Free Republic

The ad marks a sharp public shift to the right in Ives’ campaign. Ives had been gaining attention following a debate with Rauner at the Chicago Tribune last week. And her sharp critiques of the governor were used in a digital ad by Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker. “Thank you for legislation that lets me use the girls’ bathroom,” says a man in the new ad, dressed in a woman’s red dress. That targeted a House bill Rauner signed into law which allows transgender citizens to change their gender designation without going through gender reassignment or gender confirmation surgery. “Thank...

Has anybody here used an online tax service to file their taxes?

I'mn trying to find a website that breaks down how much blacks receive, as a community, compared with the taxes they pay, as a community. I did have a figure of approximately $21 trillion dollars since the end of the Civil War, but I can't substantiate that. Mathwise, it's not a lot when you break that number by the number of blacks that have lived, or living, since 1865 and spread it over 150 years. It works out to be only about perhaps $2,000/yr, so it's a credible number. I just can't support it.

SEATTLE – When President Trump was candidate Trump, he called climate change a hoax. Since taking the Oval Office, he’s said very little about greenhouse gasses and their impact on the planet. But he did issue a statement that he plans to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to reduce emissions as a way to stop global warming. But West Coast states are driving in the opposite direction, with designs of erecting a green wall built on taxing carbon. “This is both an economic benefit for the state of Washington and a job creator,” said...

UPS is putting its savings from the upcoming tax cuts to use in a slightly different way than other Georgia-based companies.The United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) said Thursday that the money is going toward boosting more than $12 billion in investments to "expand the company’s Smart Logistics Network, significantly increase pension funding, and position the company to further enhance shareowner value."“This $12 billion investment program is an outgrowth of the opportunity for tax savings created by the Tax and Jobs Act,” said David Abney, UPS Chairman and CEO, in a news release. “We will increase network investments and accelerate pension...

I tried to post an article from a source not allowed at FR, but search for other sources to this story. UPS is purchasing 14 Boeing 747's to add to its fleet. A big deal.

A Republican congressman says the U.S. government should significantly raise the gas tax in order to fund President Donald Trump's ambitious infrastructure plan. Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania told Bloomberg TV that the tax should be increased by 15 cents per gallon of gasoline. The current rate is 18.4 cents, and hasn't seen a hike since 1993. Shuster said Thursday at a Republican congressional retreat in West Virginia that for the average American, a 15-cent increase would equal the cost of 'a cup of coffee a week that they might have to forgo.' 'Or if you're a Starbucks person, half...

By now you probably know that the 2017 Tax Act significantly limited the deduction of state and local taxes against your federal income. For most Americans -- particularly ones in low-tax states or states with no income taxes -- these new rules will have little effect on your life. For high-income individuals in high-tax states, they will suffer dearly from this policy. There has been speculation of how many will relocate. How bad will the impact be to the states they are leaving? That is another question. We do not know how many people will leave states like New York,...

1) Liberals care much more about policies that make them feel good about themselves than they do about policies that actually make life better for people. 2) That person in politics being compared to Hitler is really not very much like Hitler at all. 3) The bigger government gets, the worse it serves the people. 4) While they are in office, all Republican Presidents will be portrayed by the Left as either evil, crazy, racist, stupid or some combination thereof. 5) For every actual racist act and comment in politics, there are 500 people being falsely called bigots because Democrats...

WASHINGTON — Speaker Paul D. Ryan faced a backlash on Saturday after he pointed to a secretary’s $1.50 weekly increase in take-home pay as a sign of the Republican tax plan’s success.“A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week ... she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year,” Mr. Ryan posted on Twitter, sharing an Associated Press report about paycheck increases under the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul.The article describes a high school secretary, Julia Ketchum, as “pleasantly surprised” that her pay...

It is essential for any nation that wishes to thrive and compete on the world stage to have a successful and flourishing aerospace industry, centered on the capability of putting humans and payloads into space affordably and frequently. This is a bipartisan position held by elected officials from both American political parties since the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957...Unfortunately, since the beginning of the 21st century the U.S. government has struggled to create and maintain a viable launch industry. Even as the government terminated the Space Shuttle program, with its ability to place and return humans and...

