Free Republic

As the old aphorism goes: “Don’t tax you; don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” Nobody likes paying taxes, but most Americans accept them as a necessary evil and are willing to pay their fair share, unless politicians waste those tax dollars in extraordinarily—well—wasteful ways, or steal them outright. I refer, of course, to California, where, as the classic Eagle’s song Hotel California goes: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” California, it’s no secret, is in deep financial trouble. In 2022, Gavin Newsom bragged about a $97.5 billion dollar surplus. By the...

Democrats want us to believe they care about the little guy, the working class, the average American. Yet. somehow, their policies always seem to hurt the people they claim to help and enrich the elites who fund their campaigns. On the campaign trail last year, President Trump proposed his No Tax on Tips plan, and the left freaked out. Though they claimed it was bad policy, Kamala Harris went on to steal the plan just a couple of months after him. No Tax on Tips became the law of the land with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill,...

There comes a point at which the velocity of stupid outpaces, and then laps, the rigors of reason. California is about to get lapped. Gov. Gavin Newsom and his leftist legislative supermajority and their union buddies have finally run out of other people's money. The left's fix for this is to chase away all the rest of the billionaires who still call California home by pushing a ballot initiative demanding a 5% retroactive wealth tax on the net worth of billionaires. The billionaires who still call California home are thinking about leaving. And it's all because the left prefers takers...

President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that Americans may "not even have income tax to pay" in the near future, saying tariff-driven revenue could allow for the historic elimination of the federal income tax under his tenure. Trump told a press gaggle after his cabinet meeting that "at some point in the not too distant future you won’t even have income tax to pay," arguing that revenue the government is collecting under his administration is now "so great… so enormous." "Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun or have it really low, much lower than...

For decades, people have fretted about the financial sustainability of America's bedrock retirement income program. Now, Social Security's precarious fiscal state is an issue for the here and now. * How to fix it is set to be a defining political fight of the next several years, with millions of Americans' benefits and the fiscal future of the United States at stake. Why it matters: There is a tug-of-war between the benefits future retirees receive and the taxes that working-age people pay. Something has to give, and surprisingly soon. The big picture: The Social Security retirement fund is set to...

ZURICH, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Switzerland on Sunday clearly rejected ​a proposed 50% tax on inherited ‌fortunes of 50 million Swiss francs ($62 million) or ‌more, public broadcaster SRF said in a first results estimate, with an expected 79% of votes against the plan. The proposal from the ⁠youth wing of ‌the leftist Social Democrats, or JUSOs, aimed to fund projects to ‍reduce the impact of climate change, was widely expected to fail, with over two-thirds of respondents ​against the proposed tax in recent polls. Bankers have ‌watched the vote closely, casting it as a litmus test of appetite for...

President Donald Trump said on Nov. 27 that the United States could eliminate income taxes over the next couple of years due to revenue generated from tariffs. Trump made the remarks during a Thanksgiving call with U.S. service members, saying the tariffs he imposed on foreign nations have generated substantial revenue and pushed companies to build their manufacturing facilities in the United States to avoid tariff costs. “We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars like we’ve never done before. And some of that’s going to go back in a form of a sort of dividend to our people, but...

Republican Sen. Jim Justice and his wife have agreed to pay more than $5 million in back taxes dating back over 15 years, as the freshman senator continues to weather financial difficulties that marred his time in the West Virginia governor’s office. The settlement was disclosed just hours after the Department of Justice sued to collect the taxes Monday. Justice, a coal magnate who served eight years as West Virginia’s governor before his 2024 election to replace Democrat-turned-independent Joe Manchin in the Senate, has long been dogged by reports of financial troubles. Once dubbed the only billionaire in West Virginia,...

Over the weekend, we learned that the Golden State loses one taxpayer to another state every minute, and faces an $18 billion budget shortfall, which is $5 billion higher than was projected just a few months ago. We also learned that only now, 10 months after wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings in the Los Angeles area, has the first home been rebuilt. These stories are yet more evidence of a completely dysfunctional state captured by ideologues who couldn’t care less about the harm their policies cause. Will voters there ever learn? The National Taxpayers Union Foundation used IRS data to...

Norwegian Cruise Line is alerting guests on Hawaii cruises in 2026 and beyond of the new Transient Accommodations Tax that levies an additional 14% on their cruise fare. While the cruise line is part of the legal challenges to the new tax, it may be some time before any court cases are resolved and in the meantime the tax goes into effect from January 1, 2026. Booked guests are reporting additional taxes on their cruise fares from $50-500 and higher, depending on the overall cost of their cruise and how much time their itinerary spends in Hawaii. Norwegian Cruise Line...

