Free Republic

This may be the last holiday season to enjoy tax-free Internet shopping, thanks to new legislation in the U.S. Congress. Two bills introduced Wednesday propose sweeping changes to how Americans are taxed for online and mail order purchases. Businesses initially would be required to collect sales taxes on purchases shipped to roughly half of the country, and that percentage is expected to rapidly increase. "Main Street retailers collect sales taxes, while many online and catalog retailers are exempt from collecting the same taxes," said a statement published by Sen. Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican. "This is costing states and localities...

One of the overlooked stories of President Bush's Budget is what the President's focus is in the near-term future by his budget projection out to the year 2010. When President Bush submitted his Budget this year for Fiscal Year 2006, he also was required to submit projections four years out. It is the trend of the major categories (called "Superfunctions") which is both the most important and also the most shocking. "Human Resources" is the broadest measure of social welfare. It is also the largest expense in the USA's budget. For Fiscal Year 2006, the projection is 65.3 cents of...

The year 2005 will be remembered as one of good intentions, bad disasters and promises kept. This spring, Congress adopted the toughest budget since the Reagan years and, under the leadership of Chairman Jerry Lewis, the Appropriations Committee reported one bill after another on time and on budget. Then came the heartbreak that was Hurricane Katrina -- 90,000 square miles of the gulf coast destroyed. Congress responded by speeding relief and recovery funds totaling $60 billion in six days to rebuild the families and communities destroyed by this storm. After the storm, many in Washington thought that fiscal discipline was...

Alaska's governor outlined a plan Thursday to spend almost $200 million on two bridge projects, including one dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere" that triggered sharp criticism across the nation. Congress recently dropped its funding provisos for the bridges in Ketchikan and Anchorage, but let the state keep the money and left it up to state officials to figure out how to spend it. Gov. Frank Murkowski in a budget proposal Thursday said he wants to use $91 million for the Ketchikan project in the fiscal year beginning in July. The two-bridge project would connect the town's airport to Revillagigedo Island,...

Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver’s licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Spanish for “the race,” will get its latest grant through an appropriations bill passed by Congress on November 18. The Joint Explanatory Statement of HR 3058, available on the House’s Rules Committee website lists 1,100 plus...

George Bush is the biggest-spending president of the past 40 years, surpassing even Lyndon Johnson and his "Great Society" spending spree, a new report by the Cato Institute reveals. The increase in discretionary spending - that is, all nonentitlement programs - in Bush's first term was 48.5 percent. That's higher than LBJ's 48.3 percent, and more than twice as large as the increase during Bill Clinton's entire two terms, 21.6 percent. When spending is adjusted for inflation and length of time in office, Bush has an annualized real growth in spending of 8 percent, compared to Johnson's 4.6 percent. In...

According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion. ... "No American political leadership has ever willfully and deliberately mortgaged our country to foreign interests in the manner we have witnessed over the past four years," said Tanner. "If this recklessness is not stopped, I truly believe our economic freedom as American citizens is in great jeopardy." [CNSNews] I wonder if there are any implications... "The facts are...

Current Month 10/20/2005 $8,009,635,518,716.50

FEMA Katrina Funeral Contractor Desecrated CorpsesThursday, 15 September 2005, 2:15 pm Article: Jason Leopold Division of Funeral Corp. Charged With Desecrating Corpses Hired to Collect Deceased Victims of Hurricane Katrina By Jason LeopoldA funeral services company which recently learned that one of its subsidiaries is negotiating a lucrative contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dead bodies in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit several years ago alleging the company desecrated thousands of corpses, and dumped bodies into mass graves.Moreover, the company paid $200,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that sought...

It is one of the secrets of the Beltway: Washington loves disasters. With large-scale disasters, government expands, its friends get wealthy and citizens become as docile as kittens. That is why Congress calls it "disaster relief" — the relief is from the usual restrictions on revenue spending and individual responsibility.

If temporarily deposed House Republican Leader Tom DeLay didn't like "Operation Offset" and its creators at the Republican Study Committee, led by Rep. Mike Pence, he surely hates it now. That's because Pence and his budget-cutting plan probably helped propel Republican whip Rep. Roy Blunt into the temporary party leader post late today. DeLay in meeting earlier in the day with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, had asked that Rep. David Dreier be elevated to the leadership post. But instead, during a late afternoon caucus meeting, it was determined by Republicans that Blunt would take the post. There is...

