77Reaganite Loc: Athens, GA, United States

That's why I'm a proponent of the fair tax either that or go back to the gold standard and eliminate the Federal Reserve so they can't print anymore money and devalue our currency like they already have. The next thing we should do is abolish the 16th Amendment that's the amendment that gave congress the ability to tax we need to take that right away from them! We should be getting every dollar on our paycheck we should decide whether if we want to pay into Social Security or Medicaid it should have never been given to Congress to decide they need to eliminate the FICA taxes and eliminate the payroll tax forever on corporations! I think taxes should be gathered at the state level and then turned into the federal level! There shouldn't be two people we have to pay we shouldn't have to pay federal and state we should just have to pay one! You could also eliminate the IRS who should have been eliminated after World War II and the fair tax would do away with the IRS in one Fell Swoop! I would give the president a line item veto meaning he can strip money from any Department he wants and eliminate any Department that he wants from the federal government! The line item veto with eliminate the wasteful spending that we see on all these stupid pet projects on both sides of the aisle! I think we can remove money from studying animals and their gas they leave behind after they fart! Do we really need to be studying animals farts! Those are just a few areas I would clean up along with the fraud that we have in all the welfare programs! We also need to put a cap on how many children we can take care of by a woman meaning if she has more than two kids she's not going to get any more money it's either that or make her go get her tubes tied! Thirdly we should get rid of the Department of indoctrination and put it back into the states hands! The government has proven that if given the chance they will indoctrinate they will not educate and that's what we're seeing right now! It needs to be a major overhaul of the educational system IE eliminating every liberal teacher from every campus on the United States that includes College Elementary Middle School High School and everywhere else!

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Also important, make government live within our means. The bigger the government the smaller the person.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Lawsuits Piling Up Over Biden’s Debt Cancellation Ploy
Posted Tuesday, October 18, 2022 | By AMAC Newsline

On Monday, President Joe Biden formally opened the application for his plan to unilaterally cancel $400 billion of student-loan debt by executive fiat. But even as the administration plows ahead with the plan, it has run into a mountain of legal obstacles, raising the distinct possibility that the scheme – viewed by many as a desperate ploy to energize turnout for Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections – may ultimately backfire and become just the latest embarrassing failure for the beleaguered president.

The first lawsuit filed against the plan came from the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which argued that Biden’s cancellation of student debt is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers. The group specifically targeted Biden’s use of the HEROES Act to justify the mass debt cancellation.

The HEROES Act, which Congress passed in the wake of 9/11, gave the Secretary of Education the ability to “waive or modify” student loans held by deployed military service members or victims of certain disasters. The Biden administration argued that the COVID-19 pandemic made all student loan borrowers covered under the law – a notion that PLF disputes, with their lawsuit pointing out that the current Congress has declined to pass wide-scale debt cancellation. As PLF notes, student debt forgiveness is “Congress’s prerogative under our Constitution, as Congress is the branch of government that possesses the exclusive power to make law.”

Soon after PLF filed its lawsuit, however, the Biden Justice Department responded with a clever legal move to undermine PLF’s standing in court. But just a few days later, six Republican state attorneys general filed a second lawsuit building on PLF’s basic arguments about the illegality of Biden’s decision. “No statute permits President Biden to unilaterally relieve millions of individuals from their obligation to pay loans they voluntarily assumed,” their complaint states. In furthering the contention that Biden is violating the separation of powers, the attorneys general highlight Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s own assertion in July 2021 that the president does not have the power of blanket debt forgiveness and that such cancellation would have to be “an act of Congress.”

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general also attack Biden’s reliance on the HEROES Act to justify his action. They criticize Biden for stretching the statute to essentially designate the entire country as a “disaster area” due to the COVID-19 pandemic and cite his declaration in a September 18th 60 Minutes interview—only weeks after his initial announcement of the debt cancellation—that “the pandemic is over.” In spite of Biden’s own acknowledgment that we have moved out of the pandemic, the attorneys general argue, he is relying on a “national emergency” that no longer exists to justify his power grab.

On the same day, Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a separate lawsuit against the Biden administration. Similar to the lawsuit filed by the other state attorneys general, Brnovich’s suit also argues that Biden’s unilateral cancellation of student-loan debt is an overreach of executive authority, posing a threat to both the separation of powers and placing an undue burden on the states. Specifically, Brnovich alleges that Biden’s plan would make it more difficult for state government offices to recruit legal talent and that the cancellation would increase the state’s cost of borrowing by harming the state’s tax revenue.

