If this is true – it was leaked by a “source familiar with international trade” to the Nikkei Asian Review and isn’t based on a White House announcement – then it’s going to add a lot of fuel to the already heated trade dispute between the US and China, and may ultimately make the steel and aluminum tariffs look like a game.
To punish China for its intellectual property theft, including IP infringements such as counterfeiting, and to retaliate against Chinese investment rules that require technology transfers to Chinese partners in order to set up shop in China, the Trump administration is considering a proposal by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) that would impose:
Tariffs on a large variety of Chinese products, including tech products and consumer goods like clothing.
And limits on visas for certain Chinese nationals.
The USTR also urged US allies, including Japan, to implement similar measures and synchronize their policies, according to the “source familiar with international trade,” cited by the Nikkei Asian Review.
Germany, Japan, and other countries have long fumed over the required technology transfers to Chinese partners. At the same time, Chinese companies, often state-owned, have been on a shopping spree in Germany, going after robotics know-how and other industries, which has caused a lot of soul-searching in the business community in Germany. Japan too “has long opposed China’s intellectual property practices,” as the Nikkei put it. Now the USTR has asked these countries to do something about it.
The probe by the USTR started in August last year, invoking Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974. The act, because it conflicts with WTO rules against imposing trade restrictions unilaterally, hasn’t been used since 1995, when the WTO began sorting out trade disputes.
But in August 2017, the USTR announced that it had “formally initiated” an investigation of China under Section 301:
“The investigation will seek to determine whether acts, policies, and practices of the Government of China related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce.”
The investigation would “look into Chinese laws, policies, and practices which may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development.”
“Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, gives the U.S. Trade Representative broad authority to respond to a foreign country’s unfair trade practices. If USTR makes an affirmative determination of actionable conduct, it has the authority to take all appropriate and feasible action to obtain the elimination of the act, policy, or practice, subject to the direction of the President, if any. The statute includes authorization to take any actions that are within the President’s power with respect to trade in goods or services, or any other area of pertinent relations with the foreign country.”
Trump had pledged to crack down on the causes of the huge US trade deficit. In terms of the magnitude of the trade deficit, no country comes even close to China (chart shows China and Hong Kong combined due the transshipments via Hong Kong):
The trade deficit in goods alone was $796 billion in 2017, of which the deficit with China accounted for $342 billion. China exported to the US three times as much as it imported from the US.
Though the USTR has tried to get US allies on board, at least the Japanese government rejected the proposal, saying that it would be difficult to implement since Japan lacks a law similar to Section 301, a US trade official told the Nikkei. The official said that Japan had proposed instead a joint suit against China via the WTO. That would make sense to say for Japan; it has only a small trade deficit with China/Hong Kong and in many months a trade surplus.
That the Trump administration invoked Section 301 rattled the Chinese government. In February, it sent its top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, to Washington on a fence-mending mission. This resolved nothing. At the beginning of March, it sent President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, Liu He, for a bigger five-day fence-mending mission.
It was doomed from the beginning. China had planned to send a delegation of about 40 people along with Liu He, sources told the SCMP, but the US government objected, and in the end the delegation was cut to about 10.
Liu met with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, and afterward announced China’s intention to reduce its trade surplus with the US. According to the SCMP, Chinese state media portrayed Liu’s mission positively.
But on March 7, after the mission was over, Trump tweeted: “The U.S. is acting swiftly on Intellectual Property theft.We cannot allow this to happen as it has for many years!” It seems to have been an apt suggestion that the USTR’s proposal was on the way. The proposal’s drastic remedies and the chance that Trump would support them might have been the real reason why Cohn quit, rather than the now softened steel and aluminum tariffs that seemed to be hitting the wrong targets.
The despicable Bobble Head is running away from the skeletons that have gathered in her closet, (click here for her latest fall)running away from the ghosts that continue to haunt her, running away from the defeats suffered in the political arena; first by a Johnny Come Lately, then by a an alleged misogynist who’s brash statements curried favor with the electorate.
Her latest FALL from grace took her to India; trying to jump start her book tour which has imploded she again revealed another theory for her devastating loss. It was WHITE WOMEN whose minds were forcibly corrupted to vote for a White man. Of course no one, not even her husband, Slick Willie, believes in these excuses. She lost because she is a looser – pure and simple.
Democrats “do not do well with white men, and we don’t do well with married, white women,” she said. “And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”
BY THE WAY, CNN DID NOT SHOW THE VIDEO OF HILLARY TAKING A FALL
Denver Sheriff Department refuses to detain illegal immigrant suspected of leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in death.
An illegal immigrant charged with vehicular homicide in a fiery crash on a Colorado interstate bonded out of jail Saturday, a week after the deadly hit-and-run incident, despite being wanted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ivan Zamarripa-Castaneda, 26, allegedly fled the scene of the accident on Interstate 70 involving a tractor-trailer that caught on fire last week, leaving the driver to die, according to the Denver Police Department.
Zamarripa-Castaneda bonded out on Saturday, according to jail records, but it’s not clear if he has been taken into custody, FOX 31 reported.
Officials from ICE did not return a request for comment by Fox News on the whereabouts of Zamarripa-Castaneda.
Flames from a crash on Interstate 70, where police say Ivan Zamarripa-Castaneda fled from the scene. (Manuel Chavez)
The 26-year-old had bond posted at $25,000, meaning he could get out of jail for $2,500 and avoid federal immigration officials until his next court date. That’s because the Denver Police Department and other state agencies stopped honoring detainer orders from ICE since 2013 after courts ruled it was illegal.
The Denver Sheriff Department, which operates the jail, told Fox News last week that unless ICE gets a federal criminal warrant that Zamarripa-Castaneda could leave detention after posting bond.
“The Denver Sheriff Department will not honor civil detainers as it is considered unconstitutional,” the agency said in a statement.
ICE officials told Fox News last week they detain up to 40,000 people per day, and don’t have the resources to go after every federal warrant.
