Free Republic

As the influx of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors from Central America has increased, so too has the cost to assist each migrant, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies. CIS reveals that the cost per “unaccompanied alien child” has more than doubled since FY 2010, when the cost per UAC was $8,217. CIS projects that the cost in FY 2017 will reach $17,613. CIS senior researcher Nayla Rush, the author of the report, reached the cost per UAC by looking at the total budget requests for UACs in FY 2017 and the number of UACs expected...

Growth in the food stamp caseload occurred particularly rapidly among able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). These are work-capable adults between the ages of 18 and 49 who do not have children or other dependents to support. The ABAWD food stamp caseload grew by nearly 150 percent between 2008 and 2014 and has risen from nearly 2 million recipients in 2008 to around 5 million today. In response to the growth in food stamp dependence, Maine's Governor, Paul LePage, recently established work requirements on ABAWD recipients. In Maine, all ABAWDs in the food stamp program are now required to take a...

How dare the Obama administration bail out insurance companies with our money in order to hide ObamaCare's failures. Thursday, just hours after giant insurer UnitedHealthcare said it's losing money selling ObamaCare plans and will likely exit the health exchanges next year, the Obama administration quietly promised to bail out insurers for their losses - using your money. Nearly all insurers are bleeding red ink trying to sell the unworkable plans. Without a bailout, more insurers will abandon ObamaCare, pushing it closer to its demise. A bailout would benefit insurers and the Democratic Party, which is desperate to cover up the...

It costs U.S. taxpayers nearly $65,000 to resettle one Middle Eastern refugee over the first five years, which is 12 times what it would cost to care for that same refugee in a neighboring country in the region, according to a new study. The Center for Immigration Studies cites “heavy welfare use” as the main reason why refugees are so costly to resettle. This flies in the face of oft-quoted comments by U.S. mayors who claim refugees add to their tax base and promote economic growth, making for a more “culturally diverse” and “economically resilient” city. The CIS study indicates...

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PA - Channel 11's Joe Holden confirmed Monday that a regional maintenance supervisor for Allegheny County Region 1 has been charged with theft and receiving stolen property. According to the criminal complaint, James Schrott is accused of stealing more than 11,000 pounds of aluminum signs. County police said the signage is valued at more than $21,000. Schrott has been suspended without pay, a county spokeswoman said. The criminal complaint named Steven Beswick as Schrott's accomplice. According to arrest papers, county workers set up a sting and were able to track the aluminum to a local scrap yard. Investigators...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Department of Housing and Urban Development provided a $9.4 million loan guarantee to renovate an apartment complex here eight months after the owner convinced the county to value the complex at just $3.8 million, a Watchdog.org investigation found. The loan for Apollo Village Apartments defaulted and the property was foreclosed on in 2012 with HUD losing as much as $4.5 million on the deal, public trustee records show. Pete Sepp, president of the National Union of Taxpayers, said these government programs put a substantial amount of taxpayer money at risk and should be eliminated. ......

The winners are the NFL’s 32 team owners, who managed to scam taxpayers out of $7 billion over the last 20 years to subsidize stadium construction and renovation schemes, according to a new report by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. That leaves taxpayers as the losers, forced to fork over their hard-earned money in a perverse corporate welfare scheme that amounts to welfare for billionaires.

News that bonds and stocks of Abengoa SA - the Spanish renewable-energy company - plunged after a plan to shore up capital failed to reassure investors that it can stop burning cash is likely to have passed many by. But coming just one day after President Obama unleashed his Clean Power Plan, the fact that the company - that is now facing significant liquidity concerns - received over $230 million in US taxpayer subsidies in 2014 - despite two ongoing federal investigations - may raise an eyebrow or two as images of Solyndra's government-sponsored farce come to mind... as...

Under resident Barack Obama's overhaul, taxpayers provided $2.4 billion in loans to get the co-ops going, but only one out of 23 -- the one in Maine -- made money last year ... Another one, the Iowa/Nebraska co-op, was shut down by regulators over financial concerns. The audit by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office also found that 13 of the 23 lagged far behind their 2014 enrollment projections. The probe raised concerns about whether federal loans will be repaid, and ... Just last week, the Louisiana Health Cooperative announced it would cease offering coverage next year

City officials are pushing property-tax hikes, sales-tax hikes, and even a commuter tax and financial-transaction tax. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s wish for a $474 million sales-tax increase to help pay for the county’s growing pension debt has been granted. The hike pushes the sales-tax rate back up to 10.25 percent in Chicago – the same as it was when Preckwinkle took office in 2010. And that’s not the only new tax residents have to face. Preckwinkle is just the latest local leader to usher in a tax increase. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel created a new tax earlier this...

