As congressional Republicans prepare for a budget showdown later this year with President Biden, they say that they will insist on large cuts to federal spending. So far, though, they have left out some pretty important details: what those cuts might be. Republicans have been more willing to talk about what they won’t cut. Party […]
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Gail Collins: Bret, I have to admit that when the subject of Donald Trump comes up these days, I tend to start telling sex-scandal stories. My bad. Bret Stephens: Don’t let me stand in your way. Gail: Right now, that very old Stormy Daniels mess seems to have produced some very scary stuff. Our former […]
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WASHINGTON — The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, has repeatedly undercut a central claim Republicans make as they seek sharp cuts in federal spending: Government spending is driving the nation’s still-hot inflation rate. Republican lawmakers say spending programs signed into law by President Biden are pumping too much money into the economy […]
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WASHINGTON — In 2008, an imminent collapse of the banking system consumed Congress before lawmakers delivered a bailout. Three years later, a debt limit crisis enveloped Washington and led to a series of spending cuts after a dangerous brush with default and a first-ever downgrade in the nation’s credit rating. Now unease about the banking […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will warn on Monday that a warming planet poses severe economic challenges for the United States, which will require the federal government to reassess its spending priorities and how it influences behavior. Administration economists, in an annual report, will say that reassessment should include a new look at the climate-adaptation […]
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WASHINGTON — Anyone wondering how a Democratic president and the newly installed Republican speaker of the House would work together got their first real preview this month, when President Biden released a budget that Republicans vowed to torpedo and Speaker Kevin McCarthy signed his first bill — one the president has promised to veto. In […]
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PARIS — Hundreds of thousands of French protesters on Wednesday swarmed cities across the country, and striking workers disrupted rail lines and closed schools to protest the government’s plan to raise the legal retirement age, in a final show of force before the contested bill comes to a vote on Thursday. The march — the […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden plans to announce on Monday a landmark agreement with the leaders of Britain and Australia to develop fleets of nuclear-powered attack submarines that the three nations would use to strengthen their naval forces across the Asia-Pacific region as China bolsters its own navy. The purchase and training agreements on submarines amount […]
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Gail: Love that you’re bringing up Jane. Even if it’s to disagree with me. Bret: Ten years ago, federal spending was $3.45 trillion. Biden’s budget request is double that, and he has the chutzpah to suggest he wants to reduce the deficit — achieved almost entirely by huge tax increases instead of spending discipline. Gail: […]
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Months after losing control of the House in 2010, President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., released a budget proposal that bowed to Republican warnings about the need to rein in spending by promising a freeze in popular programs like education. Now president, Mr. Biden is confronting the same equation, with […]
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To understand the resilience of Donald Trump’s influence in the Republican Party, the way he always seems to revive despite scandal, debacle or disgrace, look no further than the contrast between his early policy forays in the 2024 campaign and what two of his prospective challengers are doing. Judging by Trump’s address to the Conservative […]
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Gratitude should lead us to make sure that older Americans can live comfortably in retirement. Solicitude should lead us to do so in ways that do not needlessly leave the next generation less prosperous than it could be. Those should be the terms of our debates about Social Security and Medicare. And they would clearly […]
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To improve America’s retirement system, “the most important policy change is to put Social Security and Medicare on stable financial footing,” a pair of academic economists who have served in Democratic administrations, Martin N. Baily and Benjamin Harris, wrote in a new book, “The Retirement Challenge.” Mr. Baily was the chairman of the White House […]
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“The country wants common sense; they don’t want extremism and I think the president gets that,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “And the country wants fiscal responsibility and the president, in taking on the deficit, understands that.” Some on the left end of his party rejected the idea that these goals were in conflict. Representative Pramila Jayapal, […]
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On Thursday the White House released its latest budget; Republicans haven’t offered a specific counterproposal, but they seem to be coalescing around a plan released by Russell Vought, Donald Trump’s last budget director. Neither plan will become law. Instead, they’re intended to position the two sides for the looming confrontation over the federal debt ceiling. […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday proposed a $6.8 trillion budget that seeks to increase spending on the military and a wide range of new social programs while also reducing future budget deficits, defying Republican calls to scale back government and reasserting his economic vision before an expected re-election campaign. The budget contains some $5 […]