“By placing retainers on these individuals, we actually help improve public safety by taking these criminal aliens off the streets and ultimately removing them to their country of origin,” ICE Director of Communications Carl Rusnok told Fox News.
“Saying because something’s very serious we want to just abandon all of our constitutional principles and do what’s quote unquote right doesn’t make any legal sense,” Chris Decker told Fox News.
But for Don Rosenberg, who lost his son in a 2010 crash involving an illegal immigrant and now is a member of the group “Fight Sanctuary State,” the Colorado case is different.
“His rights don’t supersede everybody else’s right,” he told Fox News. “And the first right: He’s in the country illegally. He has no right whatsoever to be here.”
Fox News’ Alicia Acuna in Denver contributed to this report.
“I know who I am. And never used it for anything. Never got any benefit from it anywhere,” Warren said of her ancestry on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The Massachusetts Democrat has been Under increased pressure to provide evidence of her Native American roots, with President Trump repeatedly mocking her as “Pocahontas” as recently as Saturday.
“All the senator needs to do is spit into a tube, wait a few weeks and get her answer,” the paper said.
Asked whether she’d take an ancestry test, Warren said she wants to hold onto the folklore of her parents’ love story.
“My mother and daddy were born and raised in Oklahoma,” Warren said. “My daddy first saw my mother when they were both teenagers. He fell in love with this tall, quiet girl who played the piano. Head over heels. But his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part Native American. They eventually eloped.”
She said her parents survived the Great Depression and other hardships as they raised her and her three brothers.
“That’s the story that my brothers and I all learned from our mom and our dad, from our grandparents,” Warren said. “It’s a part of me and nobody’s going to take that part of me away.”
But Warren’s story has come under scrutiny for relying on family lore rather than official tribal documentation of Native American heritage.
As noted on several occasions the illegal alien criminals who has terrorized our nation (think MS-13) are also looting America’s social welfare programs; plus they have filed fraudulently tax returns to take advantage of childcare credits when in fact their children live in Mexico.
Mexico won’t have to pay for the wall, after all. US taxpayers won’t have to pick up the tab, either. The controversial barrier, rather, will cover its own cost just by closing the border to illegal immigrants who tend to go on the federal dole.
That’s the finding of recent immigration studies showing the $18 billion wall President Trump plans to build along the southern border will pay for itself by curbing the importation of not only crime and drugs, but poverty.
“The wall could pay for itself even if it only modestly reduced illegal crossings and drug smuggling,” Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Post.
Federal data shows that a wall would work. A two-story corrugated metal fence in El Paso, Texas, first erected under the Bush administration has already curtailed illegal border crossings there by more than 89 percent over the five-year period during which it was built.
Absent a wall, the Homeland Security Department forecasts an additional 1.7 million illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border over the next decade.
If a wall stopped just 200,000 of those future crossings, Camarota says, it would pay for itself in fiscal savings from welfare, public education, refundable tax credits and other benefits currently given to low-income, illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
If a wall stopped 50 percent of those expected crossings, he says, it would save American taxpayers a whopping $64 billion — almost four times the wall’s cost — to say nothing of the additional billions in federal savings from reduced federal drug interdiction and border-security enforcement.
Camarota explains that illegal border-crossers from Mexico and Central America — who account for more than 75 percent of the illegal immigrant population in the US — are overwhelmingly poor, uneducated and lack English language and other skills. In fact, the average Latino illegal immigrant has less than a 10th-grade education. That means if they work, they tend to make low wages; and as a result pay relatively little in taxes while using public services. And if they have children while in the US, they more often than not receive welfare benefits on behalf of those US-born children, who have the same welfare eligibility as any other citizen.
“A large share of the welfare used by immigrant households is received on behalf of their US-born children,” Camarota said. “This is especially true of households headed by illegal immigrants.”
Therefore, illegal border-crossers create an average fiscal burden of more than $72,000 during their lifetimes, Camarota says. Including costs for their US-born children, the fiscal drain jumps to more than $94,000.
While the national media routinely report that illegal immigrants don’t go on welfare, Camarota says this is a pervasive myth. While in most cases they can’t legally qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid or other public benefits, the reality is that the vast majority of households headed by illegal immigrants are on welfare through their children.
The vast majority of households headed by illegal immigrants are on welfare through their children.
“There is simply no question that households headed by illegal immigrants access a good deal of welfare. In fact, illegal immigrants’ use of some programs is quite high,” he said.
The US Census Bureau’s latest “survey of income and program participation” shows that 62 percent of illegal-immigrant-headed households are on the federal dole — more than double the rate for households headed by native-born Americans. And that includes households where one or more workers are present in the household.
Their use of US welfare is highest for food stamps and Medicaid, data show.
Though welfare use among illegal immigrants is much more associated with children, “childless illegal households still use some welfare programs at surprisingly high rates,” Camarota pointed out.
Some collect federal benefits through fraud or administrative errors or through green-card holders. But in the case of Medicaid, pregnant women illegally in the country can sometimes be enrolled in the program.
There is also an Emergency Medicaid program that covers predominantly illegal immigrants. Funds from the multibillion-dollar program go to hospitals to offset the cost of treating adult illegal aliens who can’t pay their bills. And it’s not just for ER visits. In New York, the program can be used to provide chemotherapy and radiation therapy for illegal immigrants.
In addition, Camarota said the IRS each year pays out billions to illegal immigrants in refundable child tax credits and the earned income tax credit.
While Democrats complain the $18 billion price tag for the Trump wall is too high, the “Dreamers” amnesty bill they want Trump and Republicans to pass in exchange for funding the wall (or ideally in spite of the wall) would cost US taxpayers even more than the construction of the border partition over 10 years.
“The cost of the DREAM Act has been estimated as very large — a $26 billion net cost in the first 10 years,” Camarota noted.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that 3 million DREAM Act recipients would receive an estimated $12 billion-plus in ObamaCare subsidies, more than $5.5 billion in Medicaid benefits, $5.5 billion in earned-income and child-tax credits and more than $2 billion in food stamps.