Another lawsuit filed by the Job Creators Network Foundation Legal Action Fund takes a slightly different approach, arguing that the Biden Department of Education “flagrantly violated the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirements by crafting this massive and arbitrary debt jubilee behind closed doors without the traditional public comment period.” Under the provisions of the APA, executive branch agencies must provide a comment and review period for their “quasi-legislative rulemaking” – like enacting mass student-debt forgiveness – in order to justify their decisions since government bureaucrats are not directly elected by the people.

The biggest challenge for the groups hoping to bring these lawsuits thus far has been establishing standing in court. Standing must first be established to challenge the legality of government action. In general, a lawsuit like this must be brought on behalf of a group or individual who can prove they were harmed by a government policy or decision. As a rule, taxpayers cannot challenge federal spending, and the lawsuits must prove the loan forgiveness harmed plaintiffs in a clear and concrete way – something that is difficult given that the most obvious harms done to taxpayers by canceling student debt (inflation, tax increases, moral hazard) are indirect in nature.

This is why, for example, PLF’s lawsuit was thrown out, even if their arguments about the illegality of Biden’s decision still hold merit. PLF’s lawsuit names as the plaintiff a PLF attorney, who they argue would suffer financial harm if, as a Pell Grant recipient, he has $20,000 of debt forgiven. He is part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which exempts loan forgiveness from tax liabilities. However, the lawsuit argues his tax bill would increase by $1,000 because Indiana would tax the federal cancellation of $20,000 of debt as income since it did not occur as part of the PSLF program.

Shortly after the suit was filed, the Department of Education scrambled to update its FAQs to say that borrowers will be allowed to opt-out of the cancellation if they believe they will be financially harmed. Because of this, the judge overseeing the case declined to issue an injunction, saying there was no harm that needed immediate relief. A judge dismissed another lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on similar grounds, rejecting the assertion that taxpayers have standing.

Nonetheless, the two lawsuits filed by Republican state attorneys general have thus far been allowed to move forward. The lawsuit led by the six states claims MOHELA, a student-loan servicer based in Missouri, will be financially harmed by Biden’s plan. Because student-loan servicers receive fees based on the number of accounts they service, the attorneys general argue that MOHELA will lose revenue due to student-loan balances going to zero en masse.

Arizona’s lawsuit claims that the cancellation will hurt the ability of the attorney general’s office to hire employees. It says the AG’s office relies on the PSLF program to recruit lawyers, who hold a disproportionate amount of student-loan debt. Brnovich argues the write-off will make the program for forgiveness less attractive and working for the AG’s office less lucrative.

Ultimately, Americans will have to wait to see whether the state-led lawsuits, or another suit, will be successful. If standing can be established, Americans will have to hope the judicial branch will have more respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers and the rule of law than does President Biden.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Breaking: Biden-flation Leads to Largest Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment in 40 Years, Will Cause Benefit Cut Sooner Than Expected
Posted Monday, October 17, 2022 | Palmer Schoening

This week the Social Security Administration announced beneficiaries will receive an 8.7% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the year 2023. This is the largest COLA in 40 years, thanks in large part to the Biden Administration’s pro-inflation policies enacted over the last 20 months.

Seniors living on fixed incomes have been bombarded with double digit increases in food, gasoline, and household living expenses since the beginning of the Biden administration. In addition, multiple analyses have shown that both Social Security and Medicare are on the path towards imminent insolvency by this increased inflation. Below is a list of inflation rates for common products:

33.1% utility gas
30.5% eggs
18.2% gasoline
17.2% chicken
15.7% coffee
15.2% milk
14.7% bread
9.2% vegetables
A recent Social Security Trustees’ report predicted the the OASDI trust fund would become insolvent in 2034 based on a significantly lower COLA for 2023. This high Biden-flation caused COLA combined with the decreasing size of the workforce (another Biden administration accomplishment), will cause a decrease in benefits for current and future retirees sooner than expected. The current model predicts a 23% cut in benefits in about a decade, the increased expenses will likely move that date up by at least a year.

