Free Republic

$900B COVID-19 Aid Bill Will Give Illegal Aliens $1,800 Checks While U.S. Citizens Get Only $600The bipartisan $900 billion coronavirus aid bill is just one giant F-you to American taxpayers."Family members of unauthorized immigrants are now eligible to get stimulus checks under the $900 billion deal reached last night," the Wall Street Journal's Michelle Hackman reported Monday. "That eligibility is retroactive, so adults excluded last time could get up to $1800 now."But wait...there's more! The Stimulus Bill:The gov't closes the economy. You lose your job. You face eviction.$600 for all your troubles. Meanwhile they send:$135 million to Burma$85.5 million to...

Joe Biden has been talking about the Biden/Harris campaign's effort to help American manufacturing, in the form of a $700 billion spending bill, essentially a repackaged version of an economic program that Senator Elizabeth Warren ran on in the primaries. The program, as Mr. Biden describes it, is a combination of $400 billion focused on federal purchases of goods, and $300 billion focused on federal grants and partnerships for research and development. On the surface, this doesn’t sound entirely bad. It’s not innovative either; presidents always propose spending programs. President Trump tried very hard to get a large infrastructure spending...

According to Air Force Magazine, President Donald Trump's new Air Force One fleet will cost a total of $5.2 billion total, up from the 2016 estimate of $3.2 billion. Two Boeing 747-8s are being converted into VC-25s, the model used for VIP transport. They will serve as the "flying White House" starting in 2024, although Trump requested that they be ready for use in 2021. Trump had boasted that he struck a deal with Boeing to lower the cost by $1 billion of renovating the jets, which were originally built for a now-defunct Russian airline. Boeing will be paid $3.9...

Anne Trickey lied in a complaint filed in US District Court on February 1, 2019. Trickey claimed a former street artist in SF stole 1-3 images from a social media page and is selling them on a unspecified web site. Trickey filed worked on this case during office hours; using CCSF time; computers and mail supplies. As a self represented litigant, she used CCSF time to personally file the documents with the court. Trickey lied in her filing claiming she served the defendant when proof was shown that Trickey did not serve the defendant or comply with Federal Rules of...

Federal agencies billed taxpayers millions for lobster tail, alcohol, standing desks, golf carts, and more frivolous expenditures before budgets ran out at the end of the fiscal year.

"""Where has $850m gone? Bill de Blasio's wife can't account for staggering amount of taxpayer money that the NY Mayor gave her for mental health project""" Chirlane McCray was assigned a $850million budget for her ThriveNYC program But records show scheme has failed to keep track of what it spent the money on The small amount of data that was collected shows it fell far short of targets Despite that, organizers have expanded the budget to $1billion over five years

GEORGETOWN — The city of Georgetown’s bill for wind and solar energy ended up being $8.6 million more than anticipated in fiscal year 2018 because the falling prices of oil and gas meant it had to sell its surplus renewable power for less than forecast, said City Manager David Morgan. The city had budgeted $45 million for renewable energy but ended up paying $53.6 million, he said. Georgetown was able to reduce the $8.6 million unanticipated extra to $6.8 million through savings from lower capital improvement utility project costs, Morgan said. It paid the remaining $6.8 million with reserves from...

The University of Arizona received $772,060 in taxpayer funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal year 2018 to study the “sleep health” of Mexican-Americans on the U.S.-Mexico border. […] “Short sleep duration, insomnia disorder, and sleep apnea are highly prevalent in the population. These conditions are associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, daytime functioning problems, and poor mental health,” [the grant description] stated. The study’s researcher noted that there are disparities in sleep health in racial and ethnic minorities, including Mexican-Americans. Furthermore, “social-environmental factors at the US-Mexico border may play an important role in sleep health disparities.” According...

Democrats are adopting a new political spin, which is that everything is fine with ObamaCare. They claim that the only reason premium and deductible costs keep exploding is because President Donald Trump repealed the individual mandate tax — which was nothing more than an unfair penalty on low-income families who couldn't afford the high cost of the health law's mandates. But if Trump is to blame, why were the costs skyrocketing two years before Trump even entered the Oval Office? The clear-eyed reality is that things aren't going well for ObamaCare. The predicted death spiral in the insurance market (higher...

That's billion with a big, old capital B The Los Angeles Rams are currently engaging in one of the more aggressive construction builds in modern sports history, erecting a palatial tribute to west coast football out in Inglewood, California. The NFL also recently announced it would be moving its NFL Media headquarters to the facility, and rumblings persist about the combine being shipped out of Indianapolis to Los Angeles. In short, this facility is not going to be just a stadium: it's going to a complex and headquarters for a billion-dollar industry. The price tag for that HQ is skyrocketing,...