A bipartisan bill incorporating the deal was defeated in the Senate last month by a vote of 54-45. Trump rejected the proposal in favor of a tougher border bill introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), which limits the number of DACA beneficiaries to 1.8 million, curbs family visas, or so-called chain migration, and phases out the diversity visa lottery, while earmarking $25 billion in funding for the wall and other border security.
Sperry is a former Hoover Institution media fellow. Follow him on Twitter: @paulsperry_
Millions of illegal immigrants are getting a bigger tax refund than you. Eyewitness News shows a massive tax loophole that provides billions of dollars in tax credits to undocumented workers and, in many cases, people who have never stepped foot in the United States. And you are paying for it!
The Internal Revenue Service says everyone who is employed in the United States – even those who are working here illegally – must report income and pay taxes. Of course, undocumented workers are not supposed to have a social security number. So for them to pay taxes, the IRS created what’s called an ITIN, an individual taxpayer identification number. A 9-digit ITIN number issued by the IRS provides both resident and nonresident aliens with a unique identification number that allows them to file tax returns.
While that may have seemed like a good idea, it’s now backfiring in a big way.
Each spring, at tax preparation offices all across the nation, many illegal immigrants are now eagerly filing tax returns to take advantage of a tax loophole, using their ITIN numbers to get huge refunds from the IRS.
The loophole is called the Additional Child Tax Credit. It’s a fully-refundable credit of up to $1000 per child, and it’s meant to help working families who have children living at home.
But 13 Investigates has found many undocumented workers are claiming the tax credit for kids who live in Mexico – lots of kids in Mexico.
Yes the shit is flowing in every neighborhood; from downtown to Russian Hill, from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Presidio, to Nob Hill and Pacific Heights. Indigents have taken over. These are Nancy Pelosi’s people. Drug addicts, alcoholics and illegals who litter the streets with no shame and they do it with abandon. So if you intend to visit the City by the Sea don’t wear a flower in your hair – wear latex gloves and a surgical mask and be particularly careful where you step. Beware of those wearing shorts; the possibility exists that one of those formerly described vagrants may take you for a hydrant.
A mix of used hypodermic needles, human feces, and other trash litters the streets and sidewalks in a large section of downtown San Francisco, a local news outlet reported Sunday night.
It’s a problem that has grown by epic proportions in recent years and has many concerned for the health and safety of some the city’s youngest residents, KNTV-TV revealed.
An investigative team from the local NBC station found filthy conditions that many experts believe may be worse than the slums in some developing countries.
Where was the survey done?
The investigation encompassed 153 blocks of the city, including popular tourist spots, major hotel chains, schools, city hall, playgrounds, and a police station.
Over the course of three days, they found 100 drug needles, more than 300 piles of feces throughout downtown, along with numerous piles of trash, food, and other junk.
During the survey, a group of preschoolers encountered dangerous contaminants while walking to city hall for a field trip.
“We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash,” Adelita Orellana, the students’ preschool teacher, said. “Sometimes they ask what is it, and that’s a conversation that’s a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched.”
Thousands of pounds of human waste, close to 14,000 hypodermic needles cleaned out from Santa Ana River homeless encampments
A syringe found by county workers cleaning up trash around a homeless encampment along the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim, on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Orange County Public Works released eye-popping figures Thursday, March 8, on the total amount of debris, needles and hazardous waste removed when crews cleaned up the area along the Santa Ana River Trail once populated by the encampments of homeless people.
Here’s what was collected between Jan. 22 and March 3 from a more than two-mile stretch of bike trail roughly from I-5 in Orange to Ball Road in Anaheim, according to OC Public Works spokesman Shannon Widor:
404 tons of debris
13,950 needles (approximate number based on what disposal containers hold)
5,279 pounds of hazardous waste (human waste, propane, pesticides and other materials)
Crews from the Orange County Conservation Corps work to clean trash left behind by homeless people on the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim on Monday, Feb 26, 2018. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
More than 700 people were living in the encampments when they were dismantled in late February. Most of those people are being housed temporarily in local motels while county outreach workers assess their need for services and housing.
The bike trail cleanup is the beginning of an environmental remediation effort that was expected to include the removal of 2 to 3 inches of soil in the project area and tree trimming. Planned improvements on the bike trail from Katella to Ball Road/Taft Avenue also could include sealing cracks and applying a slurry seal, Widor said.
The entire island of Puerto Rico is without power, after Hurricane Maria slammed into the U.S. territory. Officials estimate that it could take months for the island to be restored. Check out these incredible images of the storm and its aftermath.
Six months after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, many leaders there are pointing the finger at Washington, but the scandal, corruption and waste that now plague the U.S. territory were around long before last summer’s storm.
Decades of dysfunction, mismanagement and embarrassing abuses of power left Puerto Rico reeling well before the storm delivered a knockout blow, say obervers. Enormous debt, absurd infrastructure projects and a tradition of corruption have hampered the commonwealth’s ability to get off the canvas.
“There’ve been so many problems that have built up year after year,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., told Fox News. “It’s a tough situation.”
“All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”
– Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, University of Puerto Rico
Reckless spending sprees by a revolving door of politicians have turned the commonwealth into a bloated bureaucracy that can’t pay its bills and yet enjoys the benefits of a welfare society without any of the responsibilities attached to it.
Before Maria hit in September, Puerto Rico was already navigating the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. government history at a whopping $120 billion in combined bond and pension debt.
For years, the island blew through billions of dollars in borrowed money.
Pricey and impractical infrastructure projects almost always got the go-ahead.
“Every town in Puerto Rico has a new baseball park,” Emilio Pantojas-Garcia, a sociology professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, told Bloomberg News. “All these mayors were using borrowed money to build things that were underutilized.”
One such project was a 1,000-seat performing-arts center in the small city of Humacao. The building was designed for big-budget Broadway-style performances. Instead, it was rarely used and ended up being the place where the occasional stand-up comic performs.