IRS Study shows California is losing a taxpayer every minute to states like Florida, Texas, and North Carolina California Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing a retroactive billionaire tax targeting the roughly 220 billionaires residing in California in 2025, ignoring that these individuals are the most financially mobile and can live anywhere. Expecting them to remain in the state as if they will happily and willingly hand over even more of their wealth surely must be facetious. SEIU is sponsoring the “2026 Billionaires Tax Act.” The measure, recently listed on the Attorney General’s website, would impose a one-time 5% tax on...

Labour’s tax rises have led to an exodus of wealthy Britons, the business secretary has admitted. Peter Kyle said he accepted that “some of the decisions” the party had made since taking office had caused “some people [to] feel the need to leave”. Asked if the wealthy were opting to leave because of tax decisions made by the government, he said: “Yes, I do.” He added: “I’m not going to duck the fact that we have put up taxes and we’ve closed some of the loopholes for non-doms.” ...

Socialist Zohran Mamdani is now the mayor-elect of New York City. Unfortunately for the city, they're about to find out what a bad decision they made. Mamdani recently interviewed with PIX11 News’ politics managing editor and anchor Dan Mannarino, where he was asked about his plan for "free" buses and how he would pay for them. He was asked where he was going to get the $700 million that he would need for the plan if New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) was not for raising taxes. Q: “How are you getting the $700M to make the buses free if...

Chicago homeowners are asking for answers as property tax bills continue to climb, with several residents saying they’ve seen little improvement in return. In Lawndale, a neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, residents told ABC7 Chicago that despite higher property tax bills, little has changed on their streets, leaving them frustrated over where their money is going. Community leaders and the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation gathered citizens at a local church for what they called a "property tax bonfire," the local station reported. "There's been a divestment in this community for the most part, but it seems like now that people...

Gov. Hochul is reportedly open to raising taxes on corporations in the Empire State to help fund socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s freebie-filled agenda for New York City. Hochul, who is up for re-election in 2026, is sticking to her vow to not hit high-earners with higher taxes — but has had preliminary conversations about raising revenue by upping the corporate tax rate, according to Politico, which first reported the story. The hike would help fill the more than $4 billion budget gap facing the state next year and cover some of the costs associated with Mamdani’s socialist dream in the...

A new analysis finds that the states of New York and New Jersey have lost billions of dollars from their tax base amid an exodus of residents in recent years. Unleash Prosperity released a report on Tuesday that found New York lost $517.5 billion in resident incomes from 2013 to 2022, while New Jersey lost $170.1 billion in that period, according to data from the Census Bureau and IRS. The report covers cumulative gains and losses in each state's resident income, as a mover takes their income to another state for subsequent years – not just the first year after...

Bill Maher presses his guests on the migration of wealth from high-tax blue states to Florida -- what some are calling "Wall Street South." From rising costs in New York to the surge in Florida’s real estate market, this debate reveals how much post-COVID economics and state policy have reshaped where Americans live and invest. "Bill Maher: The Rich Are Fleeing Blue States -- and He Explains Why" | 7:07 Raw Nation Report | 679 subscribers | 159,308 views | November 8, 2025

"There is a lot of chatter these days about holding those evil companies that hire illegals to some type of legal retribution. Let me explain why this is the willful failure of government, not the actions of some greaseball company owners." ... "When the first unscrupulous contractors started working with illegal aliens, they generally paid cash under the table. No payroll taxes or anything like that were paid. When this percolated up to the powers that be, there was an outcry. About hiring illegal aliens and putting hard working American citizens out of work? Not a chance. They came down...

The most important thing to know about the Trump administration’s defense of its hotly contested use of tariffs to bring allies and opponents to heel is not that it is a novel and unprecedented legal argument but rather a full-throated articulation of the campaign themes that got the president elected – in both 2016 and 2000. In its legal documents, and in the oral arguments that took place before the Supreme Court Wednesday, the Trump administration paints a picture of America under siege. Once thriving industrial towns in the Midwest hollowed out. Factories dismantled as supply chains have been moved...

A senior EU official has said he expects the US "not to interfere" in global climate negotiations in Brazil next week, citing aggressive behavior at last month’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings in London. At those talks, US officials reportedly intimidated diplomats from Africa and the so-called Small Island States, warning some they might lose US transit rights or face entry restrictions for themselves and their families if they did not help block the UN-backed Net Zero Framework for shipping. The official said they were unaware whether commission staff had been targeted directly. “We have no indication our colleagues were...