Economics

Big Government, Economics

No Tax on Tips and Overtime? Trump Wants to Tame the IRS

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It’s easy to get used to how things are in society and assume that, because we’ve never personally known anything different, that things were always this way (they weren’t). We also tend to assume that whatever we do now is the best possible choice we could make (often not true). 

When President Trump first floated the idea of getting rid of the federal Department of Education, Americans were aghast. Why, that august institution-how will we live without it? But the DoE is a fairly recent creation. President Jimmy Carter created the agency in 1979; that’s not even 50 years ago. Millions of Americans born in the 50s and alive today completed most or all of their schooling in an era before anyone thought the federal government was necessary to direct the instruction of grade schoolers in all the states. 

And given the performance of U.S. schoolchildren on measures of literacy and numeracy, no one can make a serious argument that today’s kids are better educated than people who graduated high school in 1978. Those poor scores can’t only be blamed on the pandemic, either. American pupil achievement has been declining for decades. 

Now, Trump is shaking up our ideas about taxation, too. What do you think about an end to the federal income tax? Sound radical? Unthinkable? If you stretch your mind back further, you’ll find that the U.S. never had a federal income tax until 1913. Yes, the world is different and in many ways more complicated today, but that reality doesn’t translate into a “need” for a voracious federal government that takes a chunk out of every dollar Americans earn. There are, in fact, other ways to fund a government. 

Trump has floated the idea of ending the federal income tax before, but in February 2025, he’s not pushing it—yet. He does appear to be aiming in that direction by chipping away at the bottomless money hole that the IRS has become. 

LibsOfTikTok highlighted the news with a clip of straight-talking White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt confirming that, yep, the president wants to slash taxes to the bone. His priorities include ending taxation on tips, ending taxes on overtime pay, re-starting the middle-class tax cuts Trump first enacted during his 2016-2020 term, and more. 

Listen below:

Judging by the comments from X users, a whole lot of Americans like what they’re hearing. 

But for some, it’s not enough. 

And, there are details that need to be worked  out to avoid unintended pitfalls for retirees. 

Economics

America’s Best & Worst States For Retirement Ranked

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A study published at the end of January by WalletHub revealed the best and worst states for retirement.

“Retirement is supposed to be relaxing, but it can also be incredibly stressful given that it typically puts people on a fixed income, which may not be enough for them to live comfortably. As a result, the best states for retirees are those that have low taxes and a low cost of living to help retirees’ budgets stretch as far as possible,” says WalletHub’s Chip Lupo. But where are the best states to spend your golden years?

To determine how each state ranks against each other, WalletHub compared all 50 across three key dimensions: affordability, quality of life, and healthcare. These were then broken down into 46 relevant metrics and weighted.

Best States

Unsurprisingly to many, Florida ranked as the best place to spend your retirement years. Florida won the top spot thanks to “relatively low taxes for retired people, including no estate, inheritance or income taxes.” The state also “receives more funding per senior from the Older Americans Act than all but two other states,” which funds things like transportation, homemaker assistance and nutritional programs for seniors. 

Minnesota ranked #2 for retirement, largely for health reasons. The state has the most health care facilities, the second-most nursing homes and top-ranking geriatric hospitals. “When it comes to overall quality of life in Minnesota, the state has the 10th-best elder abuse protections in the country, which guard elderly residents against physical and financial harm. The state also has the 15th-lowest violent crime rate, and the fifth-highest percentage of people who do favors for their neighbors,” WalletHub wrote in its analysis.

Worst States

The worst states for retirement included: New Jersey (#45), New Mexico (#46), Washington (#47), Mississippi (#48), Louisiana (#49) and Kentucky (#50). Hawaii ranked dead-last for worst states when looking at adjusted cost of living. Montana had the highest rate of annual cost of in-home services.

Experts Speak Out On Retirement

“One common mistake that leads to high rates of poverty among retirees is assuming that Social Security retirement benefits will provide sufficient income for retirement, and not saving money on top of that. The maximum monthly benefit for those who retire at the full benefits age is $3,822 (this is age 67 for those born in 1960 or later),” says Tulane University professor Patrick Button.

“A related mistake to this is claiming Social Security benefits too early. Claiming at age 62, the earliest possible age, leads to less of a monthly benefit – a maximum of $2,710 -compared to delaying claiming to age 70 – a maximum of $4,873 (Source). For those who can work longer, perhaps by taking jobs to ease into retirement, they can allow their Social Security benefits to go much further by delaying claiming,” added Button. 

