Free Republic

Congressional leaders in the House and Senate have reached a deal on a spate of appropriations bills, clearing the way for a short-term spending patch that would extend funding deadlines further into March. Appropriators finalized the agreement on Wednesday, two sources told the Washington Examiner, just three days before the government is set to enter a partial shutdown. The proposal would maintain the two-pronged deadlines Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has advocated but would extend the dates slightly to give lawmakers time to finalize the legislative text and bring them to the floor for votes. “We are in agreement that Congress...

This is certainly not a knock against Thomas Sowell (he holds a special place in my heart), and this is not to discourage anyone from reading one of his most recognized and invaluable works, Basic Economics, but it is a giant book, and for the less-informed intellectual slowpokes of the left, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to get through it So, let’s just go with Afuera101, and use new Argentinian president Javier Milei’s budget cuts as a very simple illustration of what the first course of action should be for a political executive who wants to save an economy: slash...

In many ways, Speaker Johnson didn’t bail out Democrats from a tough political predicament as much as he did his own Republican members.The outline of the spending agreement House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cut with Democratic leaders sounds bad on its face. But the underlying reasons for that agreement seem far worse.As I wrote last week, “Speaker Johnson and Republican ‘leadership’ … bailed the Democrats out of the predicament they put themselves in last May.” To which I should make an important addition: In many ways, Johnson didn’t bail out Democrats from a tough political predicament as much as he...

The late Rush Limbaugh had a way of summarizing the issues in a concise, pithy way. On matters regarding the armed services, he would always remind his audience that “the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.” That’s not to say that there aren’t a thousand specific details about the military that are worth talking about. We have to discuss the force strength levels in peacetime and the force strength levels in time of war. We have to hammer out how much to pay the enlisted men and the officers, the infantry and the artillery, the...

Changes to a popular 401(K) tax deduction are set to hit millions of high-earning Americans from next year. Workers over the aged of 50 are entitled to make catch-up contributions to their 401(K)s worth up to $7,500 this year. The annual cap on all contributions is $30,000. But from 2024, those earning over $145,000 will no longer be able to put these catch-up payments into a traditional 401(K). Instead, the money will be only funneled into a Roth IRA account, according to new rules passed through Congress in December. The main difference between a Roth account and a 401(K) pot...

The Dollar-For-Dollar Deficit Reduction Act proposed by elected Republicans is a sham. It requires the executive branch to propose spending reductions over a ten-year period for the same amount the debt ceiling is raised. Let’s consider some cases for a minute. The deficit spending in 2022 was almost $1.4 trillion. In the first case, let’s assume the debt ceiling is raised by $1.4 trillion. This means the administration needs to have no spending reductions. And we continue to add to the debt by at least the $1.4 trillion. In the second case, let’s assume the debt ceiling is raised by...

Perhaps annual increases for a number of years of the debt limit could be traded for partial ratification of a federal expenditure control amendment such as: If any fiscal year after September 2032 ends in the red, all persons elected to a term of federal office encompassing any portion of that fiscal year shall be forever barred from from obtaining another federal position, another term or any federal origin payment or benefit of any type. I believe most Republican-run states would ratify such an amendment. To make it likely that it gets ratified by at least 38 states, the debt...

Rep. Alex Mooney proposes the United States adopt a new gold standard after U.S. government officials first disclose all gold holdings and secret gold transactions, allowing the gold price to adjust to its fair market value. WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / October 9, 2022 / America's currency would regain stable footing for the first time in half a century if a bill just introduced by U.S. Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) becomes law. Referred to as the "Gold Standard Restoration Act" by sound money activists, H.R. 9157 calls for the repegging of the Federal Reserve note to gold in order to...

This Fourth of July, watching people fight over what the Constitution means, I ask people, if you could change the Constitution, what would you change?"The forefathers knew what they were doing," said one woman.But the Constitution originally accepted slavery. It's good that we can amend it.So what should we change?"Add a balanced budget amendment," suggests Glenn Beck.David Boaz of the Cato Institute recommends 18-year terms for the Supreme Court. "Maybe confirmation fights would be less bitter and partisan."Others suggest term limits for Congress. Stossel TV's Mike Ricci takes the idea further. "If your father, mother, siblings, uncle, cousins were elected...

North Dakota has joined 26 other states in passing a resolution calling for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, though some Republican lawmakers feel it doesn’t go far enough to rein in Congress and other branches of the federal government. The state Senate passed a resolution Tuesday asking Congress to call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing an amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. “If we want fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C., it has to come from the states. We have to be bold in our approach to them,” said Sen. Dick Dever, R-Bismarck, a sponsor...

