Free Republic

President Donald Trump has an opportunity to do what Congress should be doing, but isn’t: Help Americans who are on food stamps transition to work.The farm bill—which reauthorizes the foods stamp program for five years—would have been a prime opportunity for Congress to enhance work requirements. Under current law, certain work-capable adults must work 20 or more hours per week, participate in a supervised job search or training, or volunteer in their communities in order to receive food stamps.Most food stamp recipients are exempt from these requirements. These include people over 50 years old, the disabled, and minor children and...

Greetings all: Here are my ideas for tax reform: Two brackets: 15% and 28% (instead of 12% and 25%), with said 15% bracket covering an amount of income equal to that taxed for Social Security (2X that for married couples and 1.5X that for head of household). There would be no higher 3rd, 4th or 5th brackets. Standard deduction of $12,000 ($24,000 for married couples, $18,000 for head of household), but keeping the personal and dependent exemptions (currently $4,050 apiece), with dependents including all dependents, not just children. Get rid of ALL deductions and credits, except for charitable giving and...

Bold tax reform got a big boost on Wednesday. Leaders in the House, the Senate, and the White House have all agreed on a tax outline, meaning a true update to our broken tax system could be imminent. First, the GOP tax plan framework would lower taxes for individual Americans. It would double the standard deduction for individuals and thereby expand the zero-percent bracket, and it would create three income tax brackets (down from seven): 12, 25, and 35 percent, respectively. Most simply, this will allow all Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets. Importantly, the...

Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., argued Monday that President Trump should follow through on his weekend threat and cancel all subsidies that federal lawmakers get to buy insurance under Obamacare. He also said killing lawmakers' subsidies might be the best way to kill Obamacare. "I think if he moves swiftly on it, I think you'd see a lot of these members and senators, they would want to work to repeal Obamacare very quickly," DeSantis said on Fox News. Trump tweeted Saturday that if Congress can't pass a healthcare bill, "bailouts for members of Congress will end very soon!" Trump reiterated the...

Full title: New Homeland Security Records Reveal Top Officials Were Exempted from Strict Ban Placed on Web-Based Personal Email Accounts Despite Heightened Security Concerns Jeh Johnson granted special waiver on first day of official ban. Practice Continued Even After Clinton Email Revelations. (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced it obtained 693 pages of Department of Homeland Security records revealing that Secretary Jeh Johnson and 28 other agency officials used government computers to access personal web-based email accounts despite an agency-wide ban due to heightened security concerns. The documents also reveal that Homeland Security officials misled Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)...

Want proof taxes can actually go down? In the last three years, nine states have eliminated or lowered their estate taxes, mostly by raising exemptions. And more reductions are coming. Minnesota lawmakers recently raised the state’s estate-tax exemption to $2.1 million retroactive to January, and the exemption will rise to $2.4 million next year. Maryland will raise its $3 million exemption to $4 million next year. New Jersey’s exemption, which used to rank last at $675,000 per person, rose to $2 million per person this year. Next year New Jersey is scheduled to eliminate its estate tax altogether, joining about...

The U.S. Department of Education published Friday a list of faith-based colleges and universities that requested and were granted a religious exemption from Title IX. LGBT activist groups have been calling on the government to publish the list as part of a shaming campaign called the "Shame List" to pressure Christian colleges to consent to their agenda. The document reveals that an increasing number of colleges are seeking exemptions, and that evangelical Wheaton College is not on the list. As of April 1, as many as 232 colleges have obtained exemption from Title IX while 31 requests are pending, according...

David Cameron has vowed to resist plans by the European Union to bar Britain from waiving VAT on food, medicine and children's clothing, a senior EU official said. Pierre Moscovici, the Economics Commissioner, said that Britain's "zero rate" for VAT on a number of items is "not the best idea" and suggested it will be looked at as part of a review by the European Commission. It will fuel controversy as David Cameron holds a series of meetings as he prepares to call a referendum on Britain's continued membership of the of the European Union. ...

Dr. Ben Carson, a likely 2016 GOP presidential contenders, believes there should be no “philosophical” or “religious” exemptions for vaccinations. “Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society,” Carson told The Hill. “Certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country and we should not allow those diseases to return by foregoing safe immunization programs, for philosophical, religious or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them.”

If there is one thing consistent about the tides of the culture wars, it is that whenever one side is emboldened, it inevitably leads to overreach. The secular Left is proving this point with gusto in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to nationalize gay marriage, calling for the removal of tax exemptions for churches and religious non-profits who continue to hold the tired old definition of marriage that existed all the way up until yesterday. This step, which would crush the budgets of many churches and non-profits, reveals an amusing hypocrisy of the modern Left’s turn against civil...

