Free Republic

If we don’t stop our runaway national debt, it will require much higher taxes and dramatic cuts in spending.Last September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted the federal debt wouldn’t hit $29 trillion until 2028. Just short of a year later, the national debt stands at $28.6 trillion and is set to surpass $29 trillion within weeks.Since Congress hasn’t yet enacted all its new spending proposals, the CBO debt estimates don’t yet include them. The $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill still has to pass the House, and a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill will add to the current budget. The proposed...

The current U.S. budget deficit could soon exceed a record $4 trillion. The massive borrowing is being driven both by prior budget profligacy and a hurried effort by the Donald Trump administration to pump liquidity into a quarantined America. The shutdown has left the country on the cusp of a self-inflicted economic collapse not seen since the Great Depression. Americans may soon have to service a staggering national debt of about $30 trillion -- nearly $100,000 of debt for every American. Democrats and Republicans can blame each other, either for spending too much or for too little taxation, or both....

The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday unveiled new rules that would allow small businesses and entrepreneurs to join together to form their own health insurance pools. The rules, which will be open to a 60 day public comment period, are a direct response to President Donald Trump's executive order on health care, which would expand health associations and allow people participating in the groups to buy insurance that does not meet all of the coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. "Under the proposal, small businesses and sole proprietors would have more freedom to band...

The Interior Department won’t be removing monuments to Confederate soldiers at national battlefields that are “an important part of our country’s history,” according to a spokesman. “The National Park Service is committed to safeguarding these memorials while simultaneously educating visitors holistically and objectively about the actions, motivations and causes of the soldiers and states they commemorate,” spokesman Jeremy Barnum told E&E News. National Park statements come after a woman was killed counter-protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. The city voted to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

A State Department spokesperson clarified Thursday that Hillary Clinton’s 2009 ethics pledge—to avoid conflicts of interest with the Clinton Foundation—did not extend to Clinton’s top aides at the Department. Spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau was asked about recently revealed emails that showed top members of Hillary Clinton’s staff doing favors for Clinton Foundation associates. “I’m not going to speak to specific emails, but I think you guys know State Department officials are regularly in touch with a wide variety of outside individuals and organizations including businesses, nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks,” Trudeau replied. “You don’t feel like there was impropriety in the relationship

State Department officials are attempting to block multiple lawsuits seeking Bill Clinton's speech schedules by redacting the documents heavily or withholding them until after the election. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee has yielded just 14 pages of schedules so far, most of which were redacted beyond coherence, said Raj Shah, an RNC spokesman. And on Monday, the State Department provided Politico with 1,000 pages of documents — most of which were redacted entirely and contained only text that read "Page Denied" — in response to a request filed more than six years ago....

The State Department is using American taxpayer dollars to finance Palestinian Arabs celebrating violent attacks on Israelis and advocating a boycott of Israel and the division of its capital city. Where’s the outrage? Not in the New York Times, which treats the topic as subject for a light-toned feature article about what it describes as a Palestinian “reality television show.” The show features contestants who “run” for the job of Palestinian president. The Times article reports that “the three finalists all had similar platforms: Boycott Israel. Designate East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.” Later, the Times reports, almost in...

Newly unsealed court documents obtained by Fox News show a State Department contractor allegedly was paid thousands by an individual thought to be a Chinese agent in exchange for information on Americans -- but despite an FBI probe, the Justice Department declined to prosecute. A November 2014 FBI affidavit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, shows the bureau investigated the contractor for her admitted contact with individuals she believed to be Chinese intelligence officers. The affidavit from agent Timothy S. Pappa states the translator, Xiaoming Gao, was paid "thousands of dollars to provide information on...

Martha MacCallum grilled State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf tonight on the administration’s refusal to use the term “Islamic extremism.” Martha MacCallum: Every time we see this exchange it seems like the answer is so tortured. Its so difficult to say what everyone around the world feels so clearly it is. Leaders have said in Canada, and Australia and Paris where they have felt it so personally, they’ve all said quite clearly that the battle is against Islamic extremism. Why is that so hard to say? Marie Harf: “Well, it’s not hard to say but it’s not the only type...

Earlier today, President Barack Obama said that America’s goal should be to “shrink” the Islamic State until it is a “manageable problem.” His own vice president, Joe Biden, later contradicted him, saying that we will “follow ISIS to the gates of Hell, because Hell is where they will reside.” This afternoon, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did a “what he really meant to say” routine.

