Free Republic

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama broke his fundamental campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making under $200K. This is a key November issue. Tune in!

My first thread on Free Republic I asked if Mitt Romney would balance the budget, and the consensus was that he would not. That we should expect more of the same. So for this next one, I will ask more stuff which is important to me a fiscal free market conservative: Will Mitt Romney expand the role, size, and cost of government? I’m asking these questions about the deficit, and size of government because I don’t understand what the difference is so far between Obama and Romney, and not sure what the point is in replacing Obama with Romney if...

Stryker Corp. is preparing to lay off area workers as it winds down the local operations it acquired from Gaymar Industries. Stryker has filed a notice with the state Department of Labor that it will lay off 11 area employees starting Sept. 21. ... Stryker has put the Orchard Park location up for sale for $3.9 million, through Pyramid Brokerage's Buffalo office. Stryker said it was closing the Gaymar operations in the Buffalo Niagara region and relocating its production lines as part of a broader strategy to cut the size of its workforce and reduce its annual pretax operating costs...

President Obama, in his drive for a national healthcare overhaul, strove to provide a new guarantee that all Americans, no matter where they lived, would have basic protection against sickness and disease, ending decades of variations among states. ..... < snip > Under the court's ruling, states will be free to decide not to cover all their poor residents through their Medicaid programs.That may mean liberal states that have embraced the healthcare law such as California, Massachusetts and Maryland will in 2014 effectively offer all their residents health coverage, a key goal of the law Obama signed two years ago....

The Obama campaign has seized on remarks made by Romney adviser Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom this morning on MSNBC, to the effect that the individual mandate in Obamacare (and Romneycare) is not a tax. Fehrnstrom allowed Chuck Todd to push him off message--and re-ignited the fears that conservatives have long had about Romney's will and ability to fight. In response, conservatives--who had just coalesced around opposition to what many now call "Obamatax": Mitt, start fighting, or give up and let someone else do it. Fehrnstrom's point--in defense of Romneycare--was that the Supreme Court was wrong to uphold Obamacare under the taxing...

Mitch McConnell’s appearance today on Fox News Sunday was remarkably revealing — it showed as clearly as you could want that the Supreme Court decision is finally forcing Republicans to declare what, exactly, they would replace Obamacare with if they realize their goal of repealing it entirely. Pressed by Chris Wallace to say what he would do to insure the 30 million people who will get insurance under Obamacare, McConnell at first dodged the question, instead launching into a litany of complaints about the law. He repeated the debunked claim that it would cut $500 billion from Medicare. Asked the...

Voter support for President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul rose after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it, but most people still oppose the law, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Sunday. The online survey showed increased backing from Republicans and, crucially, the political independents whose support will be essential to winning the Nov. 6 presidential election. Meanwhile, Republican leaders in Congress are banking on the fact that voters will have the final word on healthcare in the November elections, and the GOP is betting that the law's unpopularity will be enough to drive Democrats from power. The White House's response? Bring...

You would have thought that Chief Justice John Roberts had shouted "fire" in a crowded theater. In upholding Obamacare, he set off a headlong race for the exits by the same lobbying groups -- believe it or not -- that had cut deals with the administration to create the legislation. Back then, the lobbyists were telling each other: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. Now the bodies are piling up in the doorway as those who pandered to the president trample over each other in their haste to get out of the blazing or crumbling structure...

Whats shall we lable the new mandate? ObamaTax? ObamaCare Tax?

(Reuters) - Now that the Supreme Court has removed the main legal challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, policy experts question whether enough U.S. states will be ready to implement the law when it takes full effect in 2014. HHS says that 34 states have received $850 million in grants to help plan and build the exchanges. Accepting the funds alone does not signal significant progress, however. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues, 17 states have made no significant progress towards establishing an exchange or rejected the idea. Most of them voted for Republican candidates...

A top advisor to President Barack Obama urged Congressional Democrats on Friday to "go on offense" against Republicans on the issue of taxes and argued that the Supreme Court ruling upholding the incumbent's signature health care law should be the "clear and final" word on the issue. In a memo made public by the White House, David Plouffe accused Republicans of "trying to misrepresent" Obama's record on taxes. "We welcome this debate on middle class taxes, and we urge you to seize this opportunity to go on offense to illustrate how the President and Democrats in Congress are standing up...

A collage of Obama saying.. not a tax

In the past twenty-four hours I have gotten a lot of heat from friends over my take on what John Roberts did. What’s done is done and I really could not get all worked up about it because Obamacare in the Courts has been such a distraction. Yet again the GOP expected a court to save them from something they did not like. The GOP has largely turned its nose up at the tea party, which is its salvation. The tea party movement provided the GOP with the energy, man power, and money to take back the House in 2010...

Yesterday was full of stunning decisions: First, of course, the Supreme Court delivered their decision on Obamacare() and the Commerce Clause () – more on that later... ...It’s probably because I was so distracted by all the blowback from the Supreme Court decision and wasn’t paying close enough attention. Fortunately, Clarice – American Thinker author, D.C. attorney and resident MOL - was all over the case. Here’s her final analysis; it’s an OUTSTANDING review of why yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision isn’t as bad as you might think. DO NOT and I mean NOT miss Clarice’s Pieces today on American Thinker...

The Supreme Court has allowed Obamacare's individual mandate as a TAX President Obama LIED to America when he told us that Obamacare was not a tax in any way. He then turned around and argued to the United States Supreme Court that the individual mandate and penalty for not getting healthcare was a tax and therefore constitutional. ObamaTAX via Obamacare ...... this might be JUST the right Slap in the face that America Needs to wake up and VOTE OUT OBAMA    WAKE UP AMERICA! We are not only DROWNING in Debt, but not we have seen Obama impose...

President Barack Obama offered few concrete suggestions for spending cuts this week in his much-anticipated speech on reducing the federal debt, but he had lots to say about raising taxes. "As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally borne a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. Everybody pays, but the wealthier have borne a little more," the president said. So he wants to raise the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent and eliminate itemized deductions for the top 2 percent of earners. What the president didn't say is that he...

Dr. Ron Paul explains why income tax and the FED are contradictory to individualist freedom. Most freepers disagree w/ Dr. Paul on foreign policy and I do too but this video is worth listening to.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House says the government is now borrowing 41 cents of every dollar it spends. New estimates predict the unemployment rate will average 9 percent next year and the budget deficit will be $1.42 trillion - even bigger than previously expected.

Steven Thomma and Charles Krauthammer may disagree on everything else, but they do agree that Obama is a historical titan whose influence will echo across the rest of the century and beyond. Krauthammer looks upon this with foreboding, while Thomma, editorial writer for the McClatchy group ("TRUTH to POWER!") can't understand why we aren't all dropping to our knees weeping in gratitude.   While Obama's reputation may no longer be that of a demigod, it hasn't fallen very far among much of the country's political elite. In uptown Manhattan and within the Beltway, Obama is viewed as a mastermind, a political...

Amendment Slipped Into Health Care Legislation Would Track, Tax Coin and Bullion Transactions Those already outraged by the president's health care legislation now have a new bone of contention -- a scarcely noticed tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny. California authorities investigating Goldline's sales practices. More Photos The issue is rising to the fore just as gold coin dealers are attracting attention over sales tactics. Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code to expand the scope of Form 1099. Currently, 1099...