Free Republic

Simple rules of economics often escape liberals. Because they spend other people’s money, futures and safety to get what makes them feel good, the actual cost of things rarely enters into the schemes liberals concoct. They don’t understand that businesses often close when what they sell becomes too expensive for their customer base. Specialty shops of all kinds fall into this construct. Politicians who are considering buying votes must weigh whether the price to be paid is too much. They must ask themselves, “Will this break the bank?” Liberal politicians don’t bother with this consideration, but conservatives must never overlook...

Once in a blue moon you come across somebody in the service industry who does such a good job that you think to yourself, "That guy or girl is going places." And if they are going places, they are the first ones to understand that they aren't going there on a minimum wage. No, they are getting their feet wet by working and interacting with the public, and their big dreams have nothing to do with a lifetime plan of working for $9.50 an hour. That's the number, $9.50 an hour, that's being kicked around by DFLers in the Legislature....

Is your family ready to lose a mortgage payment or give up cellphone service for increased property and state taxes? Or would you rather see 33,000 public school teachers in Pennsylvania — nearly one out of every three — lose their jobs? With pension costs set to drive up the average family's taxes nearly $900 annually, those are the harsh choices Pennsylvanians face unless we demand reform now. The state's two pension systems, for state government workers (SERS) and public school employees (PSERS), have more than $47 billion in debt. It's a shortfall that taxpayers must cover. And the bill...

Early voting only got under way on Monday and already a complaint has been filed. Colorado Republicans say Democrats wrongly offered Colorado State University students free pizza and t-shirts in exchange for voting. Colorado state law says campaigners have to be 100 feet from a polling place, but there is some grey area, espeically when a polling place is inside a large public building like CSU’s Lory Student Center. The Colorado Republican Committee sent a letter to the Larimer County clerk alleging wrongdoing by campaigners for the Democratic Party during the first day of early voting on the CSU campus....

President Obama is using all the White House weapons at his disposal to woo voters in critical swing states in the campaign's final stretch, announcing a $30 million investment aimed at creating a manufacturing hub in Ohio to help boost technology and create jobs in a three-state region. Recent polls show the president holding a slim edge over Republican rival Mitt Romney in Ohio, and Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have crisscrossed the state pitching their competing economic plans. The new initiative, which White House officials announced Wednesday, creates partnerships among manufacturing firms, universities, community colleges and nonprofit organizations in...

August 15, 2012 Obama’s Lawless Amnesty Program Begins Today – Thousands of Illegals Line Up in Chicago (Video) Jim Hoft Navy Pier Amnesty Line–Tens of thousands of illegal aliens lined up today to sign up for Barack Obama’s lawless amnesty program. An estimated 1.8 million illegals are eligible for the program. (VIDEO at Link below) Stand With Arizona reported: Obama’s lawless bypass of Congress in granting blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens began this morning across America. Tens of thousands of illegals lined up early, and flooded into DHS centers to apply for nearly automatic 2-year stays from deportation...

IRS supervisors ignored employees who tried to warn agency higher-ups of fraud in a program designed to collect taxes from immigrants, resulting in the agency paying out potentially bogus refunds, according to an official audit released Wednesday. The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) said the IRS is too focused on getting out refunds quickly rather than getting them only to qualified taxpayers. Auditors also said the agency eliminated some methods employees had used to figure out questionable refund requests and doesn’t have the right training or tools to screen out bogus identity documents when immigrants apply for taxpayer...

<p>Voter fraud has a shocking new meaning in eastern Kentucky.</p> <p>That is where in some cases, major cocaine and marijuana dealers admitted to buying votes to steal elections, and the result is the corruption of American democracy. The government continues to mete out justice in the scandal, as two people convicted in April in a vote-buying case face sentencing this week, and another public official pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy.</p>

"We're headed in the right direction. Unemployment continues to drop and those people who are unemployed, they're not going to be voting for the party who wants to cut their benefits, cut access to food stamps, cut job training," Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) said on MSNBC's Al Sharpton program.

The House passed the administration’s offshore wind power bill Friday amid accusations Gov. Martin O’Malley secured votes on the House Economic Matters Committee with disparity grants to committee members’ districts. “Those of you who have been here longer than two weeks know there’s a lot of complicated pressures that go into making a bill pass or fail,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “Sometimes it takes a little nudge, sometimes it takes a carrot, and sometimes it takes a stick.” The disparity grant program in Maryland provides subsidies to jurisdictions with income tax receipts that fall below 75% of the...