Addressing high inflation is another key goal noted by Andrews University’s economics and finance associate professor Lucile Sabas. “As the Federal Reserve, responsible for monetary policy, aims to balance a 2% inflation rate and a 5% unemployment rate, State and local governments must assess fiscal policies to ensure they support economic stability. Responsible fiscal measures, including targeted stimulus and infrastructure spending, should be implemented to foster economic growth without exacerbating inflation.” Supply chain management and encouraging sensible long-term actions like investments in tech, research, and development to promote innovation can also help reduce production costs over time, Sabas added.

Read More at Million Voices

Democrats, Economics, Uncategorized

“Questionably Qualified” Obama Center Subcontractor Files a $40 Million Lawsuit over Alleged Racial Discrimination

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An Obama Presidential Center in Chicago contractor has filed a $40 million lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, the New York Post reports. 

Subcontractor Robert McGee accuses the engineering firm managing the construction of the Obama Center, Thornton Tomasetti, of racial discrimination. He says the discriminatory practice forced his firm II in One to do extra work, leaving him at risk of bankruptcy.

The Obama Center is being constructed at Jackson Park in Chicago, Illinois, at a cost of $830 million. It will host a museum, library, and community and conference facilities. The Obama Foundation, which offers scholarships via the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, will oversee its development.

It features a 235-foot-high “museum tower,” a two-story event space, an athletic center, a recording studio, a winter garden, and a sledding hill.

However, it will not host any presidential records. Instead, it will display 30 million pages of digitized unclassified documents with no on-site archivists to assist researchers. Construction was expected to start in 2018 but was delayed until 2021, with its opening expected in 2026. Environmentalists also opposed the project and filed lawsuits, citing its environmental impacts, including cutting down trees and destroying bird habitat. However, the Obama Center claimed it would plant new trees, providing new bird habitats.

Meanwhile, McGee accuses Thornton Tomasetti of falsely accusing his firm of lacking sufficient qualifications and experience to perform the work, adding that “non-minority-owned contractors were sufficiently qualified.” The allegation suggests that DEI was involved in awarding the contract. 

Thornton Tomasetti denies the racial discrimination allegations, citing the subcontractor’s “underperformance and inexperience.”  The firm states that the “multitude of problems” caused by the alleged incompetence of the African-American-owned firm allegedly resulted in hundreds of hours spent “reviewing, analyzing, re-designing and responding to corrective work.” Additionally, Tomasetti says the subcontractor behind the $40 million lawsuit was “questionably qualified.”

However, the subcontractor says Thornton Tomasetti changed standards and imposed new rebar spacing and tolerance requirements differing from the American Concrete Institute standards. The changes resulted in “excessively rigorous and unnecessary inspection,” resulting in extensive paperwork that affected productivity, causing losses amounting to millions.

In addition, Thornton Tomasetti denies the racial discrimination allegations, stating that it and the architectural firm involved in the Obama Center’s construction “bent over backwards to assist what everyone knows was a questionably qualified subcontractor team in areas where more qualified subcontractor would not have required it.”

Obama’s policies were instrumental in establishing DEI hiring practices, including the FAA policy that turned down nearly a thousand air traffic controllers.

Economics, Uncategorized

In Less than Two Weeks, DOGE Saves Over $1 Billion By Canceling over 100 DEI Contracts

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Less than two weeks into Trump’s second presidency, Elon Musk-led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has slashed over $1 billion by canceling over one hundred “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” (DEI) contracts. Musk had promised to cut “at least $2 trillion” of the $6.75 trillion federal budget.

Over three-quarters of the recent savings were realized by canceling DEI contracts in just three departments. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was the most impacted, of which DOGE slashed $494,956,223. DOGE also saved $228,730,692 from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and $110,618,680 from the Department of Agriculture.

The least savings were from the General Services Administration—Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), which had a spending ceiling of $15,168, and only the administrative costs were saved. 

The Department of Treasury had 21 DEI contracts canceled, amounting to over $25 million, followed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in which DOGE terminated 15 contracts amounting to over $28 million. The Department of Agriculture, also one of the top-grossing agencies, had 11 DEI contracts canceled.

DOGE has also highlighted other unreasonable expenditures, including $784 million for constructing a new Embassy in South Sudan, one of the youngest nations with a population of slightly above 10 million. 

Other potential savings could be realized by defunding Planned Parenthood, which receives nearly $700 million through government health services reimbursements and grants.

Besides DEI spending, Trump and Musk have suggested shutting down entire departments, such as the Department of Education, and returning education responsibilities to the states. In November 2024, Musk also shared Milton Friedman’s vision of a lean government, highlighting agencies that should cease to exist.