Congressional Republicans have been pushing for a bipartisan effort to ensure long-term solvency for the trust fund, however Democrats have been pushing partisan tax increases and attempts to turn the program from a poverty prevention program into a government pension. AMAC Action supports Republicans efforts to find a bipartisan solution and have proposed the Social Security Guarantee to ensure all beneficiaries receive a COLA while helping those most in need to escape poverty and extend solvency to protect all beneficiaries from receiving crippling cuts to their monthly benefit.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Certain to have a recession? What the hell do you call what we have now? Certain to have a depression, especially if the Democrats retain control of Congress after the November elections.

Bloomberg: America 'certain' to have recession under Joe Biden
Predicts 100% chance of downturn within 12 months
By Bob Unruh
Published October 17, 2022 at 2:20pm

Americans already are in a recession under Joe Biden's economic policies, given the traditional definition, since there was 1.6% negative "growth" in the economy in the first quarter of the year, and negative 0.6% "growth" in the second quarter.

The third quarter's results are coming soon.

It was the Bureau of Economic Analysis that released those numbers at the time, meeting the standard definition of a recession defined by two consecutive quarters of negative numbers.

But for those diehard Democrats who have claimed jobless and unemployment numbers were good so it couldn't be a REAL recession, there's now further bad news.

Bloomberg reports that a U.S. recession "is effectively certain in the next 12 months," based on its economics model projects.

The report called it "a blow to President Joe Biden’s economic messaging ahead of the November midterms."

Its probability models by Bloomberg economists Anna Wong and Eliza Winger are predicting a higher recession probability "across all timeframes," and within the 12-month time period it is 100%.

Biden repeatedly has claimed the U.S. won't have a recession, and said as recently as this weekend that the nation's economy is "strong as hell," while munching on ice cream during a campaign trip.

Bloomberg said "tightening financial conditions, persistent inflation and expectations of a hawkish Federal Reserve pressing ahead with rate hikes are raising the risk of a contraction."

The Washington Examiner said the forecast is "something that is certain to ring alarm bells for investors and economists."

"The [Federal Reserve] has hiked rates by 75 basis points during its last three meetings, analogous to nine traditional increases in just a span of months," the report said.

But so far inflation has continued to rage under Biden's policies.

It was at 8.2% for the 12 months ending in September.

Besides the harms to consumers from the skyrocketing costs of basic living necessities, food and energy, they also are hit hard with exploding interest costs on any debt they may have.

The report explained what it means to Democrats:

"A recession would be bad news for the Biden administration and for Democratic members of Congress. Inflation is already the biggest issue facing voters heading into the midterm elections, and Republicans are hoping to capitalize on the higher prices in order to wrest back control of the House and Senate. If inflation continues to remain as sticky as it has and the economy craters into a full-blown recession, it would undoubtedly be used as a cudgel against Biden and Democratic policies in the coming months and years as the GOP pushes to win back the White House in 2024."

AuntiE Loc: 45th Least Free State

Via the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, 80.4% of Americans (& 91.3% of middle income earners) got a *tax CUT* in 2018, thanks to the GOP tax reform law.

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Don't dispute their ideology. Now they will have to cancel you.

77Reaganite Loc: Athens, GA, United States

I've done my research over the years since John oxendine and Newt Gingrich wrote the book about the fair tax the fair tax is John oxendine's baby so here in the state of Georgia we're pretty familiar with the fair tax! I used to listen to a early morning talk show it was called Neil borts in the morning here on am 750 and right after he went off Scott Howard would come on and then after that it would be Glenn back and then later on in the afternoon I would turn it over on wgst which is 640 am and listen to Rush Limbaugh then on weeknights after midnight I would listen to Dr Michael Savage! Still who I think is one of the most Brilliant Minds on talk radio! I've always wanted to meet Alex Jones! I really would really really would like to meet Jordan Peterson!

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

Inflation just started at the beginning of the Biden administration??

Ricktloml

A flat tax sounds doable

dtucker300 Loc: Vista, CA

Is that supposed to be a question of comment? Either way, it is a stupid one. I thought you were smarter than that.

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

Can you see the question marks? "living expenses since the beginning of the Biden administration."

It was your stupid comment.

Gatsby

Since you asked: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

2020 1.4%

Gatsby

2021 7%,
2022 8.2%