When the oil boom went bust, Oklahoma protected drillers and squeezed schools, Reuters
Oilmen won a big victory when Oklahoma made permanent one of the juiciest tax breaks in the USA. Schools, meanwhile, are having to slash spending.
Instead of maximizing and preserving state revenues when oil was booming, Oklahoma offered large tax breaks to drillers. Now that the boom has busted, the state is scrambling to find money elsewhere. This investigation asserts that while tax breaks “topped $1 billion between fiscal years 2012 and 2015,” the state has now moved to cut its education budget by $58 million, and that might just be for starters.
The Hidden Workforce Expanding Tesla’s Factory, The Mercury News
Gregor Lesnik was among more than 100 workers from Eastern Europe, earning as little as $5 an hour to build a new high-tech paint shop at Tesla’s auto plant in Fremont.
The United States issued 6.2 million business visas – known as B1/B2 visas – in fiscal year 2014. The visas are intended to allow foreigners to enter the country for leisure and “limited work purposes.” But the system is being abused, this investigation claims, with the foreign workers being shortchanged. According to the Mercury News, at Tesla Motors in Fremont, Ca., at least one foreign worker earned the equivalent of $5 an hour for hands-on work, and several others work long hours for pay well below that of their American counterparts.
More than 100 lawsuits, disputes, tied to Trump and his companies, USA Today
A USA TODAY investigation found Donald Trump’s companies have been engaged in battles over taxes almost every year from the late 1980s until as recently as March.
Since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in June 2015, at least five Trump companies have been issued warrants for late or unpaid taxes in New York State. Moreover, according to USA Today’s analysis, Trump and his holdings have been involved in “battles over taxes almost every year from the late 1980’s until as recently as March.”
Taxpayers pony up for counties’ private lawyers, lohud.com
Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and have outsourced more than $21 million in legal work since 2009
The college debt crisis is even worse than you think, Boston Globe
We tell students they need a bachelor’s degree to get ahead. But for too many, the numbers no longer add up.
