Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Did you see the story about Costco borrowing $3.5 billion to pay a special $7 a share dividend to its stockholders before year's end to avoid being hit by President Obama's higher tax on investors? What makes this story especially juicy is that it reveals how Obama's fat cat supporters, who bankrolled his bid for a second term and embraced his proposed tax increases, have taken steps to shield themselves from the president's "tax the rich" fiscal folly. The tax avoidance maneuver, which Forbes magazine calls "a six-year advance on the company's current annual dividend of $1.10 per...

Just when you thought yesterday’s dismal jobs numbers couldn’t get any worse -- they did. According to CNSNews.com, nearly seventy-five percent of all civilian jobs created since the beginning of last summer are in the public sector: Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments. By November, according to data...

President Obama often boils down the issues around his plan to raise income taxes by saying it's all about the "math," a subject he doesn't seem to know much about. No doubt the White House would argue the point, but the uncomfortable fact remains that after four years in office, the unemployment rate remains painfully high and economic growth is slowing down. Clearly, the president's math isn't working well, and neither are 23 million Americans who want full-time jobs. But even a cursory analysis of the mathematical issues at the center of the battle over the "fiscal cliff" raises some...

According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 73 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents -- and even 39 percent of Republicans -- now favor raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year. So give the people want they want. As it is, the GOP is engaged in an unwinnable scrum with Barack Obama, a man chasing the gold-plated Holy Grail of hiking top marginal tax rates on the rich and small businesses -- bringing in, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a few days' worth of revenue. Concede the Bush-era tax rate (though you wonder...

One bright spot of Barack Obama's re-election was knowing that unemployment rates were about to soar for the precise groups that voted for him -- young people, unskilled workers and single women with degrees in gender studies. But now the Democrats are sullying my silver lining by forcing Republicans to block an utterly pointless tax-raising scheme in order to blame the coming economic Armageddon on them. Democrats are proposing to reinstate the Bush tax cuts for everyone ... except "the rich." (Why do only tax cuts come with an expiration date? Why not tax increases? Why not Obamacare? How about...

Full time work is about to get scarcer. The reason? By hiring part-time workers who put in less than 30 hours per week, employers can avoid a mandate dictated by the new health reform law: either provide expensive health insurance or pay a fine equal to $2,000 per worker. Avoiding the mandate becomes even more attractive for low-wage employees, since they can get highly subsidized insurance in the newly created health insurance exchanges. According to the Wall Street Journal: • Darden Restaurants [parent of Red Lobster and Olive Garden] was among the first companies to say it was changing hiring...

WASHINGTON - If you thought the presidential election would lead to an early break in the fiscal gridlock that now divides our government, think again. President Obama's post-election press conference on Wednesday signaled he is digging in for a lengthy political battle to raise tax rates amid new evidence the economy is still very weak and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future if not throughout his second term. If anything, he's taking a tougher tone with Republicans in Congress as he prepares for negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders on Friday. Despite...

This coming presidential election will determine whether the U.S. ends up in another Great Depression or pulls out of the economic slump. There are numerous signs indicating that the country is headed for economic Armageddon under Obama. Some analysts are predicting the crash could come as soon as next year. Obama is following the failed policies of President Herbert Hoover which led to the Great Depression. Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh says the U.S. is on an unsustainable course; there isn't enough money from taxes to pay everyone lifetime healthcare, lifetime pensions, and hefty incomes. The federal government now spends...

In less than two weeks, Americans will either elect a new President, or give Barack Obama four more years to continue carrying out his "transformation" of America. Given their utter failure to get our economy moving again, it's not surprising the Left is trying so hard to keep the public's attention off their performance and on extraneous matters like the supposed "war on women" or the "war on Big Bird." And of course, their populist class warfare language has become their Alamo -- the last line of defense. Our focus must relentlessly remain on the economy and how the big...

20) I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years. We just can’t afford four more years like the last four years. -- Mitt Romney 19) We don’t have to settle for what we’re going through. We don’t have to settle for gasoline at four bucks. We don’t have to settle for unemployment at a chronically high level. We don’t have to settle for 47 million people on food stamps. We don’t have to settle for 50 percent of...

After seeing the first two debates and awaiting the final one tonight, never has the choice for the American voter been clearer--the contrast is highlighted in bold colors. The future of America is in your hands. Here are ten reasons to cast your vote for Romney/Ryan and to elect a Republican team to support them: 1. Romney is a turnaround specialist and his decisive leadership skills are needed now more than ever. His administration will cut costs intelligently by asking: Is this expenditure important enough to justify borrowing money from China to pay for it? If employees are adding value...

