The Republican-backed federal tax bill flipped the tables on a never-ending question for California politicians: Will high taxes lead the state’s wealthiest residents to flee the Golden State for the comparable tax havens of Florida, Nevada and Texas? Republicans reliably raise that alarm when Democrats advocate for tax increases, like the 2012 and 2016 ballot initiatives that levied a new income tax on very high-earning residents. But now, with the federal tax bill cutting off deductions that benefited well-off Californians, the state’s Democrats suddenly are singing the GOP song about a potential millionaire exodus. “People with higher incomes pay a...

This just in from what was once the best state in the Union: Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That’s according to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income. Given robust job growth and the prosperity generated by several industries, it’s worth asking why California has fallen behind, especially when the state’s per-capita GDP increased...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)– Congress has until midnight Friday, to strike a deal on a host of issues before government funding is set to run out. At the heart of it, nearly 800,000 undocumented young immigrants. That’s why dozens of Connecticut Dreamers are on their way to the nation’s capitol Tuesday morning. They’re message to Congress is to pass the Dream Act. Republicans and Democrats both want to lift spending caps, which limit the amount of money the government can spend without adding to the deficit. Democrats say in order for them to support the republicans’ spending plan, they must include...

Democrats in high-tax blue states are already plotting ways to avoid the new tax law, hoping to seize on gimmicks that will allow their residents to cut their federal tax burden without costing the states themselves any money. The Democrats are trying to get around a new $10,000 cap on how much of their state and local taxes residents can write off on their federal forms. High-tax states fear their residents will quickly top the $10,000 limit, leaving them grumbling over their higher tax bills. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has suggested switching some of his state’s tax collections from...

My man Kevin D. Williamson is worried that the Republican Party has nothing to say to blue states like California and New York and that the party feels pretty good about it.  But such an approach leads to disaster, he says: Writing off half of the country as a lost cause is bad for the Republican soul.  It also will prove bad for Republican electoral prospects, in time. Well, yes.  On a tactical level, it is important to have something to say to the blue cities and not to write them off as Deplorables.  But that is to miss the wood for the trees. The...

January is traditionally the time to put the past behind us, turn over a new leaf, and make plans for what’s to come. Many indicators show the country’s economy has been pumping on all cylinders this past year. Stocks are at record highs and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in 17 years. Many would agree that the economy is moving in the right direction, which is excellent news. Unfortunately, this optimistic news is somewhat undercut by worsening financial trajectories at the state government level from coast to coast. The nation is not in as good a shape...

SHELBURNE, Vt. (AP) — Police say a man in Vermont has used a machete to attack a woman in her 70s as she delivered meals to a motel being used as emergency housing for the homeless. WCAX-TV reports 32-year-old Burlington resident Abukar Ibrahim is accused of attacking the 73-year-old Meals on Wheels volunteer who was dropping off meals at Harbor Place, which serves as a temporary emergency housing facility. The attack happened Friday in Shelburne.

The Republican tax overhaul may not do a great deal to boost overall economic growth — but it’s already having one stimulus effect. Call it the Full Employment Act for Tax Pundits.Ever since the contours of the plan made clear that residents of high-tax states would take the biggest hits, a cottage industry devoted to strategizing blue-state tax work-arounds has emerged. As a reminder, Americans for generations have been able to deduct the amounts paid for state and local income tax, as well as property tax, from their federally taxable income. But the new law caps that amount at $10,000,...

The cold wasn’t the only thing that hammered the Northeast in the final fortnight of 2017 — and we can thank our extreme political polarization for the traumas New Yorkers and New Jerseyans are about to suffer. On the last night of the year, the Trump administration informed New York and New Jersey that there was no longer a deal with the federal government to help fund the desperately needed new rail tunnel between the two states — a $13 billion hit. Before that came the signing of the tax bill, whose limitations on the mortgage-interest and state- and local-tax...

Homeowners are lining up in droves at local tax collection offices, hoping for one last chance to take advantage of a major tax deduction before it is wiped out in the new year. In Hempstead, town Tax Receiver Donald Clavin said "thousands" of people packed his office Tuesday trying to pay their 2018 property and school taxes a year in advance. "This is almost chaotic," Oyster Bay Tax Receiver James Stefanich told Newsday . He said homeowners began lining up in the cold an hour before his office opened.

The Democratic Governors Association, in an attempt to attack Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) tweeted this week about how 33,000 people left Illinois for another state over the past year, continuing years of outmigration from the Land of Lincoln. What they won’t be touting is the fact that during the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn (D), Rauner’s predecessor, 247,410 people on net left Illinois for the likes of North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Arizona, and other states that are better stewards of taxpayers dollars. Those 247,410 people, according to IRS migration data, took $13.7 billion with them to states that that...

Connecticut continues to be dogged by messy finances. The budget legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy adopted in late October for fiscal year 2017-18 is in deficit. Gov. Malloy’s Office of Policy and Management estimated a $202.8 million hole Nov. 20, while state Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo concluded Dec. 1 that the hole is $207.8 million. Before these forecasts were issued, the state was expected to contend with a $4 billion deficit in the 2019-21 biennium. ... “between 2015 and 2016, Connecticut saw a net loss of 2,050 tax filers who earn more than $200,000 per year.” This amounted to...

The GOP tax reform bill known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” came one important step closer to becoming law on Tuesday when the bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 227 to 203. No Democrats voted for the bill, of course. The party of big, centralized government isn’t for anyone keep more of their own money, other than perhaps illegal aliens and welfare recipients, and will never vote to cut anybody’s taxes. But not all Republicans voted for the bill either. Here are the 12 Republicans — all from high tax states — who joined...

R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island is now just 157 residents away from losing one of its two seats in the U.S. House, which would give the state a single vote there for the first time since George Washington was president, according to an analysis of newly released population data. Kimball Brace, the reapportionment expert who has been involved in drawing legislative and congressional districts in Rhode Island since the early 1980s, ran the numbers Wednesday after the U.S. Census Bureau announced Rhode Island had added about 2,000 residents between July 2016 and July 2017.