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — NASA scientists and planet lovers everywhere are cheering the Pluto space probe, which is now sending images of the dwarf planet back to Earth. The cost of the 10-year voyage is raising eyebrows, but not for the reasons you might think. (snip) The edge-of-the-solar-system breakthrough cost $720 million. That’s less than the cost of the $1 billion Vikings stadium. And less than half the $1.7 billion price tag of the Southwest Rail Project.

New Hampshire utility ratepayers will pay a Taiwanese company $1.22 million to build the state’s largest solar installation so that a small town can save about $500,000 in power costs over the life of the project. Taiwan’s Walsin Lihwa, parent company of Borrego Solar, will use Chinese-made solar panels in the 3.5-acre project, which is supposed to be finished in July. It will supply power to several municipal buildings in the area but only some of the time: the town of Peterborough (population: 6,284) gets only 197 sunny days per year. “What a great project,” deadpanned David Kreutzer, a senior...

When Attorney General Eric Holder’s reign at the Justice Department ended earlier this month, readers of National Review probably hoped it would mean the end of stories about Holder’s seemingly inexhaustible misbehavior and legal shenanigans. But apparently he could not leave without one last abuse of taxpayer funds. Holder is the only attorney general in history to be held in contempt of Congress. But that didn’t stop the Justice Department from releasing a nine-minute paean to him, which paints him as a cross between Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa. It’s entitled “Attorney General Eric Holder: The People’s Lawyer.”...

Some great news for the taxpayers of California. A man convicted of murder and currently serving time in state prison has managed to convince a judge that the state will pay costs of at least $100k for gender reassignment surgery since he’s suffering from gender dysphoria. A federal judge on Thursday ordered California’s corrections department to provide a transgender inmate with sex change surgery, the first time such an operation has been ordered in the state.U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco ruled that denying sex reassignment surgery to 51-year-old Michelle-Lael Norsworthy violates his/her constitutional rights. Her/His birth...

Potentially millions of current and former illegal immigrants now have the opportunity to fly their children to the U.S. with taxpayer dollars. Once they arrive, they will be eligible for benefits including a free education, healthcare and food stamps. The State Department and Department of Homeland Security will administer the program, ... Some of the benefits they will receive are a free education, medical care, living expenses and food stamps. ... The U.S. has already sent staff to the region and began accepting applications in December. If applicants don’t qualify for refugee status, they can be considered for parole status

* Stunning figure comes from Congressional Budget Office report that revised cost estimates for the next 10 years * Government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over a decade and take in $643 BILLION in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare * The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best * The law will still leave 'between 29 million and 31 million' nonelderly Americans without medical insurance * Numbers assume Obamacare insurance exchange enrollment will double between now and 2025 It...

If politics is the art of successful compromise--defined as outcomes that make all parties equally unhappy--then the recent budget extension bill offers something for everyone. It extended the tax credits for electric-car charging stations and natural-gas-vehicle refueling stations, which should make owners of those vehicles happy. But it did not extend the generous tax credits for purchase or lease of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, disappointing advocates of that zero-emission vehicle technology. Those advocates include Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda. Now, it turns out, the often-reviled "gas guzzler tax deduction" was restored to its previous level by the budget bill as well. As...

Courtesy of the Cronybus(sic) last minute passage, government was provided a quid-pro-quo $1.1 trillion spending allowance with Wall Street's blessing in exchange for assuring banks that taxpayers would be on the hook for yet another bailout, as a result of the swaps push-out provision, after incorporating explicit Citigroup language that allows financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, explicitly putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by these contracts. Recall: (more at link)

Senator Joel Anderson California State Senate, 36th DistrictHon. Jerry Brown Governor, State of California State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95814Dear Governor BrownMy constituents and I are deeply troubled by the Department of Managed Health Care's (DMHC) assault on the religious liberties of 38-million Californians.DMHC's August 22nd decision ordered all insurance plans in the state to immediately begin covering elective abortion procedures. According to DMHC, elective abortions must be covered under a 40-year-old state law requiring health plans to cover "basic health services." This new, unprecedented interpretation of 40-year old language creates a mandate that violates the free exercise rights of churches,...

If the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble implodes, who should be stuck with the bill? Well, if the “too big to fail” banks have their way it will be you and I. Right now, lobbyists for the big Wall Street banks are pushing really hard to include an extremely insidious provision in a bill that would keep the federal government funded past the upcoming December 11th deadline. This provision would allow these big banks to trade derivatives through subsidiaries that are federally insured by the FDIC. What this would mean is that the big banks would be able to continue their...