They include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Transportation. Trump’s HHS Secretary RFK Jr. has also suggested scrapping the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

While these departments earmarked for scrapping might be serving some purpose, DEI programs are an absolute waste of taxpayers’ money. They also affect government efficiency by turning down the most qualified individuals based on unrelated characteristics such as race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Hot on the heels of the recent air tragedy, it emerged that nearly 1,000 FAA air traffic controllers were turned down because they did not meet the DEI hiring criteria despite acing the pre-employment test. 

Meanwhile, Musk has a long way to go to achieve his initially projected $2 trillion target, which he later reduced by half. Nonetheless, any savings, especially those linked to destructive ideologies like DEI, are highly welcome. We can only hope that DOGE will accelerate the cancelations as the Trump administration settles in.

Musk must also surmount various challenges, including non-cooperation by senior employees. Recently, USAID’s director of security and his deputy were sent on administrative leave after denying DOGE employees access to its systems, claiming that some did not have the necessary security clearances.

However, DOGE officials say they did not attempt to access classified materials for which they did not have security clearances.

“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Kate Miller stated.

As DOGE gains steam, such incidents are only likely to increase, hampering its ability to audit government agencies.

Economics, Woke

Human Sea Cow Sues Lyft Because Driver Had Car, Not Boat

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Think “woke” is over since President Trump got elected? Think again. We’ve been saying for a while that it’s going to take years to root this delusional, narcissistic thinking out of our society. Absurd claims of discrimination and accusations that others have “phobias” are just too delicious for the self-centered in American society to give up easily. 

For at least a decade, we’ve been lectured about, well, everything. Don’t want mentally ill people who think they’re the opposite sex in the military? Well, you must be “transphobic.” That’s the cry from the left after Donald Trump issued an executive order re-banning “transgender” people from military service. Outlets like Vox try to distract by claiming that it’s some stretch to recognize the mental instability of such people, and that they’re just as capable and stable as normal troops. Ha. 

Just about every unhealthy or anti-social behavior has been given a “glow-up” by the left for the past decade. Don’t feel like putting in your all at work? That’s not laziness or paycheck theft, it’s “quiet quitting” from Millennials who have, like, just been asked to do TOO MUCH WORK! Upset by the outcome of the presidential election? Just do a Selena Gomez and ugly-cry about illegals being deported and you’ll be called “empathetic.” In fairness, though, even Gomez’s own fans couldn’t take her crocodile tears and the star was forced to delete her embarrassing video.

But the rehabilitation of morbid obesity into just another “valid” “lifestyle choice” is only barely less ridiculous than the claim that men can become women just by wearing a wig. Remember this cover from Cosmopolitan? 

It’s one of countless articles on why being obese is no less healthy than the alternative. And people believed it, or, rather, people who wanted to believe it, did.

The disconnection from reality is what’s led to this latest lawsuit against the ride-share company Lyft. This woman, who claims to be a rapper named “Dank Demoss,” who is 500 pounds, is suing Lyft because a driver wisely refused to let her into his car, which would’ve risked damage to it.

Just by a quick glance it’s quite obvious that the Lyft driver was correct: she cannot physically fit into a normal-sized car, and would cause damage to it if she did.  

Reality be damned, according to Demoss it’s just that the driver is “fat-phobic.” So she’s off to the races (very slowly) with a lawsuit claiming that she was illegally discriminated against. Get load of what her lawyer claimed to People Magazine:

“Under the law, refusing someone transportation due to their weight is no different than refusing someone transportation based on their race or religion. Discrimination of any kind should never be tolerated in our society,” said attorney John Marko. 

I’ll be generous and assume that this attorney knows the case is nonsense, but also knows Lyft will likely settle it to avoid the costs of going to trial (even if it’s a case they know they’d end of winning).

Let’s see if Twitter/X users agree. 

Oh, dear. It looks like people aren’t taking her claims very seriously. 

This one’s so mean!

And this user misgendered Demoss!

https://twitter.com/MR2528015154180/status/1884370047042265322
Economics, Uncategorized

Business Leaders More Hopeful About U.S. Economy Thanks To Trump

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A survey published in mid-January revealed that business leaders are hopeful that the U.S. will avoid a major recession now that President Trump has returned to the White House.

