The use of children as laborers on the New York City Subway is becoming commonplace. City and state officials who were before proud of their progressive streak now shrug their shoulders and say, “Not my issue.” This is because child workers are considered sacred illegal immigrants.

Their mostly Ecuadorian families arrived in the Big Apple without resources or connections in the area, so they engage in straight-up child labor—selling candy bars and packs of gum to commuters—in the subways. On Wednesday, the New York Times published a story that any New Yorker would have suspected. The children, as young as seven years old, are involved.

Kids in the countries from which many of these migrants came routinely exercise in public during the week while their classmates are in school, taking advantage of the sympathy their actions generate to earn some extra money for their parents. This is something that people in first-world countries don’t often see.

“A social anthropologist from Quito, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, studies migration from Ecuador to the United States at the University of Illinois Chicago. It’s like a postcard from my country,” she said. There will always be mothers selling whatever they can, and you’ll often see them there with their children in tow. According to a July piece in New York Magazine on the same subject, she stated, “They’re doing precisely what they did at home” when asked about the situation in the US.

Despite Mayor Eric Adams’ (D) October statement in Ecuador that “In New York City, we do not let our children be in harmful conditions,” the Times reports that dozens of youngsters are still in such situations, and neither the city nor the state government is willing to take anything.

Despite the Times’ commendable efforts, none of the seven municipal and state entities contacted acknowledged responsibility for the issue of child labor in the subway system.

Several state agencies, including those dealing with education and labor, as well as those dealing with children and families, are reportedly uninterested in the matter, as reported in the Times.

Furthermore, the Times asserts that non-emergency calls do not result in the dispatch of police, the sole authority capable of responding in time to prevent the children’s movement.

As stated in the paper:

“Tackling the issue presents certain logistical challenges. Someone may have already relocated a candy vendor by the time the state hotline received a report, reviewed it, and forwarded it to A.C.S. The deployment of the police is usually reserved for times of extreme emergency due to their superior response time.

“The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency in charge of the subways, sent any more questions to the police and City Hall, citing its regulation prohibiting unlawful commercial activity, which carries a $50 punishment.”

Unchecked criminal activity, however, produces even more criminal activity.

Turf battles are breaking out over train “territory,” according to New York Mag’s article. This is because an increasing number of migrants are venturing into the underground to compete for certain platforms.

Coworkers and their families have a tendency to watch out for each other, but that doesn’t mean they always get along. As more people start taking the trains, territorial issues are becoming more common. As they made their way along the F train platform, a young candy and drink vendor from Ambato, Ecuador, said something under his breath about a middle-aged man selling drinks from an ice cooler. He warned us that if we continue selling here, awful things will happen to us. That this is his domain and nobody else’s,'” according to New York Mag.

It was just last week when Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to the subway system to ensure the safety of the workers in the area where they were operating. Even though there are foreign minors selling sweets illegally near them, the troops are still checking bags for the three million+ passengers who utilize the subterranean metro system every day.

The New York Subway has become a symbol of the left’s radical departure from the principles that gave rise to the modern Democratic Party. Under this system, the military patrols the subways, and gangs control the territory, exploiting children for illegal labor. Interestingly, the so-called “progressive” party of FDR remains silent on the matter.

The president’s budget request for 2025, unveiled this week, is for an unprecedented $7.3 trillion in government expenditures. This president’s most recent budget, said Biden’s team, shows his “commitment to economic restraint.”

Simply put, that is ridiculous. “Joe Biden” and “fiscal responsibility” are two terms that should never go together.

There was $27.7 trillion in national debt on Biden’s inauguration day, January 20, 2021. The national debt had increased to $34.5 trillion a little over three years later.

The estimated increase in the national debt to $46.6 trillion in four years’ time does not account for any further expenditure plans.

The Biden administration is not solely responsible for the nation’s financial crisis; this is clear. Spending recklessly is unfortunately one of the few things that both parties can agree on in Washington, DC, today.

The expenditure situation has gotten much worse over the past several years, and it is fair to say that Biden is partially responsible for that.

The US will have weathered the pandemic’s worst wave by January 2021. There had already been a national expenditure of trillions of dollars on so-called pandemic relief efforts at that point.