From Mark Oppenheimer in Time: Two weeks ago, with a decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on the way, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) 100% of Utah introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which ensures that religious institutions won’t lose their tax exemptions if they don’t support same-sex marriage. Liberals tend to think Sen. Lee’s fears are unwarranted, and they can even point to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Friday’s case, which promises “that religious organizations and persons [will be] given proper protection.” But I don’t think Sen. Lee is crazy. In the 1983 Bob Jones University case, the court ruled that...

Within hours of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, an array of conservatives including the governors of Texas and Louisiana and religious groups called for stronger legal protections for those who want to avoid any involvement in same-sex marriage, like catering a gay wedding or providing school housing to gay couples, based on religious beliefs. They demanded establishing clear religious exemptions from discrimination laws, tax penalties or other government regulations for individuals, businesses and religious-affiliated institutions wishing to avoid endorsing such marriages.

The rash of tough pro-vaccine bills that infected state legislatures after the Disneyland measles outbreak has largely faded, and based on the uproar in California, it’s not hard to see why. The state capitol has been flooded off and on for months with parental-choice advocates drawing thousands for protests against Senate Bill 277, which would eliminate personal belief or religious exemptions and require all children without a medical exemption to be vaccinated before entering public school. And the outcry has only grown louder as the bill nears passage, spreading beyond the issue of vaccination safety and morphing into a full-blown...

Big hotels in Los Angeles will soon be required to pay at least $15.37 an hour to their workers... Hotels that have a unionized workforce can be exempted from paying the $15.37 hourly wage, if workers agree in their contract to relinquish that opportunity.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wants to know why members of Congress and their staff are exempted from Obamacare. “Washington insiders should be forced to live under Obamacare just like the rest of America without a special taxpayer funded subsidy,” says @DavidVitter Vitter, who launched an investigation this week, said in a statement that “false information may have been filed with the D.C. Health Benefits Exchange to allow Congress to be exempt from [the] Obamacare exchange.” The chairman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee cited a court filing obtained by Judicial Watch that admits Congress—with more than 16,000 employees—doesn’t fit...

A high school curriculum supported by Hobby Lobby chain president Steve Green, billed as a way to teach archaeology, history and the arts through Bible stories, also tells students God is always there in times of trouble and that sinners must “suffer the consequences” of disobeying. The Mustang School Board in suburban Oklahoma City voted this month to place the Museum of the Bible’s curriculum in its schools as an elective for a one-year trial after being assured that the intent is not to proselytize but to use the Bible to explain key principles in the arts and sciences. While...

The Treasury said Friday it will not count “nominally compensated” volunteer firefighters or emergency medical services personnel as full-time employees when the employer mandate tied to Obamacare takes effect next year. In a blog post, the department said it reviewed the tax code and concluded it would not be reasonable to count first-responder volunteers against the law’s threshold of 50 employees. [Snip] The Treasury made its latest decision after accepting feedback from local fire and EMS departments.

Ever heard of a federal law 42 USC § 18115: Freedom Not to Participate in Federal Health Insurance Programs? I haven’t either.But thanks to FOTM reader Joseph, now we all do!This is how Cornell University Law School’s website describes 42 USC § 18115: No individual, company, business, nonprofit entity, or health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall be required to participate in any Federal health insurance program created under this Act(or any amendments made by this Act), or in any Federal health insurance program expanded by this Act (or any such amendments), and there shall be no penalty or fine imposed upon any such...

This week the Obama Administration granted yet another exemption from compliance with the Affordable Care Act. Using the “hardship clause” of the Act, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ruled that “those whose previous insurance was canceled and who are unable to buy qualifying policies may buy substandard policies for the next year.” Sebelius admitted that “it's a bit ironic that our effort to push everyone into quality insurance plans has actually resulted in fewer people having health insurance than before the Affordable Care Act took effect. Among the more obedient segment of the population, the failures of the...

Sen. David Vitter wants to put the klieg lights on any member of Congress who decides that certain staff members are not “official,” a maneuver that would exempt the employee from entering a health exchange tied to Obamacare as mandated by the 2010 law. Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican, filed the Show Your Exemption Act on Thursday to force lawmakers to reveal how they designate each of their staffers. Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, wrote an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that placed members of Congress and their staffs in the state-based insurance markets, or exchanges, set up by the...