Bidens

Ever since inflation shot to the top of the public’s worries, President Biden and his fellow Democrats have sought to show they are on the case, even naming their signature tax, climate and healthcare bill the Inflation Reduction Act. Passing it is the “most consequential thing that Congress can do” to keep inflation from getting worse, Mr. Biden declared Wednesday. There are two problems with this. The first is that the claim largely rests on estimates that the bill will, over 10 years, reduce the budget deficit by about…

Wu even suggests that we’ve turned a corner in stemming Big Tech’s dominance. “Ten years ago or whenever, they were able to get away with acquiring potential competitors, or making deals to lock out other companies,” he says. “It’s a much more challenging environment to do that kind of stuff, and in some ways, they’ve changed their conduct. And when they change their conduct, it’s harder to remain as entrenched as they were.”Not everything has gone swimmingly in Wu’s tech policy domain. For reasons I can’t comprehend, we…

Jim Watson | Afp | Getty ImagesSenate Democrats' package of climate change, health-care, drug pricing and tax measures unveiled last week has proponents and opponents debating whether the legislation violates a pledge President Joe Biden has made since his presidential campaign, to not raise taxes on households with incomes below $400,000 a year.The answer isn't quite as simple as it seems. "The fun part about this is, you can get a different answer depending on who you ask," said John Buhl, an analyst at the Tax Policy…

President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend, just days after testing negative and resuming a regular schedule of in-person meetings. It’s a classic case of “rebound Covid,” something thousands of Americans have experienced after taking a course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid, as Biden had. How risky is rebound Covid to Biden and others who take Paxlovid? Not terribly, according to Vox senior health reporter Keren Landman. For people at high risk of severe Covid disease or death, the risk of a bad…

Erik McGregor | LightRocket | Getty ImagesAs Democrats plow forward with a slimmed-down reconciliation package, House lawmakers are separately pushing another piece of President Joe Biden's agenda: taxing the ultra-wealthy. Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., have introduced the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act, calling for a 20% levy on households worth more than $100 million, affecting roughly 0.01% of U.S. families, a congressional fact sheet outlined. The 20% tax applies to "total income," including…

JetBlue Airways finally won over Spirit Airlines with a $3.8 billion takeover deal. Now it needs to win over antitrust regulators.The New York-based airline snatched Spirit away Frontier Airlines with an all-cash offer that torpedoed the cash-and-stock deal the two discount airlines had forged earlier this year. Hours after Spirit and Frontier said they terminated their merger agreement, which lacked shareholder support, Spirit said it agreed to sell itself to JetBlue.JetBlue said it expects to win regulatory approval in…

On Tuesday, the White House officially threw its support behind a bill pushed by Tiger King star Carole Baskin to restrict exotic animal ownership. In a statement, the Biden administration said that the Big Cat Public Safety Act “would build on existing laws that protect big cats like tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, and other wild animals living in captivity in the United States” and “limit ownership of these animals to zoos, sanctuaries, universities, and agencies.” The measure — introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and…

President Joe Biden tweeted his Zoom rig on Friday, and it looked so good I suddenly needed to know everything about it. The tweet wasn’t about his video gear, of course; it was to pat himself on the back for falling gas prices. But I don’t want to talk about that. I also don’t want to talk about the chart next to the screen, which was obviously placed there just for this photo and is deeply hilarious. I want to talk about the big easel-looking Zoom rig in front of Biden. It makes sense that politicians would have the…

President Joe Biden promised on Wednesday that since Congress won’t tackle the climate crisis, he will. “Let me be clear, climate change is an emergency,” Biden said, standing in front of a closed coal power plant turned renewable energy hub in Somerset, Massachusetts. “In the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal official government actions, through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders, and regulatory power that a president possesses.” Sen. Joe Manchin…

President Biden is unveiling further measures to combat climate change, and his latest efforts are aimed at addressing incoming environmental crises. The President has outlined a string of executive actions that include the first wind energy areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The 700,000 acres could generate enough offshore wind power to supply over 3 million homes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also unveiled $2.3 billion in funding to bolster resilience against heat waves, wildfires and other climate…