Free Republic

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill that would create a state-based guaranteed income program. State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) sponsors Senate Bill 3462, which calls on Illinois to adopt such a program after the 2027 calendar year. Through this legislation, residents who meet certain qualifications would be eligible for monthly $1,000 cash payments, regardless of immigration status. It’s unclear how long the payments would last. According to the bill’s language, those potentially eligible for $1,000 cash payments include people who: Provide care for a child or other specified dependent Recently gave birth or adopted a child Enroll...

Houston’s Democratic mayor has admitted that his city, the fourth largest in the U.S., is in millions of dollars worth of debt and cannot afford to pay for firefighters. Mayor John Whitmire, elected after defeating Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee last year, sounded the alarm about his city’s money woes in a meeting. As the city now faces a deficit of $160 million, Whitmireis proposes spending cuts and tax increases to tackle the massive damage done by his Democratic predecessors.

Mayor John Whitmire proposing a 5% cut across the board, except for fire and police departments.. Tax hikes and increased fees for parking and city services are likely .. The Mayor of Houston says the city is 'broke' after overspending for decades. Experts say the problem has existed for years, but COVID handouts from the federal government helped mask them. ... A tax hike through a bond is expected in November. ... The city has been struggling to make firefighters whole, from meeting its contractual obligation to their pension, to paying backpay and wage hikes that have been promised years...

With a $650 payment for 72 months, this is going to be one expensive Toyota CamryYour twenties are the perfect time to screw up and try to get your xxxx figured out. Sometimes it takes getting to the rock bottom before you can dig yourself out of it. For the sake of everyone involved here, I hope this young woman on Caleb Hammer’s Financial Audit show has reached her bottom and will find a way to get her life turned around. Right now, it seems like the best first step would be to sell her car and find her way...

Why did this budget pass? I thought half the GOP member were opposed to it. Shouldn’t speaker Johnson be fired for pushing through legislation that more than half the GOP members were opposed to? When will a Speaker with balls come along and gladly shut down the government? They need to embrace it. They have to say “Yes, I know hundreds of thousands of government workers will lose their jobs…I know Veterans will not receive services…I know some American families will be significantly hurt by a government shutdown…but we want to do it anyway. We want to do it because...

In their annual one-house budget resolutions, Democratic majorities in the state Assembly and Senate laid out their negotiating position for this year’s budget deal with Gov. Hochul. They’ve decided to spend more — $13 billion more than the governor’s already-record $233 billion executive budget. And tax high earners and corporations more too, despite Hochul’s opposition.

A president’s budget proposal is seldom passed into law. Instead, it’s an expression of the priorities the president promises to fight for, often coming on the heels of an agenda laid out in the State of the Union address. In his recent State of the Union speech, President Biden previewed his economically populist priorities when he said “the days of trickle-down economics are over.” Trickle-down refers to the idea that tax cuts for the wealthiest “trickle down” to the rest of us. It’s long been a popular idea in Washington, but it’s just not true. A few years ago, the...

The majority of New York City public libraries will be forced to cut their hours yet again and open just five days a week if Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed $58.3 million budget cuts go ahead, the presidents of the Big Apple’s three library systems warned Tuesday. Since November, the city’s more than 200 public library branches have already been shut every Sunday to offset the surging cost of the local migrant crisis. On Tuesday, the presidents of the New York, Brooklyn and Queens Public Library systems laid bare the possible further reduction in services as they testified during a City...

President Joe Biden’s staffers are asking Congress for more than $13 billion in taxpayer funds to help move many more economic migrants into homes and workplaces in American communities.Much of the money will be used to bail out the sanctuary cities that help displace Americans by welcoming migrants who serve as lower-wage workers, apartment-sharing renters, and taxpayer-aided consumers.The 2025 funding is being requested by two pro-migration cabinet members — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas, the Cuba-born head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Kudlow calls out Biden's economic agenda Congratulations to President Joe Biden, who continues to believe that he can tax the country into prosperity. I say "congrats, Joe" because the entire history of tax hikes shows the revenue increases never pan out. The economy is depressed. Investment falters and, if that weren't enough, you would be emulating western Europe which has been taxing itself into recession for many decades including now. If it's not exactly big government socialism, it sure comes close, doesn't it? Proud of you, Mr. President! You never miss a progressive beat. By the way, I don't want...