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President Biden’s budget plan, released on Thursday, routes about $1.2 billion to two of the biggest transit projects in New York City: the Second Avenue Subway extension and new train tunnels under the Hudson River. Because the funding was already allocated in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that was signed into law in 2021, it […]
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The director of the budget office, Phillip L. Swagel, briefed lawmakers about deficit projections on Wednesday at the Capitol, warning they would eventually need to raise taxes, cut spending or both in order to mitigate rising debt. The office’s projections “suggest that, over the long term, changes in fiscal policy would need to be made […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday will propose policies aimed at trimming federal budget deficits by $3 trillion over the next 10 years as his administration embraces the politics of debt reduction amid a fight with Republicans over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. Mr. Biden’s plans, which will […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday will propose policies aimed at trimming federal budget deficits by at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years as his administration embraces the politics of debt reduction amid a fight with Republicans over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. Mr. Biden’s plans, which will be detailed as part of […]
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“We’re in a total strategic cul-de-sac on the right, and our fiscal warriors and strategists have totally failed in the sense that, point to any cuts we’ve had success-wise since 1997,” Mr. Vought said in an interview. “I actually think that that’s the worst part of the federal spending, because it’s the bureaucracy. Understand the […]
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WASHINGTON — Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has given 286 speeches on the Senate floor raising alarms about climate change, often delivered mainly to the C-SPAN cameras in a nearly empty chamber. But now Mr. Whitehouse has a much bigger megaphone for his zeal for saving the planet, and one with real power: […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden, as part of his budget set for release on Thursday, will propose raising a tax on Americans earning more than $400,000 as part of a series of efforts to extend the solvency of Medicare by a quarter-century. The president will also propose expanding that tax, which helps fund health care programs, […]
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy could quickly shed a million jobs and fall into recession if lawmakers fail to raise the nation’s borrowing limit before the federal government exhausts its ability to pay its bills on time, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, will warn a Senate panel on Tuesday. The damage could spiral to seven […]
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So it is perhaps not surprising that Mr. Brecheen frames his message on spending cuts, at least in part, in the language of the aggrieved right. It is a tactic that has been adopted by Republicans at the highest levels to defend their position in the fiscal battles to come. And it is part of […]
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Millions of Americans work their whole life, paying into Medicare with every working day — starting with their first job, even as teenagers. Medicare is more than a government program. It’s the rock-solid guarantee that Americans have counted on to be there for them when they retire. For decades, I’ve listened to my Republican friends […]
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Biden administration officials blame Mr. Trump and former President George W. Bush for running up debt, particularly with tax cuts. They claim credit for a decline in the budget deficit under Mr. Biden, even though that mostly occurred because the federal government stopped passing emergency aid bills as the pandemic eased its grip on the […]
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WASHINGTON — When the House Ways and Means Committee traveled to Petersburg, W.Va., last month for its inaugural field hearing on “the state of the economy in Appalachia,” it met at the headquarters of a hardwood lumber manufacturer whose chief executive has donated the maximum campaign contribution allowed to a Republican member of the panel. The logo […]
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VIRGINIA BEACH — President Biden accused Republicans of “playing politics” with people’s lives on Tuesday as he tried to strike a contrast between his plans to expand access to health care and Republican efforts to cut into federal programs to reduce the budget deficit. Republicans have not officially said whether their plans to balance the federal […]
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WASHINGTON — More than 20 state governments, flush with cash from federal stimulus funds and a rebounding economy, shared their windfalls last year by sending residents one-time payments. This year, the Biden administration added a sweetener, telling tens of millions taxpayers they did not need to pay federal taxes on those payments. That decision by […]
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WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats are pressing for major legislation to counter rising threats from China, but mere weeks into the new Congress, a bipartisan consensus is at risk of dissipating amid disputes about what steps to take and a desire among many Republicans to wield the issue as a weapon against President Biden. In […]
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