“The January 2025 NABE Business Conditions Survey results reveal that business conditions remained relatively unchanged through the end of 2024, although a larger share of respondents than in the previous survey foresees higher prices going forward,” said National Association of Business Economics President Emily Kolinski Morris in the study published by the organization. “At the same time, the odds of a recession continue to diminish according to panelists, with the downside risks largely tied to uncertainty over the implementation and timing of policy proposals from the new administration.” 

Experts Speak Out

A majority (82%) of NABE members said the probability of the U.S. entering a recession is roughly 25% or even lower over the coming year. Some 62% reported no change in recent prices while 30% reported higher prices, the smallest share since Jan 2021, according to analysis by the Daily Caller.

“The survey results suggest a steady-state economy,” NABE Business Conditions Survey Chair Selma Hepp, chief economist and senior vice president at CoreLogic, wrote in the press release. “However, concerns remain regarding shortages of skilled labor and a potential for more price pressures ahead. In addition, the outcome of the recent U.S. elections did not change hiring or investment plans for 70% of respondents.”

Read More at Million Voices

Economics, Uncategorized

More Native Born Americans Are Unemployed At The End Of Biden’s Term

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Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) found that Native-born American employment is 716,000 below pre-pandemic levels as President Joe Biden leaves the White House.

Despite the regrowth of millions of jobs in the post-COVID-19 pandemic market, the total workforce failed to fully recover throughout the Biden administration’s term in office, FRED revealed. When the figures take into account foreign-born employment, the total workforce has grown to record levels.

Even though the data shows that American-born workers are still not back and working like they used to be, Biden’s White House claimed victory for “American workers” in the face of a “sluggish recovery,” the Daily Caller News Foundation wrote in its analysis. 

“Over 1.6 million construction and manufacturing jobs have been created under President Biden,” the White House stated in December. “His economic plan is creating good-paying jobs for American workers.”

Misrepresenting The Numbers?

Fox News host Shannon Bream recently confronted Vice President-elect J.D. Vance over Biden’s allegedly “good” jobs numbers, according to Newsweek. Vance explained that Biden deserves credit for the “dumpster fire” of an American economy.

“He actually hasn’t left the American people in good economic condition, that’s why they made Donald J. Trump president-elect of the United States,” Vance told Fox. He also touched upon the cost of living, our “trillions and trillions of dollars” of federal debt, as well as skyrocketing oil prices that have occurred in the last two months of Biden’s term. Newsweek then described how inflation has allegedly cooled since the pandemic. Have you felt this?

We’re Not Stupid

Americans aren’t stupid. The economy was the #1 concern for the 2024 presidential vote, as reported by Gallup. In fact, the economy was so important, it ranked the highest since the Great Recession of 2008. 

One demographic that did exceptionally well under Biden’s economy was government workers, according to the Daily Caller. The new highs of 23.5 million employees on the government’s (our) payroll, as of December 2024, follows a record-setting trend by the Biden-Harris administration: hiring people to work for the government, despite overall unemployment rising across the country. 

“The percentage of the total workforce that is employed by the government has been steadily increasing for two and a half years, including in the December [BLS] report,” Heritage Foundation federal budget expert Richard Stern told the outlet. “This indicates that once Biden’s economic policies could take effect, they started to strangle the private sector and transfer resources to local, state, and federal governments.”

Read More at Million Voices

Economics

Biden Admin New Overreach Targets Checking Accounts

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Biden Admin New Overreach Targets Checking Accounts

The Biden administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) “issued a rule in December to curb overdraft penalties” in a way many experts described as “government overreach.”

The CFPB rule aims to force banks to cap overdraft fees at $5 — the average is currently $35 — or provide overdrafts as a type of credit rather than a penalty against customers, reported DCNF. The policy’s publicly stated goal is to “increase transparency and protect American depositors,” experts told the outlet that it will actually force banks to create stricter rules around their accounts, which could limit access to financial services and credit to low-income Americans. In turn, this will likely push more borrowers towards payday lenders, which often push a very high interest rate.

Payday lenders can charge rates upwards of 300-500%, the outlet continued, noting that in 2022, 17% of households with checking accounts reported at least one family member paying an overdraft fee. American credit card loan defaults are currently at the highest rate in 14 years, with the crisis likely to hit the same bottom third of consumers the new overdraft rules will likely target.

Legal Challenges

CFPB is claiming it can implement the regulations “on the grounds overdrafts are loans and not penalties.” Schaerr | Jaffe LLP partner Erik Jaffe called the CFPB argument of “legal authority” a “stretch.”

