By: Naomi Jagoda – thehill.com – March 26, 2020 Americans are keenly interested in the cash payments included in the coronavirus relief bill that is soon expected to become law. Under the bill, millions of households will receive rebates in the amount of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. The amounts phase out for individuals making more than $75,000...

By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – March 25, 2020 Congress rarely does anything that isn’t messy, so let’s stipulate that a $2 trillion bill written on the fly in a week will be loaded with waste and a lifetime supply of unintended consequences. Americans will pay for this for decades. The consolation is that the Senate bill that was moving...

By: Nancy Cook & Ben White – politico.com – March 17, 2020 Facing a warning of 20 percent unemployment without action, officials are pushing urgently for a trillion-dollar economic aid package. It also generated widespread anger that banks and bankers got bailed out while ordinary citizens received far less. The Trump administration is well aware of this history and taking...

By: Dan Pilla – NewsMax.com – March 05, 2020 In a recent announcement, the IRS made it clear that it will be unleashing its revenue officers (ROs) for a new wave of face-to-face collection action. The announcement states, in part: As part of a larger effort by the Internal Revenue Service to ensure fairness in the tax system, the IRS is taking...

By: Mary Margaret Olohan – dailycaller.com – February 24, 2020 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue stripping federal funding from clinics that offer abortions. The court upheld the Trump administration’s June 2019 declaration that taxpayer-funded clinics must stop referring women for abortions or be stripped of their Title X funding. Judge Sandra...

By: Ellen Mitchell – thehill.com – February 17, 2020 Lawmakers are calling out the Trump administration over its latest plan to shift billions of dollars meant for the Pentagon’s budget to instead pay for border wall construction. The top Democrat and Republican on the House Armed Services Committee are among the numerous lawmakers that last week pushed back on President...

By: Merrill Matthews – ipi.org – February 11, 2020 President Donald Trump has released his budget proposal for 2021, and we have managed to come up with two, somewhat lukewarm cheers. First cheer. The budget at least recognizes the government has a spending problem—a big one. “Unsustainable Federal spending is a serious threat to America’s prosperity. Gross Federal debt is now...

Dan Pilla – October November 2019

By: Brandon Ambrosino – politico.com – September 09, 2019 At Liberty University, all anyone can talk about is Jerry Falwell Jr. Just not in public. “When he does stupid stuff, people will mention it to others they consider confidants and not keep it totally secret,” a trusted adviser to Falwell, the school’s president and chancellor, told me. “But they won’t rat him out.”...

By: Sarah McCammon – npr.org – August 19, 2019 Planned Parenthood is leaving the federal Title X family planning program rather than comply with new Trump administration rules regarding abortion counseling. The new rules, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, prohibit Title X grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion, except in...