The territory’s towering debt and mismanagement also led to less money being available for schools and hospitals.
Then Maria hit and things on the island went from bad to catastrophic in the blink of an eye.
Multiple cases of corruption and greed by local leaders, government officials and inexperienced contractors surfaced, shedding light on the toxicity that is still very much a part of everyday life in Puerto Rico.
Those who can leave, often do.
The government of Puerto Rico now estimates that by the end of the year, another 200,000 residents will have moved to the mainland.
But for residents stuck in Puerto Rico, the future looks grim.
“We’re used to it by now but that doesn’t make it right or fair,” Sunita Howell, a waitress in Old San Juan, told Fox News. Howell’s family, who lives in the Hato Rey neighborhood of the city, struggles daily.
Howell says after Maria hit, her family was approached by someone offering to restore power to their home for $3,000.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “Who has that here? You are supposed to be helping us not taking our money.”
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority – PREPA- has already suspended three employees without pay and says it is looking into another 25 reported cases of possible bribery in the days and weeks after Maria.
PREPA confirmed to PBS that all of the cases involve field employees responsible for restoring power.
El Vocero, a San Juan-based newspaper, said that some employees demanded up to $5,000 to reconnect power.
PREPA’s director was forced out in November after the utility, the commonwealth’s sole electricity provider, failed to call for help from its mainland counterparts after the storm.
Instead, PREPA granted a power-restoration contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings. It was a disaster of a deal and PREPA was forced to rescind the contract after public pressure.
PREPA was also accused of stockpiling supplies badly needed to help with rebuilding after Maria.
“The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority has become a heavy burden on our people, who are now hostage to its poor service and high cost,” Governor Ricardo Rossello, who is planning to sell PREPA to the private sector, said in a statement. “What we know today as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority does not work and cannot continue to operate like this.”
PREPA’s problems are just one of several crises slowing down recovery on the island.
The federal government recently awarded a $156 million contract to a one-person Atlanta-based company that was supposed to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Owner Tiffany Brown, who had no disaster relief experience, got the gig but managed to deliver only 50,000 meals to the storm-ravaged island.
There have been problems with the housing situation too and now, the island’s largest restoration contractor says it will pull out of Puerto Rico in the next few weeks after maxing out its $746 million contract.
“It never ends,” Howell said. “Tomorrow I’ll wake up and there will be another scandal, another Whitefish.”
THE COMING SHOWDOWN. WHY WE NEED OUR AR-A15’s. Not to kill a deer AS the LUNATIC GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK SAYS, BUT TO SHOOT A GANG BANGER, A LOOTER A MEMBER OF MS-13!
Ask one who lives in a gated community if they are armed, what type of munitions do they have to protect life, liberty and happiness. What type of security detail is stationed at Gracie Mansion. We bet Cuomo’s Tonton Macoutes (a special operations unit) have automatic weapons. For What we may ask is the Governor afraid of? He is armed and we must be.
We would challenge the Governor to take a nightly tour of the deep crevices, the inner sanctums, the no-go zones and hoods of New York City, St Louis, Baltimore and Los Angeles without an armed security detail. He wouldn’t last a minute. Expect him goyellow pants, cry like a baby and get down on his kneesbegging for mercy. Not gonna happen though because the governor lack cajones!
But the set up for a breakdown of civil order is in place. Middle America, the Patriot, the 2nd Amendment advocate and those who love the country will not be intimidated by a YELLOW BELLY excrement liberal progressives who invite the illegal murderer, rapist and law breaker into our communities. Those who proffer sanctuary cities are as much a danger as the illegal. A destroyer of cities, states and country the governor is. Failure to obey the laws and protect the citizens of the New York and beyond is treason. Governors like Cuomo belong behind bars for their horrendous crimes against humanity.
The ignition switch is turned on, one push of the button and WE WILL TAKE AMERICA BACK. They say back from what? Back from the leech. Read the following blog post. When payments to those who are scamming the system are stopped expect civil war. Suburbia will not escape the humdrum implosion of the cities, but ostensibly will be the next target. The only way to survive is with automatic weapons, with AR-15 defensive type weapons.
Nut cakes like him will continue to give succor to the mentally deranged. The bureaucracy will fail time and time again because of political correctness and the lack of will to enforce the law. While Cuomo will be begging for his life we will taking out those who threaten us.
Sending money down a rat hole is a Democrat priority; we give Solyndra as the quintessential example. Seven Hundred Fifty Million Dollars ($750,000,000) up in solar flames. The Donkey party patronage system paved the way for one of the largest scams in the past twenty years, yet no one was indicted. Why? The answer is simple, those involved in the scam were, shall we say, WELL CONNECTED. Big doners to the Democrat party get access to funds that the average Joe only dreams about. Bloomberg reported in 2011 that Solyndra’s $733 million plant had whistling robots and spa showers, along with many other signs of extravagant spending – all of this was on our dime.
Continuing on the scheme to fleece America we advise any one of you to spend a day or two at your local Social Security Office. What to look for? Notice the people in line, do they look like you? The majority of which are there to run the Disability Scam. To collect Social Security Disability we advise you to check any numerous of these (click)websites out.
Depending on the severity of your medical condition, you may be eligible for permanent benefit payments if you have any of the following common impairments:
In other words, any person who breathes can collect SSDI. Scamming America has never been higher. The number of people collecting social security disability is over 10,000,000. Over 61,000,000 people are collecting social security benefits one way or another. The facts are these, those collecting social security has never been so easy.
The number of people on SSDI now exceeds the entire population of Greece. The aging of the population has nothing to do with the increase. In 1968 there were 51 workers for every person on disability. Today there are 13 workers for every person on disablity. Even the most pollyanna would agree that medical advancements since 1968 have been significant. These medical advancements would argue for less people being on disability and unable to work. Workplace safety measures have been increased exponentially since 1968, so that also argues for less disabled workers. The good old ADA law forced all workplaces to become disabled friendly. That argues for less people on disability. The country has transitioned from a manufacturing society to a service society. Workers don’t work on dangerous assembly lines anymore. Robots do the dangerous stuff. This should have dramatically reduced worker injuries and disabilities.
