by Rick Manning at NetRight Daily and Americans for Limited Government
Appropriations time in Congress makes most people’s eyes roll to the back of their heads. But for those seeking to rein in President Obama, it is like Christmas time with the opportunity to target cuts directly at all parts of Obama’s agenda.
Unfortunately, Harry Reid plays the unreformed Grinch in Congress as he has stopped all Senate action on individual appropriations bills, virtually ensuring another Sept. 30, end-of-fiscal-year spending showdown.
Having seen this movie time and again during the past five years, it is tempting to change the channel and just disconnect from the whole process. But wait – there’s hope.
The sheer volume of defund amendments offered and passed in the House dramatically
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Ajit Pai, who has been fighting a one man war to keep the Internet free from government control against the majority of FCC Commissioners who were all appointed by President Barack Obama, has gone ballistic on news of fresh accounts of widespread fraud in the ObamaPhone welfare program for “the poor”.
An investigation of the ObamaPhone program by Brian Maass for CBS4 News revealed that “Lifeline” cellphone program – which was originally intended to give poor people the ability to find a job or call police, fire and other emergency responders in times of trouble – has turned into an “full service entitlement” program that Americans pay for through fees on
Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint says this should demonstrate to all Americans—even if they consider themselves “pro-choice”—that taxpayers should have nothing to do with this grim business.
by Jim DeMint from the Daily Signal,
A video released last week by the Center for Medical Progress shocked the nation by showing an executive of Planned Parenthood sipping wine and casually talking about the going rate for the organs of aborted infants.
Yesterday morning, another undercover video compounded outrage toward Planned Parenthood’s activities. It once again raises the question of whether Planned Parenthood could be profiting off the sale of fetal tissue, as well as altering abortion procedures to preserve organs for sale.
Toward the end of the video, a Planned Parenthood executive jokes: “It’s
Homeownership has fallen to a 48 year low, the lowest it’s been since 1967. 1967 is an interesting date due to the fact that two years earlier school districts in the state of Pennsylvania were not allowed to directly tax the people. The Constitution says the House of Representatives is supposed to provide the funding for education
Because of the taxing authority by the school districts the school tax has become a regressive and discriminatory tax, targeting the low, middle income class and the retirees.
Since 2011 school taxes have gone up 116%, despite the casino tax scam that was to provide tax relief money, but the casinos made out better than the homeowners. Maybe that’s why
It has been a month now since the House and Senate passed a budget which does not include a tax increase, yet funds education at record levels. Gov. Tom Wolf quickly vetoed the budget bill, even though more than two-thirds of the line items were the same or greater than what he proposed earlier this year.
The differences between the two plans can be summed up in one word: TAXES. In particular, the governor’s tax proposals would raise and greatly expand the Commonwealth’s sales tax to include hundreds of new items, such as day care services for kids, nursing home care and in-home care services for seniors, textbooks and room and board for college students and much, much more.
GOING JUST FINE: It was the first year in which purchasing health insurance was made mandatory under the ACA, with penalties of $95 or 1 percent of total income. The average penalty collected for the 2014 tax year was about $200, the IRS reported.
by Eric Boehm at Watchdog.org
The IRS fined more than 7.5 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance in 2014, even as Obamacare subsidies flowed to people who didn’t even exist.
The Treasury Department reported last week the number of Americans who faced fines because of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was significantly higher than the Obama administration expected. For 2014, the IRS projected that roughly 6 million would face fines, but the final total was 1.5 million higher.
While Gov. Tom Wolf portrays his plan to impose a severance tax on natural gas drilling as key to solving the state budget stalemate and a way to massively increase education dollars, the numbers and facts tell a different story.
Although he has proposed an effective tax rate (up to 17.5 percent) that is far higher than any other gas-producing state, his severance tax would, at best, generate just $188 million in new revenue once fully implemented. Learn more here.
Of his proposed $4.7 billion tax increase in 2015-16, just 3 cents of each dollar in new taxes would come from natural gas drillers (which would most likely result in higher home heating and electric
As most of you are aware, state government is currently in the midst of an impasse on the 2015-16 state budget. At a press conference on Tuesday at Cedarbrook Nursing Home in Allentown, I joined other House Republicans to discuss the impact this devastating stalemate will have on our human service agencies, and ultimately, our schools.
There was another way.
My colleagues in the House and Senate and I sent the governor a responsible, no-tax-increase, balanced budget at the end of June, which he promptly vetoed. That move greatly disappointed me, because a full budget veto – the first in 40 years – wasn’t necessary. In fact, two-thirds of the line items in the budget we gave him were identical to or more