Free Republic

... Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed Texas ​​middle-class families “pay more taxes than middle-class families in California.” “Look that up,” he said in a virtual meeting with editorial and opinion writers from the McClatchy chain’s California newspapers. “That’s a fact”

Our nation's leaders are demanding that American children pay for this crisis through debt-financed spending, while depriving them of the education they need to make that even remotely possible. One of the many significant but underappreciated effects of U.S. politicians’ response to coronavirus is their pre-emptive mass school shutdowns. It is likely these shutdowns will harm the next generation far beyond the trillions in government spending these children will someday be forced to pay off for previous generations.For one thing, the school shutdowns will cripple children’s economic future by depriving them of up to an entire year of learning. That’s...

Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania is in the news again. Last year, you may recall all the hype about Democrat Connor Lamb narrowly winning a special congressional district election in a district overwhelmingly won by Donald Trump in 2016.Westmoreland County alone, in fact, provided a bigger vote margin for Trump than he won throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which put him over the 270 vote threshold to win the presidency.What they did not tell you is that Lamb's margin of victory came entirely from neighboring Allegheny County, home to the deep blue city of Pittsburgh and that Lamb's appeal was as a...

While wages have supposedly gone up 3.4% in 2018, taxes and fees are rising at much higher rates. Here's a list of tax and fee increases hitting residents of one of the counties I call home; the list includes taxes/fees raised in 2017 and 2018: 1. Property taxes: between 6.5% and 10%, depending on the property class 2. Gasoline tax (county), from 8.8 cents to 23 cents, phased in over 3 years 3. General excise tax, up 6.3% 4. Garbage fee (commercial): up 27% 5. Sewer fees: up 44% 6. Electricity (base rate): up 7.4% 7. Annual vehicle safety inspection...

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, Colorado collected $25.4 billion in state and local taxes—or $4,590 for every man, woman, and child. While this is an impressive sum of money, it tells us little about whether or not the average Colorado taxpayer can afford this level of taxation. ... Colorado’s state and local tax burden (tax collections divided by private sector personal income) was the sixth lowest in the nation for FY 2016 at 11.8 percent—or -17 percent below the national average of 14.3 percent. ... Colorado’s tax burden has increased over time by only 3 percent to 11.8 percent in...

I’ve noticed that a number of FReepers are having conniptions over the possibility that legislation reducing federal income tax rates will also ELIMINATE ITEMIZED DEDUCTION OF STATE & LOCAL INCOME TAXES (SALT). I have a proposal for the new legislation. Have it give tax payers the CHOICE of 1) still deducting SALT but STILL ALSO using the current (i.e., unreduced) tax rate tables or 2) not deducting SALT but having their taxes computed using the new reduced rates. Having worked in systems development for a number of years, automating that feature could be relatively simple for Intuit (maker of Turbo...