Everything I’ve pointed out is true. The tremendous increase in people on SSDI is nothing but a gigantic fraud, perpetuated by the Federal government and slimy lawyers. The government broadened the scope of disabilities to include stress, depression, and non-diagnosable things like aches and pains. I have stress, depression and pains too, but I get up at 5:15 every morning and go to work. The SSDI program is a joke. More than half the people on SSDI are lazy good for nothing leeches. They are sucking you and I dry while sitting around eating cheetos, watching Judge Judy on their government subsidized cable TV, and texting with other lazy fucks on their iPhones. And don’t forget, you get the added benefit of Medicare coverage after only two years of SSDI stress.
An 18-month investigation by a Senate subcommittee found that in more than 25 percent of cases reviewed, evidence confirming disabilities was “insufficient, contradictory or incomplete.” The staff reviewed 300 decisions in which individuals were awarded disability benefits by administrative law judges. A 2011 internal SSA report echoed the findings, showing a national error rate of 22 percent.
Going forward, it is essential that Congress take significant steps to rein in SSDI’s growth. To do nothing — to continue to prioritize the able bodied over the truly infirm — is far worse.
Some people in the United States have already filed their 2015 income tax returns — not because they are super-law-abiding, but because they want to get a check from Uncle Sam in the mail. Some savvy illegal aliens, since they can get substantial tax breaks, will have filed by now.
The first day that IRS accepted returns was January 19 this year — the deadline is two and a half months away, the usual April 15.
This year there is yet another tax break for illegals in the tax system. Unlike citizen and green card workers who are not participating in Obamacare or another qualifying plan, who will be paying a penalty of up to $695 per adult (with a family limit of $2,085) for not joining the system, illegals without coverage pay no penalties. None at all. These penalties were much smaller last year.
That is also true for the semi-illegals covered (for the moment) by the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. (On the other hand, these illegals and semi-illegals cannot — legitimately — be covered by the insurance, though some must be beating that system.)
But the big attraction for filing early is not the new Obamacare tax break, which simply reduces the amount owed, it is the Old Faithful of tax breaks that illegal aliens can access: the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). Illegals filing their income taxes can claim the ACTC if they have (or claim to have) children in the United States. This tax credit, unlike virtually all others, can result in a negative income tax payment. That means that no taxes will be collected from the individual, but he or she will get a check in the mail for all taxes withheld plus a bonus for the credit, as my colleague Jim Edwards has reported in the past.
The ACTC is well worth filing for; it can be as high as $1,000 per child claimed and proving the existence of a child is all too easy, with an ID number issued all too casually by the IRS, as we reported a couple of years ago. This is now called the TIN (tax identification number) and, in the immediate past at least, it was issued in such a sloppy way that the process was roundly criticized by the inspector general of taxation for the Department of the Treasury.
There are at least three kinds of children that an illegal can claim for the ACTC: actual citizen kids living in this country; actual children living abroad, but claimed to be living in the United States; and, at the bottom of the ladder, nonexistent children. The IRS has created a system that makes it very hard to distinguish between these three classes.
A somewhat similar tax program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, requires a Social Security number for the claimed children, and thus is a bit harder for illegals to misuse.
IRS earned income credit or EIC is another one of frauds committed by illegal aliens.
IRS Corruption Fuels Billions in Fraudulent Payments to Illegal Aliens
I am sorry to report that the IRS practice described in this recent FORBES headline is not new. It’s an old story that continues to shock most — but not all — Americans:
“IRS admits it encourages illegals to steal Social Security numbers”
Imagine my surprise when I found a pile of IRS 1040 tax returns among the tons of trash at a “lay-up site” used by illegal border jumpers near the Mexican border west of Douglas, Arizona. There are dozens of such places where the thousands of border invaders change clothes, discard trash and wait to be taken by their “coyote” to their pick-up location for moving on to Phoenix or El Paso or Houston.
The IRS 1040 forms were filled out and had been used. Hey, who says illegal aliens don’t pay taxes?
I collected the 1040 forms and we noticed all had claimed Earned Income Tax Credits and all also had claimed around nine deductions for children. The average refund was around $4,000. It occurred to me only much later that the American taxpayer may be funding the coyote’s $1,500 fees for smuggling poor Mexicans, Salvadorans — and Iraqis and Vietnamese — across our southwest border.
When I sent the 1040 forms to the Social Security Administration and the IRS, I was told that the practice described in the FORBES article was the one being followed in dealing with these returns. I tried to amend the appropriations bills for the IRS to be the practice, but I got nowhere. My Republican colleagues didn’t want to hear about it and were ticked at me for bringing it up.
Illegal aliens use “the system” to report income and also gain every possible “refund” the tax law — and IRS collusion — allows. Who can blame them when the welcome sign is in bright green neon letters?
This FORBES headline should not shock anyone. The IRS collusion with illegal alien tax fraud is not a secret. Over the past decade, there have been regular news stories exposing tax fraud by illegal aliens– and IRS indifference to the scandal.
The shocking thing is that the FORBES headline is not an exaggeration. The IRS knows illegal aliens are using stolen Social Security numbers and is glad they are doing it. But that is only the tip of the iceberg called illegal alien tax fraud.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made the revelation in congressional testimony this past week, but no one was really shocked. The IRS wants illegal aliens working illegally to file tax returns and pay taxes on their illegal earnings like everyone else. So, the government figures it is a smart thing to make it easy for them to do so. The government doesn’t care whether the Social Security number used is stolen or not, it’s the tax filing itself that is important to the IRS.
When asked why the agency has a policy to ignore notifications from the Social Security Administration that a number does not match the name used on the tax filing, the agency replies, literally, “That’s not our job.”