Still, the Biden administration wasted little time turning on the government spending tap like never before. The massive American Rescue Plan and the $1 trillion Infrastructure Act are just two examples of how the Biden administration has been relentless in its pursuit of ever-increasing federal spending.

The national debt’s interest payments have also increased dramatically. The United States government spent a substantial amount of $527 billion in 2020 on interest payments on the national debt. A whopping $875 billion was the total by the year 2024.

Forecasts indicate that interest payments on the national debt will cost the United States government approximately $1 trillion in 2025 and will surpass $1.6 trillion per year by 2035. That is, assuming, of course, that no new expenditure projects are launched in the interim. Indeed, according to estimates, the interest payments on the national debt will cost the United States government $12.5 trillion in only the next ten years.

In contrast, the total allocation for the Department of Defense in 2024 amounted to $848.9 billion. Put another way, the annual cost of paying down the national debt has surpassed the cost of safeguarding our nation, all because of decades of careless spending by both major political parties.

The present course of action cannot continue indefinitely. The time to make significant, fundamental changes is now.

Increasing taxes is the solution, according to some, including Biden and nearly all Democrats in Congress. There are a plethora of additional levies proposed by Biden in his budget for 2025.

Taxing people out of this situation is not going to fix anything, as anyone with a fundamental understanding of math and economics will tell you. Indeed, increasing taxes, particularly on those who generate jobs, will likely exacerbate the problem by dampening private sector job creation and economic development.

The ideal course of action would be to slash expenditure everywhere, but this will be politically impossible with the present leadership and Congress.

The last time the United States government had a surplus in its budget was nearly twenty years ago. Also, for the foreseeable future, yearly budget deficits will be more than $1 trillion. Let the insanity cease.

The good news is that there is still time. We could be out of this sticky fiscal jam in no time if the US government only curtailed wasteful expenditures.

Timely resolution of the issue is possible, for example, if the federal government adopts a strategy that aligns federal spending with the consumer price index (CPI) and uses benchmarking expenditure based on the budgeting practices of the 50 states and similar governments worldwide.

If implemented, CPI-X: A Novel Method to Decrease Spending and the National Debt will do miracles for the US budget and restore fiscal stability in ten years. Strong economic growth, reduced taxation, and improved government services would all be hallmarks of an economic renaissance.

For an excessive amount of time, the United States government has exceeded its constitutional boundaries, resulting in massive debt, a plethora of bureaucrats, and a federal government that is dysfunctional and causes more harm than good.

That ought not to persist. People like us should get well. We should expect the federal government to adhere to the same principle of fiscal restraint as all American households and local governments.

Author: Scott Dowdy

This week, former President Donald Trump exclusively informed Breitbart News that he would never touch Medicare or Social Security.

When asked about reducing government waste during a 90-minute exclusive interview, which was his first print interview since securing the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive election, Trump promised that he would never slash Social Security or Medicare.

Trump declared, “I would never do anything that would threaten or harm Medicare or Social Security.” “There’s nowhere else we can do it. However, we won’t take any action that may harm them.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat running against Trump in the general election, has been criticizing Trump in the last several days following an interview with CNBC in which Trump discussed reducing fraud and waste in government spending. Biden has misrepresented statements from Trump in order to give the impression that the president was in favor of eliminating the retirement plans that Americans have become accustomed to as they reach older ages.

However, during his Wednesday night interview at Mar-a-Lago with Breitbart News, Donald Trump made it clear that he would never touch Medicare or Social Security.

According to Trump, “there are a lot of things we can do.” “I won’t do anything to harm Social Security, even if there are so many other sectors where there are so many cuts and waste.”

When asked about entitlement reforms during his CNBC interview this week, Trump stated that he was in favor of reducing fraud and waste, but he also made it clear that he was against cuts to Social Security and Medicare and that Democrats and Biden were the ones endangering these vital programs.

First of all, Trump told CNBC, “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of reducing.” Furthermore, there are a plethora of options available to address theft and poor entitlement management, including really poor entitlement management.