The State Department claimed Wednesday that they have been “looking at” developing a long-term strategy to fight ISIL in both Iraq and Syria for a year. The United States has stressed repeatedly that its current limited missions in Iraq against ISIL are not long-term solutions. “We are looking long-term at how we fight ISIL,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. Asked by a reporter to clarify, Harf said, “We’ve been looking at that for quite some time. That’s not new.” “We’ve been looking at that for months and months, even before the latest offenses that started in June against Mosul...

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said her department was “deeply troubled” by Israel’s strike on a Gaza power plant, continuing an ongoing trend of Kerry’s State Department obliquely criticizing Israel’s actions. “We’re deeply troubled by the humanitarian impact of reduced electricity in Gaza,” Psaki told reporters, “particularly for emergency services, and urge all parties to respect the civilian nature of these facilities.”

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Richard Stengel gave a peculiar apology to outraged Twitter users on Sunday after he tweeted #UnitedForGaza to his 15,000 followers. In a tweet directed to the State Department, Mr. Stengel said, “Critical for a full, credible and unimpeded intl investigation of crash. Urge Russia to honor it’s [sic] commitment,” Twitchy first reported. After receiving swift backlash, the tweet was deleted, and Mr. Stengel sent out a terse explanation. “Earlier tweet with wrong hashtag was a mistake. My bad,” he said. (Snip) Twitter users weren’t buying Mr. Stengel’s apology.

Can anyone recall another instance outside of Israel in which the government of the United States went out of its way not to blame a terrorist organization for a terror attack? Encouraging restraint from both the Israeli government— livid over the finding of the bodies of the missing on Monday, vowing to exact justice on the perpetrators— and from the Palestinian leadership, some of whom are calling the trial an Israeli conspiracy, and all of whom are bracing for reprisal, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters that the US is intimate with intelligence on the case, in...

State Department counterterrorism officials warned in late April that Iran had “trained, funded, and provided guidance” to ethnic Iraqi terror groups bent on destabilizing the country. The April warning appears to directly contradict and undermine comments last week by a State Department spokeswoman claiming that the United States and Iran have a “shared interest.” As Iraqi militants continue to wage attacks and seize territory, the State Department has signaled that it is willing to work with neighboring Iran to stabilize the country. They have even raised the idea of discussing Iraq on the sidelines of the ongoing nuclear discussions taking...

Just three days after the State Department issued a travel warning for Ukraine, it began promoting a campaign urging Americans to visit the country, prompting confusion and concern from some foreign policy observers. The State Department issued a Ukraine travel warning on March 21 warning “U.S. citizens to defer all non-essential travel to Ukraine and to defer all travel to the Crimean Peninsula and eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Lugansk due to the presence of Russian military forces in the Crimean Peninsula, and in Russia near the Ukrainian border.” Three days after that warning was issued the State Department’s...

If a family were to purchase a home with a $200,000 mortgage at 2.5% to be paid off in 15 years, the monthly payment would be $1333.57, or $16,003 per year. If a government owes a debt of $17 Trillion on which it pays principle and interest at a rate of 2.5% to be paid off in 15 years, the monthly payment would be $113.35 Billion, or $1.36 Trillion per year. So after 180 monthly payments the total payoff would be $20.4 Trillion, but let’s not get too deep into the weeds. The USA is averaging a deficit of about...

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned President Bashar al-Assad Monday, but left the door open for portions of the government to remain in place if Assad were to be removed from office. The State Department believes this is best way to proceed while Syria is dismantling its chemical weapons in order to avoid a ‘complete political implosion.’ Below is a transcript of the exchange: Q: — even more so. So if you begin to dismantle that in this crucial time where you want to make sure that the chemical weapons really will not get out to anyone else, isn’t it...

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not directly deny to reporters Wednesday that Benghazi survivors were being withheld from testifying before Congress, suggesting instead that House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is mistaken to assume any of the survivors do want to testify. Psaki went on the defensive Wednesday when Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asserted that she was giving contradictory statements concerning the Benghazi survivors. Psaki said these survivors were still involved in the criminal investigation surrounding the attacks which happened a year ago Wednesday, and it would endanger the lives of the survivors and their families to reveal...

U.S. Department of Defense education materials obtained by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, warn of “extremists” that will “talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.” Judicial Watch and other conservative media outlets claim the disclosure indicates the department is teaching that conservative views are “extremist” in nature. The guide is reportedly authored by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, a Defense Department-funded diversity training center. Further, the documents cite the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) when identifying “hate groups.”