The IRS deliberately and unapologetically avoids telling you when your SSN is being used unlawfully by another person — or ten or twenty other people.
Efforts in Congress to fix that problem are criticized as “racist.”
But as I said, that IRS scandal is only the beginning of the story of tax fraud by millions of illegal aliens. Millions of illegal workers are filing tax forms not to pay their taxes but to claim and then receive refundable tax credits– that is, cash refunds– and those cash payments run into the billions annually.
It’s politically correct in Washington, DC, to say that illegal aliens are willing, even anxious, to “pay their fair share of taxes.” It’s part of the mythology of the noble “undocumented worker” seeking the American dream. Even the Republican National Committee believes it.
This week the RNC sent a fundraising letter to a few million prospective donors using the tired gimmick of a “poll” on critical issues. One question asked voters if they support legalization for illegal aliens if they meet a number of tests, one of them being “paying back taxes.” We all know illegal aliens are anxious to do that to prove they have earned the right to stay here and contribute to the economy.
The problem is they already have a way to pay back taxes if they want to do it, but millions are doing just the opposite. Millions of illegal aliens are collecting refundable tax credits– that is, cash — by filing fraudulent claims. And the IRS doesn’t care.
An April 2012 investigative report by an Indiana television station found numerous cases of tax fraud in the Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credits programs.
Four illegal alien tax filers had used the same address and claimed a total of 20 children for refundable tax credits of up to $1,000 for each child. Only one child actually lived at the address, and the other 19 lived in Mexico and had never even visited the United States.
That aspect of the fraud is in fact not really illegal: the child you claim on the tax form does not have to live in the United States. the child can be living with Aunt Rosa in Peru or Grandpa Felix in Algeria.
The IRS response to the fraudulent payments? They refused to comment or to confirm any investigation and refused to meet with reporters to answer questions.
IRS refusal to act on documented fraud by illegal aliens is legendary. For a decade the agency’s own Inspector General has complained of inaction by agency managers.
According to reports of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), millions of illegal aliens are filing tax forms in order to claim refundable tax credits and receive billions in tax dollars — even if they have never paid one dollar in federal income taxes.
Illegal aliens are accessing not only the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) but the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Additional Child Tax Credit ACTC) to the tune of billions annually.
And according to testimony of the Treasury Department’s Inspector General, the IRS has refused to take steps to curtail illegal aliens cashing in on these programs.
You may be thinking that the government surely would take action if the tax fraud is costing the Treasury millions of dollars. It’s fraud on a small scale, right? Nope. It’s costing billions, not millions.
While I was in Congress back in 2007, I tried to blow the whistle on this IRS partnership with schemes costing taxpayers billions.
A brave IRS employee in one of the agency’s Western regional offices called my office and met with my staff clandestinely at a restaurant in the capital of one of our southwestern states. He offered concrete, credible information and internal reports that showed there was a huge problem– and that it was being ignored by agency management.
His regional office team had studied a random sample of Child Tax Credit claims by tax filers using “ITIN” numbers– tax ID numbers given lawfully to persons who do not qualify for Social Security numbers but are employed and need to file tax returns.
Their sample revealed a high rate of fraud which suggested widespread fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars. But he and his regional colleagues could get no action from headquarters to investigate it further.
Can you guess who blocked any congressional action to demand the IRS investigate illegal alien abuse of these “refundable tax credit” programs? The Congressional Hispanic Caucus threatened massive protests against “discriminatory practices” if the IRS pursued the issue.
At that time, Democrats were in the majority in the House and the Senate and thus controlled the committees, so no investigation was ever conducted. But did Republicans undertake to clean up the mess when they gained the majority in the 2010 election? No.
There is no evidence the problem of tax fraud by illegal aliens is something the IRS cares about.
A December 2014 report by Watchdog.org revealed that an IRS audit documented a 24 percent error rate in claims made under the EITC — a loss of $14.2 billion in unlawful tax refunds in the year 2012.
A similar audit of the Additional Child Tax Credit program in 2012 revealed erroneous payments in the range of 25 percent to 31 percent.
But did the audits result in corrective actions? No.
Adding all of the fraud rates together from three separate refundable tax credit programs suggests total tax fraud in the realm of several billion dollars. Of course, not all of the fraud is by illegal aliens. But the lack of IRS interest in curtailing illegal alien abuse of these tax credit programs tells us the problem will only get worse in the years ahead.
Let’s add the shameful, willful taxpayer-funded philanthropy toward illegal workers to the many reasons why IRS Commissioner Koskinen should be impeached and a new management team put into the agency to conduct a thorough house cleaning.
What are the odds of that happening under President Hillary Clinton? Or President John Kasich?
More than a week after Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhandelivered a blistering speech in Chicago in which he said “powerful Jews are my enemy” and “white folks are going down,” calls are growing louder for Democratic leaders and Women’s March founders with ties to denounce him or step down.
Among those in the line of fire are several members of Congress and Women’s March co-chairwoman Tamika Mallory, who attended the Nation of Islam’s national convention late last month, There, Farrakhan delivered the controversial address and Mallory, who has expressed admiration for him in the past, posted Instagram photos from the Chicago event.
“Here’s the problem: Farrakhan does have an audience and still has widespread popularity among his devoted followers,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a blog published on Thursday. “Because of Farrakhan’s reach and influence and his broad name recognition and something like celebrity status, some public officials, politicians and hip-hop entertainers are still willing to meet with him, still willing to have their pictures taken with him.
“They seemingly have a blind spot when it comes to his anti-Semitism,” he added.
President Obama was recently criticized when a photograph of him with Farrakhan, taken before his 2008 election, surfaced. The photographer said he buried the picture on orders from tthe Congressional Black Caucus, which believed it would hurt Obama’s election chances.
Seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus have had ties with Farrakhan, according to The Daily Caller, which said it had reviewed videos and witness accounts to create the tally.