According to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), America spent $468 billion on foreign aid over the last decade (years 2007-2016). This averages out to $46.8 billion annually (obviously). The figure includes both economic and military funding, but does not include America’s contribution to the United Nations and its affiliate organizations—which costs America an additional $8 billion annually—nor does it include direct military assistance in the form of permanent US garrisons. Including these costs would bring the total to just over $2 trillion (more on that soon). This is a lot of wasted money, but thankfully things are changing....

"According to its authors, the new GOP tax bill will strip illegal immigrants of their ability to claim and collect several major tax credits. Doing so will save the federal government an estimated $23.1 billion over the next decade. The bill will do this by closing IRS loopholes and requiring all taxpayers to submit work-eligible Social Security numbers in order to claim tax credits. This may come as a shock to some who take for granted the assumption that illegal aliens don’t receive state benefits—especially tax credits. However, it’s an open secret that the IRS has allowed illegal aliens who...

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) 2017 report, illegal immigrants, and their children, cost American taxpayers $135 billion annually—the most in this nation’s history. These costs are only partially offset by taxes, which total a mere $19 billion. Therefore, the next cost of illegal immigrants to taxpayers is $116 billion annually. This estimate is similar to those found by the National Economics Editorial.

As Washington D.C. liberals continue their fight for 'free' college education for all (which, of course, is just a nicer way of saying largely useless community college education crammed down the throats of taxpayers) and student loan forgiveness programs, a new study from LendEDU reveals some of the shocking realities behind where college students are really spending their $1.3 trillion worth of student debt. Per a survey of 500 college co-eds, LendEDU found that 31% of students, or roughly 2.4 million kids, admitted to using student loan money to fund their binge drinking trips to Cancun and Daytona Beach for...

Now, in another new report, we are learning that Hillary Clinton’s State Department wasted hundreds of millions of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars on a wild spending binge. Here are some of the shocking revelations about Hillary’s spending habits. These are all State Department expenditures during her tenure: –$5.4 million on a no-bid contract for Crystal Stemware –$167.5 million on cost overruns at the Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan –Over $200 million on mostly unused police training facilities in Iraq –$79,000 to buy copies of President Obama’s books –$53,000 to polish marble at the Brazilian Embassy –$630,000 to try to make State...

Big Government: The federal government wasted more than $100 billion on overpayments last year. It knows this, even tracks it, but somehow can’t seem to stop it. Is there a better indication that government is too big? A federal website called Payment Accuracy tracks in great detail what it calls “improper payments” made by the federal government through Medicare, Medicaid, farm programs, school lunch programs and others to contractors, doctors, students, and so on. Last year, the government made $126 billion in overpayments, nearly double the amount of made in President Bush’s last year. Improper payments in Medicare, for example,...

The Department of Defense is responsible for millions of guns, from sniper rifles to pistols. Inevitably, at some point the Pentagon no longer wants them. What happens to the weapons then? They're fed to Captain Crunch, a giant crusher that turns military firearms into scrap metal. Captain Crunch was put into operation in August 1993 as an efficient way to destroy unwanted firearms. Located at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and operated by the Defense Logistics Agency, the Captain is an enormous shredder using intertwined blades that turns weapons made of wood, steel, aluminum and plastic into large pieces...

Federal managers are using illegal secret settlements that pay disruptive, incompetent or dangerous employees not to work for months on end before quitting on an agreed-upon date as an alternative to endless termination paperwork, legal appeals and costly battles with civil service unions. Government employees accused of wrongdoing often spend months on paid leave, while publicly agencies cryptically speak of lengthy "investigations," even when establishing misconduct can be as simple as talking to a few people or reviewing some documents. Eventually, the agencies will say, just as vaguely, that the person is "no longer employed." Evidence obtained by The Daily...

<p>As the U.S. engages in a national debate over the militarization of the police, federal data shows that government agencies charged with largely administrative roles are spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase SWAT and military-style equipment.</p> <p>Since FY 2006, 44 traditionally administrative agencies have spent over $71 million on items like body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition, according to federal spending data from watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.</p>

A statement from the U.S. Consulate in Lagos said the MRAP vehicles, valued at $11 million, were being handed over on Thursday to assist the West African country with both technical and military hardware to enable it to combat the rising challenges of regional extremism. Temitayo Famutimi of the U.S. Department of State said: "The equipment donation represents part of the continuing U.S. commitment to Nigeria and its neighbors to counter Boko Haram's senseless acts of terror and promote regional security." The United States also provides advisers, intelligence, training and logistical support to Nigerian military fighting Boko Haram as well...