WASHINGTON — The US Air Force will request a total of $188.1 billion in the 2025 fiscal year, part of a budget submission that asks lawmakers to greenlight the retirement of 250 aircraft, officials revealed today. In a Friday briefing with reporters ahead of the budget release, Kristyn Jones, who is performing the duties of the Air Force Undersecretary, said that the service’s budget would grow by about 1.6% compared to the FY24 request of $185.1 billion, an increase of $3 billion. For the Department of the Air Force (DAF), which includes the Space Force, the DAF’s topline would grow...

President Joe Biden on Monday released a $7.3 trillion budget proposal, which sparked swift opposition from congressional Republicans. The proposed $7.3 trillion budget is for fiscal year 2025, which will run from October 2024 through September 2025. It contains many of Biden's 2024 campaign promises, such as tax credits and increased taxes on the wealthy, per Axios.

CHICAGO (CBS) – In the past nearly year-and-a-half, Chicago has spent nearly $300 million responding to the ongoing migrant crisis, according to the city's latest numbers. That number does not include the cost incurred by other agencies like Chicago Public Schools, the Department of Streets and Sanitation, or Cook County Health. About $206 million of the total has gone to Favorite Healthcare Staffing to operate the city-run shelters. The group has come under scrutiny by some aldermen who have said the city was paying them too much.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced the city’s decision to scale back migrant services by consolidating shelters to save millions of dollars. The plan involves closing one shelter per week over the next month to reduce the budget deficit by nearly $60 million. Johnston emphasized that no one will be kicked out, but rather moved to other shelters.

The United States Senate has passed a stop-gap piece of spending legislation meant to buy legislators another week, as Congress seeks to hammer out details of a second set of appropriations bills in March. via ABC News:The final vote tally was 77-13. The measure now heads to the president's desk.[...]The new funding deadlines for the government spending bills are now March 8 and March 22.Congress will now return next week to finish working on the first tranche of six funding bills that are due by March 8.As we wrote earlier on Thursday, the House passed a similar bill by Republican...

Afederal judge on Tuesday ruled that the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives acted unconstitutionally in December 2022 when it passed a $1.7 trillion federal budget. U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix ruled that Pelosi, then speaker of the House, violated the Constitution by allowing members to vote without actually being at the Capitol for the Dec. 23 session at which the budget was adopted, according to Reuters. At the time of the budget’s passing, CNBC referred to the action as “the final major achievement” of Pelosi’s term as speaker of the House. The budget passed 225-201. At the time...

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...

New York City Democrat Mayor Eric Adams said this week that illegal alien crime in the city is getting so bad, officials need to look at modifying the city’s sanctuary status so that local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration officials to deport violent criminals.“We should not be allowing people who are repeatedly committing crimes to remain here and we cannot collaborate with ICE in the process,” Adams said on Monday. “Those who are committing crimes, we need to modify the sanctuary city law. If you commit a felony, a violent act, we should be able to turn you...

A cash-strapped Colorado city signaled it would not support any more migrants shipped to the Denver suburb from around the country — with one official stressing, “We just don’t have the money.” The Aurora City Council approved a resolution 7-3 that made clear the city of close to 400,000 people would not provide housing or other resources to migrants, as well as homeless people, who are bused to the district, the Denver Post reported. The action came the same week that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott boasted about sending about 16,500 migrants from the Lone Star State to Denver, which is...

Hundreds of migrants were dropped off on the side of the road in San Diego, California, on Friday after funding for a reception center ran dry, according to The Associated Press. Border Patrol buses dropped off hundreds of migrants from places like China, Kazakhstan, Ecuador and Rwanda, among other countries, at a San Diego bus stop instead of a county-funded reception center that closed down Thursday after running out of funds, the AP reported. The reception center was run by SBCS, a local nonprofit formerly known as South Bay Community Services, which San Diego County gave $6 million to provide...