“The CFPB was given authority to regulate certain circumstances of consumer lending. As a result, the question is whether or not an overdraft on your checking account constitutes a short-term loan,” Jaffe explained to DCNF. “It seems like quite the stretch. Banks charge customers a fee on overdrafts. The fee is not interest, as the length of time you take to pay back the fee does not change how much you owe. Interest must have a time component to it. It’s not like banks are giving customers with overdrafts money over time. They are just doing a courtesy of not bouncing a charge and embarrassing the customer.”

The ruling was hit with instant legal pushback, most notably from the American Bankers Association (ABA) filing a motion for a preliminary injunction in the Southern District of Mississippi’s Fifth Circuit. Jaffe believes this, and other motions, could be successful after the Supreme Court voted 6-3 in June to overturn Chevron defense that “gave federal agencies broad authority to implement regulations under ambiguous language unless Congress had explicitly prohibited such rules,” The Federalist said at the time. (LEARN MORE: Supreme Court Delivers Major Blow To Federal Agencies)

Republicans Take Aim

Republican lawmakers have also “taken aim at the rule,” noted DCNF, particularly focusing on how it will limit access to credit.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, lawful and contractually agreed upon payment incentives promote financial discipline and responsibility and protect access to important financial services,” incoming Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott of North Carolina said in Dec. “With just over a month until the next administration takes over, Director [Rohit] Chopra should never have finalized this rule in the first place, and I look forward to working with the next CFPB Director to advance policies that prioritize consumers over political talking points.”

“We told federal agencies — including the CFPB — to put their ‘pens down’ and stop all midnight rulemaking. Director Chopra blatantly disregarded our request by finalizing this rule. Capping overdraft services is another form of government price controls that hurts consumers who deserve financial protections and greater choice,” incoming House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill of Arkansas stated later in the month.

Who Pushed For This Policy?

Chopra was described by DCNF as a “longtime ally of Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren,” who helped establish CFPB shortly after the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law in 2010.

“This agency was Elizabeth’s idea, and through sheer force of will, intelligence, and a bottomless well of energy, she has made, and will continue to make, a profound and positive difference for our country,” former President Barack Obama said of Warren’s work in July 2011.

Read More at Million Voices 

Economics

Detroit Ranked Second Worst City for Jobs in America

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A new analysis of the Best Cities for Jobs in 2025 ranks Michigan’s largest nearly dead last. The personal finance website WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 31 key indicators of job-market strength – from opportunities per job seeker, to employment growth, to monthly average starting salary – to determine the best for finding work.

The analysis produced an overall rank for 182 cities, as well as a job market rank and socio-economics rank, and Detroit ranked among the worst in all three. Overall, the Motor City came in 181st out of 182, one spot ahead of last place Memphis, Tenn. Detroit ranked 176th for job market and 178th for socio-economics.

For the job market, WalletHub considered indicators like job opportunities, employment growth, starting salaries, unemployment, job security and satisfaction, full time employment, and workers in poverty, among others. Memphis was the worst, followed by Detroit, San Bernardino, Calif.; Augusta, Ga.; Baton Rouge, La.; Gulfport, Miss.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Huntington, W. Va.; Stockton, Calif.; and Shreveport, La. Detroit’s persistently high unemployment is due in part to bigger problems in Michigan under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. In just the last year, 36,000 more Michiganders became unemployed, marking a 17.3% increase since November 2023.

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner

Economics

Whitmer’s Michigan: Nearly 20,000 Michiganders Got Pink Slips for Christmas — Most of Any State

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The number of new Michigan unemployment claims swelled by more than 7,800 last week over the week prior, significantly outpacing every state in the nation. In total, the state estimates 19,349 Michiganders filed new unemployment claims during the week of Christmas, or 7,810 more than the 11,539 that filed claims during the previous week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment insurance claims report.

That growth in new claims dwarfs all states and the District of Columbia, with the next closest states of New Jersey at 5,637 additional claims, and Pennsylvania at 5,331. Across the U.S., the net increase in initial unemployment claims was 7,441, as declining unemployment in 26 states was outpaced by increases in the rest. In November, about 9,000 Michiganders lost their jobs as the state’s unemployment rate ticked up for the eighth straight month, growing at double the national average.

State officials in November reported Michigan’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped two-tenths of a percentage point from September to come in at 4.7% for October, then later revised that figure to 4.6%. The Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget reports Michigan’s unemployment rate has since swelled to 4.8%, jumping another two-tenths of a percentage point as the national unemployment rate increased by 0.1% in November. It’s now at the highest point since November 2021, when the state was still reeling from government imposed pandemic restrictions. 

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner 


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