WASHINGTON - With Gulf Coast governors pressing for action, Senate Finance Committee members complained Wednesday that the Bush administration is blocking a bipartisan $9 billion health care package for hundreds of thousands of evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. ADVERTISEMENT "We've got people with needs today," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. She was joined by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who testified via a teleconference hookup, in urging quick action on the legislation. Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, chairman of the committee, said four or five senators have been blocking action on the...

The Republican congressional leaders want Indiana’s Rep. Mike Pence to go away, or at least shut up. They say that he’s grandstanding by talking about cutting spending and that the effort of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), which he chairs, to force them to look for offsets as they prepare to spend as much as $200 billion on hurricane relief, on top of the spending that already has conservatives rolling their eyes, is “counterproductive.” Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), among others, took Pence to the woodshed last week and,...

People have always known the risks of living on the Gulf Coast. New Orleans has now had four severe category 4 hurricanes since 1915 (1915, 1947, in 1969 a category 5 narrowly missed, and 2005 Katrina). That's a category 4 or bigger storm every 22.5 years. This is hardly a once in 200- or 300-year event. Hurricanes for the Gulf Coast region are predictable, frequent and are going to happen again. Knowing this, what should the federal government do in response to the hurricanes? If the federal government takes $200 billion out of the American economy to finance Gulf Coast...

Louisiana's congressional delegation has requested $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, about 10 times the annual Corps budget for the entire nation, or 16 times the amount the Corps has said it would need to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane. Louisiana Sens. David Vitter (R) and Mary Landrieu (D) tucked the request into their $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, the state's opening salvo in the scramble for federal dollars. The bill, unveiled last week, would create a powerful "Pelican Commission" controlled by Louisiana residents...

Bush Budget Aide Weighs Cut in Benefit Outlays Storms' Cost Spurs Look At 'Mandatory Spending,' Including Health Programs By DAVID WESSEL Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL September 26, 2005; Page A2 WASHINGTON -- In view of the growing costs of Gulf Coast hurricanes, White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten said the president has asked him "to examine the rest of the budget...to see where we can tighten our belt," a quest that may lead to cuts in federal benefit programs. [Joshua Bolten] Those expenditures, which budget experts call "mandatory spending," include benefits such as farm subsidies and the...

September 25, 2005 The Sunday Times Andrew Sullivan: Is Bush a socialist? He's spending like one Finally, finally, finally. A few years back, your correspondent noticed something a little odd about George W Bush’s conservatism. If you take Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that a socialist is someone who is very good at spending other people’s money, then President Bush is, er, a socialist. Sure, he has cut taxes, a not-too-difficult feat when your own party controls both houses of Congress. But spending? You really have to rub your eyes, smack yourself on the forehead and pour yourself a large gin and...

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - The governor of Louisiana, whose state was slammed by two powerful hurricanes in less than a month, said on Sunday she was asking the federal government for $31.7 billion to help rebuild the state's infrastructure. Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she would ask Congress for $11.5 billion to rebuild the state's damaged transportation system, including rebuilding spans of a key interstate highway, damaged ports and airports. She said she would seek $20.2 billion to rebuild and protect the levee system surrounding New Orleans. Parts of that system breached during Hurricane Katrina and again during Hurricane Rita...

George W. Bush, after five years in the presidency, does not intend to get sucker-punched by the Democrats over race and poverty. That was the driving force behind his Katrina speech last week. He is not going to play the part of the cranky accountant--"But where's the money going to come from?"--while the Democrats, in the middle of a national tragedy, swan around saying "Republicans don't care about black people," and "They're always tightwads with the poor." In his Katrina policy the president is telling Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this is over...

House conservatives called for broad spending cuts yesterday to offset emergency funding in response to Hurricane Katrina, a move that triggered heightened friction between leadership officials and the right wing of the GOP conference. The tensions illustrate a growing divide within the party about how to handle hurricane relief as another storm heads for the battered Gulf Coast region. Yesterday’s rally was an echo of the so-called Republican Revolution, when the current majority first swept into power behind their brash new Speaker, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), after the 1994 elections. Conference conservatives pointed to a number of government programs, both big...