1) How Blue States Are Splurging With Your Federal COVID Dollars
The federal government has doled out well more than $1 trillion in Covid aid to the states over the last two and a half years and, as we pointed out last week, most states with Republican governors used the funds to retire debt and cut taxes. (As we encouraged them to do!)
But four states in particular completely ignored our advice. You can probably guess which four: California, New York, Illinois, and Connecticut.
According to the Wall Street Journal: “Despite sitting on surpluses, these four states allow fees to rise for businesses as they spend money on other [noncovid] programs.”
Where has all the extra money gone? “California, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York have directed surplus funds to social programs and taxpayer rebates, among other causes, leaving unpaid debts to the federal government ranging from tens of millions of dollars to more than $15 billion.”
California is the worst offender. California Governor Gavin Newsom used the federal dollars to pass out “free money” to people – whether they pay taxes or not. California sent out checks as large as $1,225 to each resident (or $5,000 for a family of four). We thought buying votes was illegal! But the Golden State’s highest income, sales, and gas taxes (which actually went up again on July 1) in the nation remain.
Prediction: when these states run out of money during the recession they will come running to Washington tin cups in hand begging for more money. And the fools congress will probably give it to them.
2) Billionaire Ken Griffin Exits Chicago – The City And State Are BIG Time Losers
Liberals are very good at chasing rich people out of their states. Elon Musk is gone from California to Texas. Paul Tudor Jones left Connecticut many years ago and when he took his business and earnings to Florida, he single-handedly drilled a $40 million revenue hole in the state budget in Hartford. You could almost hear the state lawmakers yell; "please come back."
Now billionaire Citadel Capital founder Ken Griffin, one of the richest and most philanthropic residents of Illinois, has moved to – where else – Florida.
Bloomberg wrote a superb, well-researched story on what Griffin (age 53) has meant to the life and civil culture of Chicago.
“Griffin has given more than $600 million to organizations in the Windy City since arriving in 1989.”
“His name adorns a hall at the Art Institute of Chicago.”
“The entire Museum of Science & Industry plans to take on the billionaire hedge fund manager’s name in 2024.”
“The University of Chicago is home to the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics.”
“In June Griffin donated more than $130 million across 40 Chicago organizations.”
“The 40 latest recipients [of Griffin’s donations] represent ‘the fabric of Chicago,’ among them Northwestern Medicine, the Field Museum and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”
“Griffin also gave $10 million to Fourth Presbyterian Church, where his children were baptized.” The money will help endow meal distribution and other programs.”
Oh and Ken Griffin, who is sometimes portrayed as a greedy Republican hedge fund fat cat “alone paid more than $200 million in taxes in Illinois in each of the past two years.”
Griffin will save hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes by moving from Illinois to Florida but his main reason for leaving is the crime wave in Chicago.
So sad that class warfare liberals always kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.
Whenever it’s David versus Goliath we instinctively support the underdog. But what’s so disheartening about this story is that the big, bad bully in this story is the U.S. government.
Biden is strong-arming Hungary to sign on to its cockamamie global minimum tax rate of 15% for multinational corporations. As a member of the European Union, Hungary must give its approval before the EU can impose the new minimum tax. All the more reason for them to say not just no, but, hell no.
Hungary has no incentive to join this tax cartel. Hungary’s 9% corporate tax rate is one of the lowest in the world, and they’ve leveraged that low rate to attract jobs and capital that would be lost under a new minimum tax.
It only takes a few holdouts to squash the Janet Yellen tax cartel scheme. How shameful that the Land of the Free is strong-arming other nations to raise taxes.
But the Hungarians are tough and strong-willed people as the Soviets learned during the Cold War, so we hope Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban doesn’t cave to Biden’s intimidation tactics.
Speaking of Joe, with a remarkable 33% job approval rating in a New York Times/Siena poll, the president is now under 38% in the Real Clear Politics average. The New York Times poll shows almost two-of-three self–identified Democrats don’t want Biden to run again.
5) Leftist Group Offers To Pay Bounties To Locate Supreme Court Justices
A left-wing activist group is offering $50 to anyone who gives them the location of the six Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. The bounty goes up to $200 if the justices are still at the location 30 minutes after the tip.
If this isn’t an incitement to violence, what is? Yet, shamefully, Twitter, the platform on which ShutDownDC announced its "bounty," still hasn’t shut down the group’s account, while voices on the right can get shut down for sneezing.