In his CNBC interview, Trump continued, saying that the policies of Democrats and Biden “end up undermining Social Security because the country is weak.” Look at things other than the stock market, please. We’re experiencing hell. People are suffering greatly.

Biden used Trump’s comments to malign him and suggest that the president is in favor of slashing Social Security. Falsely stating that Trump stated, “There is a lot you can do in terms of slashing Social Security and Medicare,” the Biden campaign posted footage that omits a portion of the Trump quotation. Even though Biden never stated that, the Biden campaign used it as justification. Later, Biden tweeted, “Not under my watch.”

Then, on Monday, during a campaign rally in the Granite State, Biden continued his series of defamatory remarks about Trump by claiming that “many of my Republican colleagues want to put Social Security and Medicare back on the cutting block again.”

In New Hampshire, Biden declared, “I will block anyone who attempts to reduce Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age again.” He also stated his belief that Republicans will “slash Social Security and Medicare to give us more tax cuts for the wealthiest.”

On Monday, Biden stated, “Even this morning, Donald Trump declared cutbacks to Social Security and Medicare are on the table again.”

That has, of course, long been untrue in relation to Trump. Trump has consistently vowed to defend Medicare and Social Security, and he reiterated that stance with Breitbart News on Wednesday night.

In December 2022, during his initial interview with Breitbart News at his Miami Doral property after the start of his third presidential campaign, Trump clarified that he would never reduce Social Security.

Then, Trump declared, “We’re not slashing Social Security.” It’s really easy. It’s an easy response. We will not reduce Social Security benefits.

Trump has always maintained his support for preserving Social Security and Medicare. It is also a key factor in why Trump does not get along with traditional establishment Republicans like former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was a strong advocate of lowering Medicare and Social Security during his tenure in Congress. Ryan, one of the least popular Republicans when he left Congress, lost his attempt for vice president in 2012 while serving as Mitt Romney’s running mate. He currently serves on the board of Fox Corporation, the organization that owns the Fox News Channel.

Due to its inability to compete with other cheap shops, bidenflation, and shifting consumer behavior, Dollar Tree plans to liquidate around 1,000 of its Family Dollar stores nationwide. This week, the corporation made the announcement in response to its dismal quarterly performance.

“Struggling to deal with a shift in consumer spending from higher-margin discretionary items like home décor, technology, and toys to lower-margin staples,” Reuters said on Wednesday.

“The bargain retail company said that, due to their lease expiring, it will close around 600 Family Dollar locations in the first half of fiscal year 2024 and 370 more over a few years, together with 30 Dollar Tree outlets.”

“We have launched a comprehensive evaluation of our Family Dollar portfolio to address underperforming locations that are not aligned with our transformative strategy for the company,” CEO Rick Dreiling said to investors during the firm’s quarterly call.

Apart from Dreiling’s hyperbolic statement that the corporation will close one in every eight stores, allow me to offer you some context for those adjustments.

“Higher margin discretionary products” at Family Dollar include things like $6 Batman action figurines, $25 light-up Bluetooth speakers, and $18 queen-size comforters. For many Americans, who have changed their purchasing patterns to include even “lower-margin staples” like food and gasoline, even bargain things like these are now out of their grasp.

The economy is doing well, the mainstream media tells me, yet Family Dollar is struggling in a time when mothers have to forgo the $8 Maybelline Fit Me Concealer in order to fill up the car with more petrol and get to work in the morning.

Not like all those missed Family Dollar purchases just vanished out of existence. Perhaps the majority of them went to Walmart and other competitors. The most significant indicator of the real status of the economy, however, is the fact that cheap customers moved from Family Dollar to Walmart and Dollar Tree rather than upmarket to Target.

Not even Dollar Tree is the same as it once was. The firm had to increase its well-known dollar-for-everything price to $1.25 on the majority of products back in 2021 due to inflation. “The extra pricing point [allows us] better freedom to manage the whole business, especially in a volatile, inflationary climate,” Dollar Tree CEO Michael Witynski stated at the time. Mostly, though, it enabled the business to make enough money to maintain its expansion. At least for the company’s Family Dollar stores, those expansion days seem to be behind them.