Trust certain Ghanaians to take their ‘shenaniganism’ to the backyards of whoever opens his country for them and while at it, they are sure to make global headlines with their ‘get rich schemes.’
A Ghanaian based in Worcester, USA has pleaded guilty to $3.6 million fraud after she was busted for screwing the United States food stamp benefit system, which is to help support people of low income.
She attended Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana from 1991-1994, according to her LinkedIn page. She enrolled in Quinsigamond Community College between 2003-2005 in Worcester where she studied electronics.
In 2011 her community college bragged about her and called her a “success story.”
CONVENIENCE STORE FRAUDSTER TAKES $3.6 MILLION FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS
Convenience store owner Vida Ofori Causey out of Worcester, Mass. was charged in federal court Monday after pleading guilty to $3.6 million worth of food stamp fraud.
According to authorities, Causey abused the program between 2010 and 2014. Food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is run by local and federal agencies. It is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was able to scam the program by buying food stamp benefits from receipts for half the actual value.
“Causey purchased the benefits at a discounted value of approximately fifty cents for every SNAP dollar,” a press release from Department of Justice stated. “By so doing, Causey caused the USDA to electronically deposit into a bank account controlled by her the full face value of the SNAP benefits fraudulently obtained.”
As a result, recipients had cash on hand to buy restricted items. The restricted items could include alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs. The program is supposed to be used to provide food to low-come individuals and families. In total, Causey defrauded the USDA for approximately $3,638,900.
SNAP is the nation’s largest food-assistance program. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the program has increased from 17 million participants in 2000 to nearly 47 million in 2014.
JUST A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION ON IMMIGATION FROM GHANA TO WORCESTER, MASS:
The demographics of the City of Worcester underwent a considerable change between 2000 and 2010, according to a new report from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau.
In “Worcester’s Demographic Trends: 2010 Census,” the Research Bureau found that the city’s African American population increased by 77 percent during the first decade of the 21st Century. During the same period, the Latino population grew by 45 percent and the Asian population grew by 31 percent as well.
Meanwhile, the number of residents identifying as white decreased by more than 5 percent, even as the city’s overall population grew by almost 5 percent to 181,045.
Since bottoming out in 1980, Worcester’s population has grown by nearly 20,000 residents, an increase of almost 12 percent over three decades.
Surprising Demographic Shifts
“I think the most surprising was where people are coming from,” said Roberta Schaefer, president and CEO of the Research Bureau.
As of the 2010 Census, 3,401 residents, or 9.63 percent of the city’s foreign-born population, immigrated from Brazil, earning the South American country the top spot on the list.
With 3,356 foreign-born residents, or 9.51 percent of the immigrant population, originating from Vietnam, the country came in a close second. Ghana rounded out the top three as the home country for 3,049 residents, or 8.64 percent of the foreign-born population in Worcester.
3 IN 4 REFUGEES ON FOOD STAMPS, MANY USING OTHER FORMS OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s Annual Report to Congress for FY2013 reveals that nearly 3 in 4 refugees were on food stamps.
Additionally, nearly half were on some form of cash assistance and more than a half were on medical assistance. More than 20 percent were on Supplemental Security Income, more than 22 percent were in public housing and nearly 20 percent were on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
The report noted that many households received more than one type of assistance and the data dealt with refugees who arrived in the U.S. between March 1, 2008 to February 28, 2013.
Click here for the full article from Breitbart. Become familiar with the SNAP program. How to qualify, click here.
F. Roger Devlin and Henry Wolff, American Renaissance, October 14, 2015
The numbers are even worse than we thought.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has published a new report called “Welfare Use by Immigrant and Native Households.” The report’s principle finding is that fully 51 percent of immigrant households receive some form of welfare, compared to an already worrisomely high 30 percent of American native households. The new study is based on the most accurate data available, the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). It also reports stark racial differences in the use of welfare programs.
Previous studies of welfare use have been based on the less accurate but more easily accessible data available from the Current Population Survey; this led to less alarming figures of 39 percent of immigrant households using welfare and 24 percent of native households. CIS’s Steve Camarota took the trouble to work with the SIPP data, which cover a larger number of welfare programs. His results have been independently verified by Decision Demographics, a company specializing in analysis of Census Bureau data.
The programs covered in Mr. Camarota’s study include Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (what used to be most commonly called “welfare”), the Women, Infants and Children food program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“food stamps”), free and subsidized school lunches, Medicaid, and public housing and rent subsidies.
Needless to say, the percentage of immigrants using some form of welfare varies enormously according to the part of the world from which they come. Rates are highest for households from Central America and Mexico (73 percent), the Caribbean (51 percent), and Africa (48 percent). Those from East Asia (32 percent), Europe (26 percent), and South Asia (17 percent) have the lowest rates.
An appendix to the report includes some startling information on welfare use by race and ethnicity. In 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available, the percentages of each group that used at least one welfare program were as follow:
A majority of native black and Hispanic households are on some form of means-tested welfare, compared to just 23 percent of native white households.
A disproportionate share of welfare is directed to households with children. For this group, the corresponding numbers for 2012 are even higher:
A striking 82 percent of black households with children receive welfare–double the white rate. Hispanic families are not far behind blacks.
Of course, different welfare programs are used at different rates. What follow are sets of charts showing, first, the welfare rates for all US households, and second, welfare rates only for households with children. The percentages for Hispanic and black immigrants include both legal and illegal immigrants.
Among natives, blacks receive cash handouts at more than three times the white rate; Hispanics at more than twice the white rate. Rates for black and Hispanic immigrants are relatively lower due to often-ignored restrictions on immigrant use of these programs.
Among all households, native blacks and Hispanics receive food handouts at three times the white rate; for Hispanic immigrants, the figure is four times the white rate. Among households with children, nearly all immigrant Hispanics–86 percent–get food aid. Native blacks and Hispanics aren’t far behind, with rates of 75 and 72 percent, respectively.
It’s clear, too, that non-whites benefit disproportionately from Medicaid, which helps explain why red states have opted out of Medicaid expansion.
