Free Republic

Almost every state in the U.S. has made cuts to its public-employee pensions, seeking to dig out from the economic downturn, but so far the measures have fallen well short of bridging a nearly $1 trillion funding gap. Since 2009, 45 states have rolled back pension benefits for teachers, police, firefighters and other public workers, including cuts by Michigan and California this month. Next week, Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich is expected to sign legislation requiring, for example, that certain teachers work longer and pay more toward their pensions.

Senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod slammed Mitt Romney over the GOP challenger’s recently released 2011 tax return. Axelrod charged Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the return was manipulated to give a false impression of the Romney family’s finances and “boost” the amount Romney paid to the federal government. “Two months ago, on your own air, he said that anybody who didn’t take the deductions they were owed wasn’t qualified to be president,” Axelrod told host George Stephanopoulos. “Well, I guess he’s not qualified, because that’s exactly what he did last week to try and get his number up...

The release of over two decades of Mitt Romney's tax information on Friday must have been so anticlimactic for Team Obama --- not only does it turn out that Romney contributed a boatload of money towards the federal coffers, but he's also an almost wildly generous and charitable individual to boot. After the monumentally huge deal Team O made out of the tax returns, with dodgy "secrecy" ads and unsubtle fat-cat jabs out the wazoo, they don't seem to be seizing on the information with quite the fervor you would've expected.Yes, Romney is hugely wealthy, and hey, maybe some of...

Every working American needs to prepare for a tax increase this January. From the working poor who will receive an increase of 70% to only 13 percent for the highest bracket, the Democratic United State Senate has left in place a tax increase for all of us. They left in a hurry leaving the tax increases in place Before the Election. They left without doing their duty to pass a budget, and they left the Social Security Tax increase of 2%, adding insult to injury. One can only surmise they left these as the only tax increase they could get...

Discussion between court administrators and Clark County commissioners regarding court marshals — formerly known as bailiffs — served as a reminder Tuesday of a union issue simmering for months that is now part of a federal lawsuit.

"And I can make a firm pledge; under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase."     –Barack Obama, Sept. 12, 2008, Dover, New Hampshire Barack Obama isn't the first politician to break a promise, torture the truth or outright lie to the American people. But, he certainly is among the most accomplished at it.Obama made his no-new-taxes pledge over and over again four years ago as he campaigned.  Not only has he repeatedly and blatantly violated it, but his policies have relentlessly assaulted poor and middle-income family budgets.   During his weekly...

I think our side needs something like this: I made this graph using data from www.taxhistory.org The comparison I'm providing to Romney's 2011 figure is based on the charity he actual donated, which was more than he choose to deduct. Of particular note is the blue line showing the low percentages Obama historically gave to charity until he started running for high office!

Democrats say Mitt Romney manipulated his deductions to keep his overall 2011 federal income tax rate below a certain level for political purposes. The Republican presidential nominee is certain to face new questions about his finances. Romney and his wife, Ann, donated roughly $4 million to charities last year, but they only claimed a deduction of $2.25 million on their tax return, filed with the Internal Revenue Service on Friday. Romney made $13.7 million last year and paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes, giving him an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. That was a bit above the 13.9...

Do you pay your "fair share" of taxes?Author: Jasson Urbach, Free Market Foundation 15 September 2012 23:29 Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, remarked that American Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, ought to pay his ‘fair share of taxes’. However, Mitt Romney, like most other high income earners across the globe, acts rationally – just as most of us do – in the sense that they try to reduce their total tax burden by avoiding whatever taxes they can; behaviour that is well within the laws created by government and perfectly legal. Any insinuation that high income earners do not pay...

The admission only comes after about a full minute of teeth-pulling from CNBC’s Joe Kernen, and only after Howard Dean tries to keep impugning Mitt Romney’s integrity, but even the former DNC chair has to grudgingly acknowledge that the game is all but up for Harry Reid and his baseless, reckless charges of tax fraud. Dean halfheartedly trots out the complaint that Romney lied by overpaying his taxes, but Kernen laughs him into a rather lengthy silence (transcript by The Daily Caller): (VIDEO AT LINK) KERNEN: Governor, my first question is you’ve seen these now — my very first question,...

