Month: May 2011

Earned Income Tax Credit—the redistribution of wealth on steroids

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

Most people don’t realize that there are people who are not making enough money to owe taxes but are filing tax returns and getting (LOL!) money back —-I’m laughing because they aren’t getting money back that they put in, just getting other peoples’ tax money back.

Edwin Rubenstein has a good report (published at the Social Contract) on this program that is a more significant drain on our federal budget than some other forms of ‘welfare.’  (But, not as fast-growing as the fraud-ridden food stamp program!)   Read all about it here, hat tip Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.

On tax day 2009 we released a study of the Earned Income Tax Credit. At the time we noted that the credit had quietly become the largest cash transfer program for low-income families in the United States – dwarfing better known programs such as TANF (cash welfare.) Since then Federal spending has expanded far more rapidly than anyone had anticipated while tax revenues have shrunk. In FY2008 the U.S. budget deficit was $0.5 trillion; this year (FY2011) it is projected to be $1.6 trillion.

Every spending program, every revenue source is on the table – or so we are told. Reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and other “untouchable” social programs have been proposed. Yet the EITC is under the radar in this debate. Neither party has shown any interest in cutting the tax credit. The credit is not subject to the Congressional budget authorization process.

One reason for its relative anonymity: EITC is part of the income tax code. (That’s why we chose April 15th to release our study.) The tax code is vast – it contains many different deductions, allowances and credits – of which the EITC is one of the most generous – and important.

[….]

The credit is expected to cost taxpayers a record $62.5 billion in 2011, up 4.5% from 2010. (This amount reflects both the reduction in tax payments plus the EITC refunds many recipients receive over and above their tax payments.) By comparison outlays of the notoriously hard to control Medicaid program are expected to rise by a mere 1.2%:  see the chart!

Readers:  we have a category entitled, where to find information, and this will be archived there.  You might want to visit that category from time to time.

One May 12 comment expresses concern about fraud in Refugee Program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I mentioned last week, the US State Department was taking testimony yesterday on the FY2012 recommendations from mostly “stakeholders” on how many refugees should be resettled in the US in the next fiscal year (Obama will send a Presidential Determination letter to Congress in late September with his recommendations partially based on this hearing which Congress will then dutifully rubber stamp!).

However, I think that this year those hearing testimony might have heard from some who, let’s just say, are not too thrilled with the whole program.  Here is one comment sent to me from an unknown sender:

Testimony for the May 12 “FY 2012 Refugee Admissions Program” Meeting

Yemenite  Jewish Refugee Fraud as an example of the Gross Fraud in the USA Refugee program

My concern is the fraud that exists in the US refugee program.    As an example of fraud there is the situation with the Yemeni Jews recently brought into New York.  Section  101 (a) (42) of the Immigration and Nationality Act  requires that refugee suffer persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion,   etc.

But few if any of the 150-200 Yemeni Jews met “the well-founded fear” requirement Section 101 (a) (42). Some wrote relatives saying that they did not fear and others, under pressure, would acquiesce and say  that they would leave Yemen, but only after someone bought their house.   Representatives in the USA were quoted as saying that the Yemeni Jews didn’t know what danger they were in and that they would soon be brought to the USA.

Tellingly, a representative of the Yemenite community in Monsey, who would not give his name, said he did not want the refugees talking to the media while involved in the immigration process.

The State Department  falsely supplied paperwork saying that the Yemenite Jewish community was in danger.  The State Departmetn granted them Tier One refugee status.  As such, the Yemeni Jews can receive visas and receive services from resettlement agencies.  And those agencies then get federal funds.  Some State Department employees, forced to engage in fraud, are very angry.  But they can not speak openly.

The big question is how much fraud is there in the US refugee program.  I suggest that a neutral party, not the State Department, examine first the Yemenite Jew situation.  Fraud will be found.  Then all the funds expended must be recovered.  The agencies engaging in fraud and their personnel must be individually named and  barred from ever working in the refugee industry.