Native Hispanics and blacks, especially, are also heavy users of housing assistance. Among households with children, native Hispanics use these programs at nearly four times the white rate and blacks at seven times the white rate. Some effort is made to limit the access of illegal immigrants to subsidized housing, which helps explain why Hispanic immigrants get housing handouts at less than half the rate for native Hispanics. Amnesty for illegals would mean a sharp rise in the percentage of Hispanics in public or subsidized housing.
Spreading the wealth around
For each of the four welfare categories presented above, the black and Hispanic rates are at least double the white rates. Native Asians appear to use welfare at slightly lower rates than whites, but their SIPP sample size is too small to be certain.Asian immigrants, who are not included in the charts above, exceed native white welfare rates by about 25 percent (see table A3 in the CIS report). The US has three times as many immigrant Asian households as native Asian households.
What little public discussion there is of disproportionate welfare use by blacks and Hispanics is inevitably muddied by the claim that the majority of those receiving welfare are white. This ignores the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks and four times as many whites as Hispanics in the United States; what matter are differences in the rates at which each group uses welfare. Furthermore, at least in terms of households, this claim is no longer be true.
According to data in the CIS report, there are 39.88 million households in the US receiving some sort of means-tested welfare. Of those households, just 19.66 million–or 49 percent–are either native or immigrant whites (Middle Eastern immigrants are classified as “whites”). That means the majority of US households on welfare are now non-white.
As mass Third-World immigration continues, the US will have an ever-burgeoning dependent class of non-whites. Black voters will be joined by increasing number of Hispanic voters in their support for more handouts. When they vote in 2016, a majority of black and Hispanic households are likely to be on welfare–just as they were in 2012. Arguments about freedom and limited government will mean nothing to them. Obamacare is just the beginning.
Whites must decide if this is the future they want for their children and grandchildren. If they don’t take action soon, blacks and Hispanics will decide for them.
Time has come for a full accounting and audit of all government handout programs. Interviews of SS disability, Welfare, Medicaid and other free programs by an independent Accounting firm from the Big Four. Our bet is that 50% will be unqualified to collect any benefit from the government. Additionally, the child care credit collected by illegal aliens who defraud the IRS is a high priority.
PUERTO RICO – THANKS MARIA FOR EXPOSING THE WELFARE ISLAND
Alex Witoslawski, American Renaissance, October 4, 2017
Not Donald Trump.
Puerto Ricans are blaming President Trump for the fact that two weeks after Hurricane Maria, their island is still a mess: power outages, flooding, fuel shortages, spotty cell service, washed out bridges, roads blocked by fallen trees. But who is really to blame for the island’s paralysis?
Consider this: Puerto Rico has a population of only 3.4 million but their elected government has run up a debt of over $70 billion and pension obligations of $50 billion. That’s more than $35,294 per resident and over 100 percent of GDP. Puerto Rico has already defaultedon a $58 million bond payment in 2016, due to its already-high taxes and unwillingness to cut government spending. It fell into crushing debt despite the $21 billion annually the island receives in aid from the United States, much of it spent on welfare programs such as Head Start, public housing, and food stamps. That’s over $6,000 per capita in federal welfare that the islanders consume. And due to the special status of the island, Puerto Ricans do not even pay federal income tax.
Borrowing and US handouts sustained the welfare habits of the people, but Puerto Rico left its infrastructure embarrassingly outdated. According to the Los Angeles Times, Puerto Rico’s electrical grid is so starved of physical and human capital that it suffers from power outages four-to-five times the average—even in good weather. Puerto Rico also failed to invest in infrastructure to protect against flooding. The island has few floodwalls and dangerously weak dams—a dam on the island cracked following the hurricane, forcing the evacuation of more than 70,000 people.
These problems were foreseeable and preventable, but liberals and Puerto Rican officials are blaming Donald Trump. Perhaps he is being too nice. Puerto Rico created its own problems; why should we be on the hook for them?
After acquisition by the United States following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the island’s residents never integrated with Americans culturally, linguistically, or racially. Puerto Ricans are culturally Hispanic, racially a mix of Spanish colonists, African slaves and Taino natives, and most of them don’t speak any English. They may technically be United States citizens but they share little common history or ancestry with Americans and are clearly a nation that developed separately from our own. And what could indicate a clearer sense of alienation from the United States than the fact that Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team?
Puerto Ricans, meanwhile, have many gripes with what they perceive as their American overlords. For example, even before this latest hurricane-induced crisis, a major problem for Puerto Rico was their inability to conduct trade independently. According to U.S. law, goods must travel between Puerto Rican and mainland American ports on American-made vessels before they are exported or imported. This weakens Puerto Rico’s economy.
The best solution would be to let Puerto Rico become an independent country, free to make its own decisions and responsible for its own problems. This could be done amicably and generously. Since we pay the island tens of billions of dollars every year in welfare payments, we could easily pay off their debt and give them post-hurricane humanitarian aid as incentives to independence.
We could also offer remigration cash incentives for Puerto Ricans living in America who are willing to give up their U.S. citizenship and move to the island. This would not only be an opportunity for the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States to reunite with their people, but also a great way to reverse the brain-drain. Over the past century, many of the more intelligent and hard-working Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland for better opportunities. The 2010 U.S. Census counted the number of Puerto Ricans living in America at 4.6 million, making it America’s second-largest Hispanic group after Mexicans. This represents a tremendous loss in cultural, economic, and human capital for the island.
Finally, we could offer military protection and economic advice for a couple decades. Chile took economic advice from free-market economists from the University of Chicago and the economy boomed. With the right advice and incentives, Puerto Rico could experience a similar economic rebound.
Separation would come with an expensive up-front price tag for us, but it would save Americans money in the long run and would give Puerto Rico full control over its culture and destiny.
CLICK HERE – Trump tweets that “federal aid won’t last forever.”
"Where Revolution is the Solution" Taking back the Empire