Appearing on CNN's State of the Union today, Rick Santorum told host Candy Crawley that his loss yesterday to Mitt Romney in CPAC's annual straw poll was because he didn't pay for votes. From Politico: "Well, you know, those straw polls at CPAC... for years Ron Paul has won those because he trucks in a lot of people, pays for their tickets, and they come in and vote and they leave. We didn't do that, we don't do that. i don't try to rig straw polls." Pressed further on whether or not he felt Romney had rigged the poll, Santorum...

One of the great things about America, President Barack Obama told students at the University of Colorado, is that no matter how humble your roots, you still have a shot at a great education. He also told students that his goal is to "make college more affordable." Alas, the president's prescription for making higher education affordable seems likely to yield the same results as his plan for curbing health care costs; that is, it is likely to drive prices higher than inflation. The nation's next fiscal nightmare may well be a higher-education bubble. Americans now owe more on student loans...

Continuing his recent tack of bypassing Congress and enacting reforms “without them,” President Obama on Wednesday announced a package of student loan reforms designed to lower college graduates’ monthly payments, arguing his plan will redirect some of that borrowed money into the economy to promote job growth. Speaking to a friendly audience of college students in Denver, Mr. Obama said the changes “won’t cost taxpayers a dime but will save you money and will save you time,” and tied the ever-rising cost of education to the nation’s lagging economy. “Living with that kind of debt means making some pretty tough...

Obama Looks to Wring Stimulus From Saturated Student Loan Market “$1 Trillion” -- Estimated amount of student loan debt owed by Americans. In keeping with his new campaign theme of “we can’t wait,” President Obama today will roll out a plan to put more money in the pockets of some of the nation’s 36 million student loan recipients. Obama has broad latitude in this area – certainly broader than the first two parts of his western campaign trip, underwater mortgages and subsidies for hiring veterans – because one of his early legislative initiatives was to have the federal government take...

by John HillStand With Arizona Over 500 people turned out for a protest against R.I. Gov. Lincoln Chafee's support for in-state tuition for illegal aliens - which was implemented with a lawless decree by Chafee's education "czars" when he failed to get the Legislature to pass the outrageous bill. Local media hailed the "unusually large turnout for a weeknight" at the the State House in Providence, which included many Stand With Arizona activists, along with members of Rhode Island for Immigration Law Enforcement, and average citizens furious at the Obama-style bypassing of elected officials on behalf of illegal aliens....

A longtime federal fugitive who was an undocumented immigrant cost taxpayers more than $350,000 in healthcare at Miami-Dade hospitals before he died last year, a county investigative report has revealed. The Miami-Dade Office of the Inspector General said the patient was a Colombian who fled the United States in 1983 after a cocaine smuggling conviction but returned under a false name. In 26 visits to the Jackson Health System from 2003 through 2010, his care cost $201,716 — $155,334 in charity care paid by Miami-Dade taxpayers and $46,382 paid by Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor. The man also...

Rebates on social security taxes will not create any jobs, let alone the 1.5 million to 2 million that is projected. To create jobs in private business we need structural reforms that will permanently make businesses more competitive such as health care reform and scrapping numerous union work rules. When it comes to public work projects, assuming the projects are needed, the goal should be to get the most work done as possible for the least cost. For example, it would be far better to hire two or three workers for $13 an hour than 1 person for $39 an...

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the Obamacare health reform law. Of that $28.8 million, "approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers," Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com. HRSA is a part of HHS. Andrews said that grant recipients will not check the immigration status of people seeking services. “Health centers do not, as a matter of routine practice, ask...

Benjamin Franklin, regarding the new Republic opined: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” His reference was to individual voters or voting blocs using government to enrich themselves directly. Given the limited powers of the then fledgling Federal Government, he did not envision the “money go round” that permeates and too frequently dominates Washington DC. “Liberals” and their snarky hypocritical ilk controlled the agenda in DC for most years after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s war. That control existed and was kept alive on a sea of Federal largesse and campaign...

Benjamin Franklin, regarding the new Republic opined: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” His reference was to individual voters or voting blocs using government to enrich themselves directly. Given the limited powers of the then fledgling Federal Government, he did not envision the “money go round” that permeates and too frequently dominates Washington DC. “Liberals” and their snarky hypocritical ilk controlled the agenda in DC for most years after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s war. That control existed and was kept alive on a sea of Federal largesse and campaign...