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President Biden on Monday approved an emergency declaration for New York and ordered federal assistance to help respond to the severe winter storm in the western part of the state. His action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts to supplement state and local response efforts in place since the snowstorm hit over the weekend. The federal government can now coordinate disaster relief in 11 New York counties, including Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Cole issued a permanent injunction against a provision in the Biden’s Administration’s “American Rescue Plan” that bans states from cutting taxes. Cole called the ban “an unconstitutional usurpation of state sovereignty.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen labeled the ruling “dangerous. First, tax cuts cause inflation. Neither judges nor state governments are qualified to unilaterally inflict this hardship on the country. Only the federal government has the expertise and scope of authority to do so. Second, no state has standing to challenge this law until we actually withhold federal aid. The fact is, Judge Cole has gone out...

The Biden Administration Department of Health and Human Services announced it will reverse the Trump Administration’s “Protect Life” rule for receiving federal family planning aid, calling it “not in the best interest of public health.” The rule barred the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions and did not require “no kill” family assistance organizations to refer patients to abortion providers. Secretary Xavier Becerra explained that “the entities the Trump rule protected are not entitled to the consideration he mandated. Fetuses have no rights which the government is obligated to respect. The assertion that they are unborn people is debatable....

As Texans reflect and recover from the devastation that came with Hurricane Harvey, comedian Bill Maher told his audience Saturday night that the survivors have no right to ask for federal aid. Texans have a "low tax base," he argued. Oh, and they don't believe in climate change. Why should Washington bail them out? "These places that got flooded, like Texas, okay, they have a low tax base," Maher said on his show "Real Time" on Friday. "So, the federal government bails them out. Their governors, their legislators they don’t believe in climate science.""It seems like the responsible folks in...

California was granted emergency funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Tuesday for both the situation at Lake Oroville and to help with the damage caused by the severe January storms.

Workers left without a job when the state’s last sugar plantation closes this year will be able to get financial help. Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. employees who lose their jobs will be able to get money through a federal program to help replace lost wages, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, announced Monday. About 675 Maui residents work for Hawaii’s last sugar plantation, which plans to end sugar operations by the end of 2016. Under the federal program, workers could receive up to $2,000 a month for a year while they’re retrained for a new job. That’s in addition to...

Two million more young people could get the financial aid they need to go to college if the federal government makes it easier to fill out its financial aid forms, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said Wednesday. The Seattle-based foundation said revising the form would be relatively simple and would not change the accuracy of the process. Students must fill out the form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA before they can qualify for a federal grant, subsidized student loan or nearly any other form of college financial aid. The Gates Foundation has taken...

Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration plans to ask for federal disaster assistance for the record-setting snowstorms that wreaked havoc on Massachusetts and piled up about $400 million in snow removal costs. An administration official tells The Associated Press the governor will be sending a letter to President Barack Obama by the end of this week asking for a disaster declaration for 10 Massachusetts counties. …

Could the time to end federal aid to higher education have long passed? “The federal government has no constitutional authority to do anything with regard to higher education (or any level, for that matter),” George Leef writes in Forbes. “But in 1965, Congress was swarming with ‘progressives’ who were sure that because college seemed to be a good thing for the rather small percentage of Americans who went, the nation would benefit if almost everyone went.” “So the federal policy began to make higher education more ‘accessible’ for students, most significantly through grants and easily available loans. The result was...

Top Obama administration officials will head to Detroit on Friday to announce nearly $320 million in federal and private aid as the city grapples with the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. The aid includes money for housing rehabilitation and demolition, some $30 million targeted to fight crime and reduce the city’s notoriously long emergency response times, and millions more to rehabilitate the city’s transportation network. …

A series of signs critical of President Obama may cost the State of Washington its share of federal aid for highway construction. The signs are on private property but can be seen by travelers on I-5 about 90 miles south of Seattle near the town of Chehalis. “Interstate highways are 90% funded by the federal government,” said USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood. “It is improper that they be exploited for the communication of messages opposing the government.” The Secretary added “we’d regret having to resort to withholding funds, but when people don’t show the appropriate respect for all the President is...