“People call this the ‘new normal.’ Let me assure you there is nothing normal about this at all. It’s the new ‘abnormal,’ and it won’t last, because as free people we won’t stand for it…”With those remarks, business magnate and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes drew thunderous applause from his audience last Wednesday. Headlining the “Power Up!” business and motivational seminar with Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and Indian-born Zig Ziglar protégé Krish Dhanam, Mr. Forbes was speaking before a crowd of ten thousand at the Idaho Center indoor sporting complex. Forbes had just finished explaining why a confluence of...

There's a new woman voter out there. Empowered women are holding themselves to the same standard they hold men to, and it's showing up in the public opinion polls. Female concerns over the debt and the deficit, not the usual gender issues, have dramatically increased as the Nov. 6 election bears down upon us. The Gallup Poll now shows Mitt Romney trailing the president by only a point among women who are likely to vote in 12 swing states. This follows a Pew Research Center poll taken after the first presidential debate showing that President Obama's 18-point lead among women...

I can only scratch the surface here, but the following are a few of the questions I would like to see President Obama answer in a debate. Mr. President, your confidante Valerie Jarrett once said: "There's nobody more self-critical than President Obama. Part of the burden of being so bright is that he sees his error immediately." If that is accurate, sir, why do you feel it took you so long to realize you were shellacked in the first debate, and why did you still bitterly cling to that error days afterward, saying that if people would read the transcript,...

Governor Mitt Romney strongly supports North American energy independence as the foundation of renewed US employment and prosperity. President Obama is waging war on fossil fuels, job creation, and efforts to end our economic recession and reduce dependence on Middle Eastern and Russian oil. Romney’s emphasis on careful analysis and due diligence brought him and Bain Capital notable winners like AMC Entertainment, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Domino’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts and Staples. Obama’s focus on ideology, political calculation, cronyism and campaign contributors produced losers and scandals like Abound Solar, Crescent Dunes, Ener1, Fisker, Mountain Plaza, Solyndra, Tesla, and a...

Within the first few minutes of the second presidential debate, Obama said "not true" more times than Lance Armstrong, Mark McGwire and Baghdad Bob -- combined. Sure beats talking about the economy. President Obama scored a big victory over Mitt Romney with this week's cover story in Time magazine: "Who is Telling the Truth?" How is this a victory for Obama? The silliness of sending out surrogates to call Romney a "liar" has become a Big Media Issue in 2012. Breaking news: Almost all politicians obfuscate, sometimes shading or altering positions as political winds shift and even completely changing positions....

The best question at the second presidential debate came from Michael Jones, an African-American who said: "Mr. President, I voted for you in 2008. What have you done or accomplished to earn my vote in 2012? I'm not that optimistic, as I was in 2008. Most things I need for everyday living are very expensive." To which Obama said: "Are you my half-brother?" Actually, all Obama could say was that he had ended the war in Iraq (while pointlessly escalating the war in Afghanistan) and that Osama bin Laden is dead (and so is our ambassador). Both of which must...

Here's a recent statement frequently suggested by leftist academics, think tank researchers and policymakers: "People were not just struggling because of their personal deficiencies. There were structural factors at play. People weren't poor because they made bad decisions. They were poor because our society creates poverty." Who made that statement and where it was made is not important at all, but its corrosive effects on the minds of black people, particularly black youths, are devastating. There's nothing intellectually challenging or unusual about poverty. For most of mankind's existence, his most optimistic scenario was to be able to eke out enough...

25) Debate preparation, obviously. 24) Facts. 23) When he has to talk to Sasha and Malia about getting in trouble at school and his teleprompter is broken. 22) People who don't want to "spread (their) wealth around" to pay for Obama phones, Egyptian foreign aid, and free birth control for Sandra Fluke. 21) Chris Matthews for not being biased enough in his favor. 20) Women who have concerns that go beyond government-funded abortion and birth control, gay Americans who vote on issues other than gay marriage, Hispanic Americans who think illegal immigration isn't that big of an issue, and black...

I’ll huff and I’ll puff till I blow your house in! Like the big bad wolf in the fairy tale The Three Little Pigs, Vice President Joe Biden thought he’d huff all over Representative Paul Ryan in the only vice-presidential debate. But between Biden’s snickers, interruptions, and finger pointing at Ryan, Biden demonstrated why President Obama’s agenda is “not working.” Maintaining a cool demeanor, filled with smiles throughout, Ryan kicked off the debate by assailing Obama’s handling of the terror attack in Libya. From then on, Ryan put mad Joe on the defensive, hitting him with fact after fact how...