Deputy RI House speaker to admit tax fraud guiltBy DAVID KLEPPER Associated Press / September 14, 2012 PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The outgoing deputy speaker of the Rhode Island House and a business partner have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud for cheating the federal government out of more than $500,000 in tax payments, federal prosecutors said Friday. Rep. John McCauley Jr., a Democrat who represents Providence, was charged Friday in federal court along with William L'Europa, his partner in their insurance adjuster business. Both indicated in court filings that they plan to plead guilty. The men...

RENO, Nev. (KRNV & MyNews4.com) -- A pay raise dispute between the Washoe County and its Sheriff's Deputies has come to a close. Sheriff Deputies had requested an increase in pay after the county cut benefits and 51 paid positions last year. Arbitrators Thursday advised in favor of the deputies, saying that their pay was behind national standards. The County was advised to give a three percent pay increase.

Why don't more people live here? That's what I always think when I come to Chicago, as this week when I come for a conference. The water is bright, and the air is clear. The room where we are lucky enough to hold the conference, the Stock Exchange Trading Room at the Art Institute, is one of the most beautiful in America. Yet for some reason people aren't choosing to live here. Indeed, every 10 minutes the state of Illinois loses a resident to another state. New York, where I do live, hardly differs, losing earners by the hundreds of...

44 Companies That Could Get Crushed If The Government Cuts Spending Rob WileSep. 21, 2012, 4:16 PM The threat of the "fiscal cliff" remains one of the most important events weighing on U.S. markets To recap, if Congress does nothing before the end of the year, a series of tax cuts and spending programs will expire and combine to shrink GDP by up to 4 percent, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. While we'd all suffer, some companies would get hit more than others. The last time we had a major debate on government spending levels — the debt ceiling talks...

In their rush to increase taxes on the wealthy, the Democrat U.S. Senate left a tax increase of 50% on the poor. Nevermind, the Senate left a scheduled tax increase on Every American next year (before adjourning to campaign - a thing we can thank every Democrat through our votes). But we can take into account what they have done to the poor. Those Americans who are the working poor are scheduled for a tax increase of 50%. That's right, a whopping 50%. College graduates, many getting their first low wage part time job will find it much harder to...

Democrats say Mitt Romney manipulated his deductions to keep his overall 2011 federal income tax rate below a certain level for political purposes.... ... the Romney campaign released a letter from his accountants saying that in the 20 years prior to 2010 the Romneys paid an average annual effective rate of 20.2 percent, never lower than 13.66 percent. On average, middle-income families — those making from $50,000 to $75,000 a year — pay 12.8 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.

Barack Obama doesn't think the rich are paying their fair share of income taxes. So what is their fair share? I posed this question to Fox News commentator Juan Williams in Dallas the other day. "The top 10 percent of income earners are paying 71 percent of all income taxes," I said. "Isn't that enough?" Although Juan was trying to defend the Obama position, he didn't have an answer. Then I turned the question around. "The bottom one-half of the population is paying zero, or close to zero, income taxes. What's their fair share?" He didn't have an answer to...

After being criticized for months over a lack of transparency when it came to his taxes, Mitt Romney has revealed his 2011 returns, which show the candidate paid $1.9 million in taxes on $13.7 million in income, an effective rate of 14.1 percent. That figure falls in line with Romney's estimate in August that he paid "13.6 [percent] or something like that." But Romney only reached the 14.1 percent mark by limiting deductions taken from his considerable charitable giving. Had the Romneys taken all of the deductions made available by their $4.02 million in 2011 donations, his effective tax rate...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is no longer insinuating that Mitt Romney paid no federal taxes over the last 10 years. But he’s showing no contrition and continues to maul Romney for withholding tax returns from voters. “The information released today reveals that Mitt Romney manipulated one of the only two years of tax returns he’s seen fit to show the American people - and then only to ‘conform’ with his public statements,” Reid said in an official response to the release of Romney’s 2011 return, and a brief summary of his tax payments over the last 20 years. That...

This is how I imagine Team Obama would view it...