The company’s unwillingness to increase prices despite persistently rising inflation indicates that they would suffer a greater financial loss if they alienated customers who are becoming more cost-conscious.

Author: Steven Sinclaire

Joe Biden is on the verge of giving another rich favor to the terrorist tyrant who backs the Iranian government. According to reports, the administration plans to extend its waiver of sanctions, which would allow it to regain access to assets worth up to $10 billion that have been frozen.

The purported use of this money windfall is for humanitarian endeavors. But considering Iran’s past, it is more probable that the funds would be used to support non-humanitarian projects.

“A group of GOP congressmen claim that the Biden team is about to award Iran a new sanctions waiver that will allow it to access over $10 billion in frozen money, giving Tehran “a financial lifeline” while it supports terrorism throughout the Middle East.”

“The State Department approved a sanctions waiver in November, just after Hamas attacked Israel, allowing Iraq to send multibillion-dollar power payments to Iran. If the Biden administration doesn’t extend the waiver, Tehran would lose access to almost $10 billion in blocked money this month.”

Iraq would be able to pay the Iranian government for power under the waiver. Tehran would gain a tremendous deal from it, receiving significant resources. “By waiving the application of sanctions, the administration is maintaining a financial lifeline for the Iranian regime, even as it continues to support terrorist organizations around the world,” House Republicans claimed in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, opposing the action.

The Iranian government has a well-established history of financing terrorism, which may serve as a sign of further such activities in the event that the Biden administration approves the waiver. The letter claims that Iran “has a history of lying regarding humanitarian dealings.” “There is no reason to believe that they won’t attempt to evade these limitations in the future.”

In addition to undermining international efforts to battle terrorist organizations, lifting these restrictions may put American soldiers serving overseas in jeopardy.

The Biden administration’s decision to lift more sanctions, according to Richard Goldberg, who formerly worked with the White House National Security Council on the Iran portfolio, “supported October 7” and the “death of three American soldiers in Jordan.”

Since this is a terrible idea, the Biden administration will probably implement it.

Providing further financial support to Iran’s regime would exacerbate the already terrible situation at a time when worries about terrorism have increased as a result of the Gaza conflict. In fact, the leadership has previously provided support for terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas to attack Israel.

It was discovered soon after Hamas’s current conflict began that Iran had assisted in organizing the terrorist organization’s October 7 onslaught on Israel, during which 1,200 Israeli troops and civilians were cruelly killed and hundreds more were held captive. This is by no means endorsing “humanitarian” causes.

The president hasn’t learned his lesson, judging by the fact that he is even thinking about doing such a thing. That or he doesn’t give a damn if the billions of dollars he wants to provide the Iranian government enable additional heinous killings in the area by extremist terrorists.

Author: Blake Ambrose

The recent State of the Union speech by President Joe Biden was an absolute deluge of lies. The president’s erroneous claim regarding the taxes paid by billionaires is only one of many lies the fact-checking of the entire speech will need to address given the abundance of false information the president foisted on the American people. During the weekend, Gary Cohn, the vice chair of IBM and a former economic counselor to President Trump, refuted Joe Biden’s assertion and provided supporting documentation.

“Cohn made an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to refute Biden’s attempts to capitalize on the idea that the wealthiest enjoy more benefits than the “common guy.” Biden had suggested imposing a minimum tax of 25% on billionaires and asserted that billionaires pay a lower tax rate than teachers.

“When you really consider who pays taxes in this country, the top 10% of earners pay over 70% of all taxes collected, and the bottom 50% of earners pay 2.3% of all taxes collected,” Cohn stated. He attributed this to the Trump administration’s 2017 overhaul of the tax code.

“Cohn then pointed out a flaw in Biden’s talking point concerning billionaires, pointing out that the term “billionaire” refers to one’s net worth rather than their taxable income.”

That’s an issue in itself; the federal government cannot tax the wealth (as opposed to the income) of individual Americans, despite the left’s outcry of indignation. It is impossible, according to a lot of experts, at least not without changing the constitution.

Thus, once more, Joe Biden is ignorant of the subject, and once more, a private sector representative has had to correct him. The president’s habit of uttering lies so frequently makes it challenging to refute them.

Author: Scott Dowdy