Hurricane Sandy was swirling northward, four days before landfall, and at the Sea Crest Health Care Center, a nursing home overlooking the Coney Island Boardwalk in Brooklyn,workers were gathering medicines and other supplies as they prepared to evacuate. Then the call came from health officials: Mayor....Bloomberg,acting on the advice of his aides and those of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo,recommended that nursing homes and adult homes stay put. The 305 residents would ride out the storm.The same advisory also took administrators by surprise at the Ocean Promenade nursing home,which faces the Atlantic Ocean in Queens. They canceled plans to move 105...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has reacted angrily to a fight brewing in Washington over whether Hurricane Irene disaster aid may need to be offset by federal spending cuts. The Republican governor told a news conference Wednesday in the flood-ravaged town of Lincoln Park he doesn’t want to hear that offsetting budget cuts have to come before aid is distributed. He says no such discussion was held when help went to Joplin, Mo., where a deadly May tornado damaged 7,500 homes.

Liberty University, the Christian evangelical college founded by the late television pastor and pro-family spokesman Jerry Falwell as an extension of his Lynchburg, Virginia congregation in 1971, has taken its place as the nation’s eighth largest, four-year university and the largest private four-year, non-profit university in the United States, the school announced in a press release on March 28. The designation came from the most recent data released by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The university exploded from its ranking as the 25th largest liberal arts school to number eight in just one year, largely...

In yet another attempt to avoid being judged by tangible standards like everyone else, some colleges are fighting legislation designed to hold them accountable for their efforts. “For-profit colleges, under attack in Congress and faced with regulation that could ravage their revenues, are staging an aggressive, but increasingly hopeless, campaign to ward off legislation and defeat a proposed rule,” Kelly Field reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 10, 2010. “In recent weeks, their representatives have filed thousands of comments criticizing the Education Department’s ‘gainful employment’ rule, which would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates...

From a distance the teardrop-shaped peninsula looks just like any other bit of the famed Hamptons shoreline. Thick woods crowd down to the water's edge, and through the trees houses and roads can be glimpsed. But this land is not part of the Hamptons, neither is it really part of the United States any more. This patch – in the middle of the playground to Manhattan's social elite – is proudly and fiercely Native American country. Almost four centuries since their first contact with the white man and after a 32-year court battle that has just ended in victory, the...

Calling into The Sue Jeffers Show on KTLK-FM in Minneapolis on Saturday, state senate candidate Norann Dillon shared an astute analogy for the hidden cost of state's accepting federal money. The topic at hand was Minnesota's expanding light rail system, the construction of which is highly subsidized by federal grants. Acknowledging the tendency of state legislators to regard available federal dollars as "free money," Dillon compared a more common transaction. It's the reason my kids are always so impressed when they see the new mobile phones come out and they say, "Oh look! They're free!" Well, there's a reason why....

Tens of billions of dollars in federal economic aid has created or saved 250,000 education jobs, the Obama administration announced Monday, although states and school systems continue to face enormous fiscal pressures. The figures in the report issued by the White House and the Education Department do not address how many education jobs have been cut this year because of the recession, nor do they project how many are in jeopardy in the coming year. States from coast to coast are warning of education funding troubles ahead. This month, D.C. school officials laid off more than 380 teachers and other...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday the federal government should give money to states as part of a financial stimulus package, and he insisted that such assistance would not be a bailout. "We are also asking the federal government to help," Schwarzenegger told the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce. "Because we all know, and this is another thing we have been fighting for the last five years since I have come into office, they are giving us only 80 cents on the dollar. And there's some $40-some billion they are holding back. So it's not like we are asking for...

Federal Spending & Budget Issues August 30, 2007 THE BIG EASY'S BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE The idea of using federal money to rebuild cities is the quintessential liberal vision. And given the dreadful results in New Orleans, we can say that the government's billions spent so far represents the quintessential failure of that liberal vision, says Lawrence Kudlow, host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company. Consider: So far, the federal government has spent $127 billion (including tax relief) on post-Katrina New Orleans. The entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Department...