Then the examination must continue to all refugees and refugee service agencies in action since from the First of Fiscal Year 2008.      The admission of refugees should be zero until the fraud examination is completed and the problems corrected and wrong-doing, not the coerced,  State Department officials sent to prison.

Readers!  If you submitted testimony and wish me to publish it, please send it my way!  AND, PLEASE SEND YOUR TESTIMONY TO YOUR US CONGRESSMAN AND YOUR SENATORS (EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE THEY WOULD DO NOTHING ABOUT IT!)

Not the first such fraud we’ve heard about!

Ironically, one of those receiving testimony was State Department employee David Robinson.  We told you previously about Mr. Robinson’s declassified war college report from 2000 in which he admitted that the US State Department was pressured by political operatives and these increasingly powerful VOLAGS (federal contractors) to bring refugees to the US from Bill Clinton’s Bosnian war (the volags needed money—your money).  They brought refugees in, received their grants and the unhappy refugees were subsequently airlifted back home.  From my post last year:

Ahhhh!!!!  I just came across this report from the National War College about how the volags (supposedly voluntary agencies but really federal contractors*) were basically in need of warm bodies to resettle (for $$$) in the US in 1999 so they pushed Gore and the National Security Council to go against professionals in the State Department and even against the wishes of the UN and airlifted tens of thousands of Kosovar “refugees” to the US during Bill Clinton’s phony baloney Bosnian War.

And, then airlifted them back….

Read all about it here!

Geert Wilders speaks the truth in Tennessee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders spoke in Nashville last night—fitting that it was Nashville as we have written often about the growing Muslim (mostly Somali) population in that city.  Note we have a whole category on Nashville, here, and two years ago I attended a meeting there and the conference hotel which originally booked our meeting threw us out—free speech indeed!

From American Thinker (Hat tip: Scott):

Dear friends from Tennessee. I am very happy to be in your midst today. I am happy and proud to be in this impressive church.

My friends, I am here to speak words of truth and freedom.

Do you know why America is in a better state than Europe? Because you enjoy more freedom than Europeans.
And do you know why Americans enjoy more freedom than Europeans? Because you are still allowed to tell the truth.

In Europe and Canada people are dragged to court for telling the truth about islam.

I, too, have been dragged to court. I am an elected member of the house of representatives in the Netherlands. I am currently standing in court like a common criminal for saying that islam is a dangerous totalitarian ideology rather than a religion.

The court case is still pending, but I risk a jail sentence of 16 months.

Last week, my friend Lars Hedegaard, a journalist from Denmark, was fined because in a private conservation, which was recorded without his knowing, he had criticised the way women are treated in islamic societies.

Recently, another friend, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a human rights activist from Austria, was fined because she had criticised islam’s founder Muhammad. She had said that Muhammad was a pedophile because he had married a 6-year old girl and raped her when she was 9.

Read it all.  Use our search function for “Geert Wilders” for more posts on this brave man!

Ohio food stamp fraud investigation involves mosque

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Although a large percentage of the dozens of food stamp fraud busts I’ve written about at RRW involve Muslim immigrant convenience store owners, this is the first report I’ve seen where a mosque was searched.

From the Dayton Daily News (check out the photo of SWAT team with guns in front of the store):

DAYTON — Battle-clad federal and state agents backed by Dayton SWAT officers with assault weapons swarmed several sites in the city’s Dayton View neighborhood and West Dayton to serve search warrants in a food stamp fraud investigation.

Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Columbus, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture along with the Ohio Investigative Unit are leading the investigation and searches. Alverson said no arrests were expected, and no charges filed. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” he said.

Food stamp fraud siphons off about $330 million — or about 1 cent of every dollar in benefits paid out from the safety-net program each year across the nation, according to the USDA.

The money from the fraudulent operations often end up funding other criminal enterprises from gangs to drugs, USDA Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong told Congress last year. She reported at least one case where funds from the fraud were laundered and sent overseas to the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

I’ve got news for Phyllis, we have more than one case in our archives where food stamp fraud money (taxpayers’ money) was sent out of the country to Africa or the Middle East.

