Day: January 25, 2019

Unpaid IRS Workers Not Shoing Up to Work

Buck Banks

14,000

“At least 14,000 unpaid workers in the Internal Revenue Service division that includes tax processing and call centers did not show up for work this week despite orders to do so, according to two House aides, posing a challenge to the Trump administration’s ability to minimize the damage from the government shutdown,” the Washington Post reports. “The Trump administration ordered more than 30,000 employees back to work unpaid to prepare for tax filing season, which is set to begin next week. But of the 26,000 workers called back to the IRS division that includes the tax processing centers and call centers, about 9,000 workers could not be reached and about 5,000 more claimed a hardship exemption, IRS officials have told members of Congress.”

Kudlow Claims Furlough Government Employees Are ‘Volunteering’ for Trump

Buck Banks

“God bless them. They’re working for free. They’re volunteering. But they do it because they believe government service is honorable and they believe in President Trump and they’re working as hard as ever.”

— White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that thousands of federal employees working without pay were “volunteering” because of “their love for the country and the office of the presidency and presumably their allegiance to President Trump.”

Warren to Propose a ‘Wealth Tax’

Buck Banks

2% to 3%

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will propose a new annual “wealth tax” on Americans with more than $50 million in assets, as Democratic leaders vie for increasingly aggressive solutions to the nation’s soaring wealth inequality, the Washington Post reports. “Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two left-leaning economists at the University of California, Berkeley, have been advising Warren on a proposal to levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with assets above $50 million, as well as a 3 percent wealth tax on those who have more than $1 billion, according to Saez.”