Oh irony of ironies. How beautiful you can be! Less than a week after Univision smeared the Trump tax cuts, the owner of that broadcasting network, Haim Saban, has announced that he will be giving $1000 bonuses to his employees due to those same tax cuts. In fact, as we shall see, Saban very specifically credited those same tax cuts as the reason for the bonuses. To get a full appreciation of the irony involved let us first look at what a Univision anchor said about the Trump tax cuts as reported by the MRC Latino Staff on January 27...

House Republicans will lean heavily on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her comment that the GOP tax cut amounts to just "crumbs" for people in their quest to retain the majority this year.In an interview with reporters on Thursday, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, who runs the House campaign arm, said the top Democrat is helping Republicans politically with her own well-publicized criticisms of the GOP. Most recently, she called the Republican tax reform plan “Armageddon,” and said the $1,000 bonuses some companies awarded as a result of corporate tax cuts are “crumbs.”“Her crumbs comment,” Stivers said....

2 min Pelosi meltdown video at link. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosispeaks to CNN's Chris Cuomo onJan. 29, 2018. (Photo: Screen grab/CNN) (CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) went on CNN Monday night to express her fury at Republicans on the House intelligence committee who voted to release a classified memo dealing with the ongoing Russia investigation. She accused Republicans of "dangerously and recklessly dealing with intelligence" to "cover up" the Russia investigation. She said the four-page memo, written by Republicans on the House intelligence committee, is false, a "total misrepresentation," a threat to national security, and on...

The Democrats are like characters in a Bill Murray movie. They keep reliving the same day, trapped in the rhythms and routines of campaign 2016. They persist in the rhetoric, tropes, gestures, figures, and policies that delivered the presidency, the Congress, and the bulk of statehouses and governor's mansions to the Republican Party. What they can't escape is identity politics—the slicing and dicing of the electorate by race, sex, orientation, gender identity, country of origin, dietary preference, what have you. Meanwhile President Trump has run off with the most saleable of the Democrats' old issues and the foundations of their...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and Democratic lawmakers slammed President Trump after he approved the release of a memo questioning surveillance methods by the FBI during the early stages of the Russia investigation, arguing that he gave up “his constitutional responsibility” by releasing it.“President Trump has surrendered his constitutional responsibility as commander in chief by releasing highly classified and distorted intelligence,” Pelosi said. “By not protecting intelligence sources and methods, he just sent his friend Putin a bouquet. "[House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin] Nunes’ partisan spin memo distorts highly classified intelligence in a cynical attempt to discredit our national...

I am a democrat(mainstream journalist) and these are the reasons why I represent about 50% of the country (especially the West coast and Northeast). 1. I believe in collusion and weaponizing the IRS, DOJ, FBI, and the State Dept. against republicans and conservatives. 2. I believe in abortion in all forms and especially late term. 3. I believe in booing God at my conventions. 4. I hate full employment (especially for Blacks and minorities). I believe welfare, food stamps and obama phones are better for the economy. 5. I hate military veterans, victims of MS-13, and companies that are moving...

There is an ongoing narrative in the media and by Democrats that President Trump is a threat to everything American, that he is fascistic and that our most basic freedoms are under assault. Therefor, all must #resist! But the opposite is true when set in juxtaposition to the Obama Administration. The actual facts on the ground do not support what appears to be only a caricature created to scare the Democrat base and the American people in pursuit of the ongoing agenda to undermine the duly elected president. When looking at Trump’s actions, compared to Obama’s actions, several things become...

Okay—it’s not a defense of President Trump. In fact, it takes it swipes at his presidency quite well, as if to shout at Democrats’ faces on what they need to say to combat the message he’s disseminated to the country, especially on economic growth. Nevertheless, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was not happy with how Democrats reacted to President Trump’s State of the Union. He seemed especially taken aback at the notion that scores of congressional Democratsdidn’t standwhen he entered the House Chamber, breaking the common rule that when the president enters, no one sits—ever: I take a back seat...

While the rest of us were popping champagne to celebrate the arrival of 2018, Seattle greeted the New Year with a 1.75 cent per ounce tax on sweetened beverages. It was needed, former Mayor Ed Murray once said, for a host of noble reasons: to reduce sugar consumption; to raise revenue for important projects like a year of “free” community college for all graduating public high school students; and, to subsidize purchases of healthy foods by low-income families.Before he resigned in disgrace over multiple allegations of personal misconduct, Murray considered the soda tax one of his greatest accomplishments, a “cutting...