Bad boys!  The SWAT team entered mosque to carry out warrant with their shoes on.

Warrants were served at Riverview Cell & Cup of Dreams, 512 N. Broadway St.; Five Pillars Market, 1263 W. Riverview Ave.; Food City, 1829 Germantown St.; and A&M Meats Inc., 1609 Gilsey Ave.

In addition, agents searched the Masjid-at-Taqwa mosque, 701 N. Broadway St., and the nearby house of the mosque’s imam.

Imam Al-Idu Al-Gaheem declined to comment. Al-Gaheem is the owner of the Five Pillars Market and Riverview Cell & Cup of Dreams.

A Secret Service agent removed computer equipment from the mosque. By afternoon, agents had loaded up a truck with boxes from the market.

Some members of the mosque were upset by the manner in which the mosque was entered. Abdul Aziz said the police were welcome to search the mosque, “but they have to respect the mosque. They went in with their shoes on. Would they show the same disrespect for a synagogue?”

Just a friendly reminder, the seller of the food stamp benefit (the poor person?) can be legally prosecuted for selling their stamps.   The number of food stamp recipients is through the roof, here.

For more food stamp fraud, use our search function.

Somali teen murdered in Jamestown, ND

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update July 11th:  Arrest made here.

Update May 14th:  Not really an update but an additional story on the case, here.

Those cold and dull northern plains cities are being livened up lately by the arrival of Somali refugees.  Back in February we told you about a Somali being arrested on suspicion of murdering four native Americans, here.  We also told you about Jamestown as a Somali Tuula here and now comes word that a Somali teen who migrated from Columbus, Ohio to Jamestown has been murdered.

This story is a couple days old and I had hoped to see an update by now, but a report with the latest news on this case will have to wait until I get back from a trip. (If any reader sees it before I get back, please send me a link!)

Here is the news from Inforum (May 4th):

JAMESTOWN, N.D. – Eighteen-year-old Abdi Ali Ahmed moved to Jamestown in March seeking education, work and a new life.

He’d moved to the United States in 2006 to escape violence and civil war in Somalia.

So it’s ironic that he died a violent death, said his aunt, Marian Ghedi.

A passing motorist discovered Ahmed’s body at the edge of a dirt field Saturday about 1½ miles north of the Spiritwood exit on Interstate 94. Jamestown residents Leron “Ra Ra” Howard and Janelle Cave have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, both Class AA felonies.

“He died here, the place that we thought was safe. With violence he has been killed,” Ghedi said.

The article tries to say that Ahmed was just a struggling refugee attempting to make a better life for himself, but he did have a little trouble with the law.  And, we don’t know yet about this case, but murders like this one have been happening in Canada as Somali young men move westward in that country and most murders there are believed to be connected with drug gang violence.

Just a sweetheart:

Abdi Ahmed was arrested and charged with simple assault in April. However, friends he’d stayed with called him a “sweetheart,” saying he was friendly and outgoing.

Really who knows who his family is.  He came here in 2006, that would be before the US State Department discovered the rampant fraud in the family reunification program and shut it down for several years.  Turns out that as many as 80% of the family reunification cases involving Somalis were fraudulent.

Born in Ethiopia in 1993, Ahmed lived with his brother and family in refugee camps before immigrating. Like many Somali families, siblings, aunts, uncles and other relatives lose contact through the refugee and immigration process. Sometimes they don’t hear from each other for years. That was the case for Ahmed and his half sister, Dini. She’d lost touch with him for 10 years.

Some Somalis say they are clearing out of Jamestown as a result of the murder.  I don’t know if the suspects are black, but there have been many cases of conflict between American blacks and the Africans coming on to their turf in many American cities.

After Ahmed’s death, some are reconsidering their residency.

“One hundred percent, I’m getting out of here,” said Yurup Abdi, a friend of Ahmed’s. A single mother, Abdi had considered moving but now plans to move by the end of the month.

And, by the way, Sioux Falls, SD has had a little Somali refugee excitement too recently, here.