Seven years after running for president as the GOP standard bearer, U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney on Monday described himself as a “renegade Republican” and said that he is “not part of the Republican establishment these days.” In a wide-ranging speech at the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank in Salt Lake City, Utah’s junior senator argued against “socialist” proposals being discussed on the Democratic presidential debate stage such as “Medicare for All” and free college tuition. He also lamented that “neither party is interested in talking about the debt and the deficit.” “I guess I should consider myself a renegade...

This year, Sen. Rand Paul's (R–Ky.) effort to balance the federal budget didn't even get a floor vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. Paul's so-called "Pennies Plan" failed a procedural vote on Monday evening when only 22 senators voted in favor of a cloture motion that would have brought the bill to a final vote. A majority of Republicans and all Democrats voted against proceeding to a floor vote on the bill. It's another sign that fiscal responsibility is all but dead in Congress, even as the national debt heads toward record highs and the budget deficit approaches $1 trillion this...

If Congress doesn’t act, Americans’ taxes will automatically increase in the coming years. The 2017 tax cuts are temporary, and some of those taxes are scheduled to start increasing in three years’ time. Last year, American families of four saw their taxes cut by an average of $3,000. The typical taxpayers benefited from getting to keep about $1,400 more of their hard-earned money. One of the most important parts of the tax cuts, which support new business investments for workers and jobs, begins to expire after 2022. Three years after that, taxes increase on personal income. As deficits increase to...

As news circulated Tuesday that President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., are eyeing a $2 trillion infrastructure spending package, the House Republican Study Committee introduced a budget proposal that recognizes that America’s $22 trillion—and rapidly growing—national debt is unsustainable, and that Congress must change course. “Preserving American Freedom,” the Republican Study Committee’s comprehensive fiscal 2020 budget proposal, would rein in Washington’s spending addiction by prioritizing core constitutional functions. By reducing inappropriate and wasteful spending and right-sizing the federal government, the committee’s proposal would balance the budget in six years and start...

Some people have called for a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution as a means of reining in a big-spending Congress. That’s a misguided vision, for the simple reason that in any real economic sense, as opposed to an accounting sense, the federal budget is always balanced. The value of what we produced in 2017—our gross domestic product—totaled about $19 trillion. If the Congress spent $4 trillion of the $19 trillion that we produced, unless you believe in Santa Claus, you know that Congress must force us to spend $4 trillion less privately. Taxing us is one way that Congress...

Some people have called for a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution as a means of reining in a big-spending Congress. That's a misguided vision, for the simple reason that in any real economic sense, as opposed to an accounting sense, the federal budget is always balanced. The value of what we produced in 2017 -- our gross domestic product -- totaled about $19 trillion. If the Congress spent $4 trillion of the $19 trillion that we produced, unless you believe in Santa Claus, you know that Congress must force us to spend $4 trillion less privately. Taxing us is...

Some people have called for a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution as a means of reining in a big-spending Congress. That's a misguided vision, for the simple reason that in any real economic sense, as opposed to an accounting sense, the federal budget is always balanced. The value of what we produced in 2017 — our gross domestic product — totaled about $19 trillion. If the Congress spent $4 trillion of the $19 trillion that we produced, unless you believe in Santa Claus, you know that Congress must force us to spend $4 trillion less privately. Taxing us is...

The State Senate of Tennessee has laid the legislative groundwork for something that hasn't been done in the United States of America since the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. With a vote of 27-3, the Tennessee Senate has voted to call a "convention of the states" in order to draft and pass an amendment to the Constitution that would require balanced budgets to be passed every year. For those who are little fuzzy on their high school U.S. history knowledge, the Tennessean explains that the U.S. Constitution can be amended in two ways. The first would require a two-thirds...

BILLINGS -- As bipartisan crowd-pleasers go, few get Montanans nodding more approvingly than calls for a balanced federal budget, which is why U.S. Sen. Steve Daines recently offered a bill forcing his peers to go unpaid unless they reign in spending. “As I travel around Montana, as I did in December wrapping up a 56-county tour, when I talk about this bill, it’s a bill that will literally bring applause from across the state,” Daines told The Gazette. The state of Montana balances its budget. The federal government should do the same, or so goes the narrative that literally every...

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped South Carolina GOP Rep. Mick Mulvaney as his budget director, naming a tough-on-spending conservative and an advocate of balancing the federal budget to the important post. An official on Trump’s transition team, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter before it is officially announced, confirmed Trump’s pick Friday evening. Mulvaney, 49, was elected in the 2010 tea party wave and is a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, whose members pushed former Speaker John Boehner from power and have caused heartburn for current Speaker Paul Ryan. He is one of the...