Elon Musk on Saturday asked his 62.5 million followers on Twitter if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” Musk wrote in a tweet referring to a “billionaires’ tax” proposed by Democrats in the US Senate.
Continue reading...The president will sign $1tn package into law after House ended months-long standoff by approving bipartisan deal
Joe Biden saluted a “monumental step forward as a nation” on Saturday, after House Democrats finally reached agreement and sent a $1tn infrastructure package to his desk to be signed, a huge boost for an administration which has struggled for victories.
“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,” Biden said, “and it’s long overdue.”
Continue reading...Joe Biden noted that he would soon be returning to the Oval Office to keep making calls to House members, encouraging them to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package today.
“I want to say very clearly: if your number one issue is the cost of living, the number one priority should be seeing Congress pass these bills,” Biden said.
Continue reading...Majority leader Steny Hoyer says House may vote on bipartisan infrastructure bill and $1.75tn reconciliation package as soon as today
• Giuliani investigators home in on 2019 plan to advance Ukraine interests
House speaker Nancy Pelosi would not provide any additional details about when the chamber might vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I wish to,” the Democratic speaker told reporters at her weekly press conference.
Continue reading...Defence budget and nuclear posture review are battlegrounds as Republicans seek to block limits on US use of weapons
A battle is being fought in Washington over the Biden administration’s nuclear weapons policy, amid fears by arms control advocates that the president will renege on campaign promises to rein in the US arsenal.
The battlegrounds are a nuclear posture review (NPR) due early next year and a defence budget expected about the same time. At stake is a chance to put the brakes on an arms race between the US, Russia and China – or the risk of that race accelerating.
Continue reading...Analysis: Glenn Youngkin’s victory comes as the president’s agenda has stalled and danger looms for the party in Congress
Joe Biden exuded confidence. “We’re going to win,” the US president told reporters before departing Cop26 in Glasgow. “I think we’re going to win in Virginia.”
But as Biden returns to Washington, he faces questions about why his prediction was so wrong – and whether Democrats’ loss in the most important election of the year will send his presidency into a downward spiral.
Continue reading...Senator Joe Manchin said it would take “quite a while” to pass the reconciliation package, even as the House looks to hold votes on that proposal and the bipartisan infrastructure bill by the end of the week.
“You’re talking about overhauling the entire tax code. That is tremendous. And there needs to be input. We need to know what the effect’s going to be,” the West Virginia senator told CNN on Capitol Hill.
Continue reading...About 80% of US adults now have at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 70% of American adults are fully vaccinated.
According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 206,333,974 American adults have now gotten at least one vaccine dose, and 179,729,970 of them are fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...In her first interview to promote her new book, Huma Abedin said she did not think an unnamed senator sexually assaulted her when he kissed her at his apartment, some time in the mid-2000s.
She also said she would “take to her grave” her part in the emails investigation which cost Hillary Clinton dearly in the 2016 presidential election, which the candidate lost to Donald Trump, though she knew it was not all her fault.
Continue reading...Joe Biden rallied House Democrats behind a proposed $1.75tn framework deal that he said could win the support of every Democrat in the Senate and prove to the world that American democracy can deliver.
“I am back here to tell you that we have a framework that will get 50 votes in the United States Senate,” he told House Democrats during a morning caucus meeting, according to a source familiar.
Continue reading...Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have arrived at the memorial for Dr Martin Luther King at the Tidal Basin in Washington.
The president and the vice-president will soon deliver remarks to mark the tenth anniversary of the dedication of the memorial. Stay tuned.
Continue reading...Climate activists have gathered on Capitol Hill to demand that Democrats’ reconciliation package effectively address the climate crisis.
One protester with Greenpeace carried cutouts of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin, portraying Schumer as Manchin’s puppet.
Continue reading...The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack voted on Tuesday to recommend the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, after he defied a subpoena relating to their inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.
The select committee approved the contempt of Congress citation unanimously, sending the report to the Democratic-controlled House, which is expected on Thursday to authorize the panel to go to court to punish Bannon for his non-compliance.
Continue reading...Democratic senator Jon Tester has also voiced criticism of progressives’ suggestion to add a carbon tax to the reconciliation package.
“You might have problems with me on a carbon tax,” Tester said, per Politico.
Continue reading...The attorney general, Merrick Garland, will make his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee next week. The testimony is likely to touch on everything from a severe near-total abortion ban in Texas to voting rights and gun violence.
Garland is scheduled to testify 21 October. His appearance was first reported by Politico.
Continue reading...The US House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday to a Senate-passed bill temporarily raising the government’s borrowing limit to $28.9tn, putting off the risk of default at least until early December.
Democrats, who narrowly control the House, maintained party discipline to pass the hard-fought, $480bn debt limit increase. The vote was along party lines, with every yes from Democrats and every no from Republicans.
Continue reading...Some observers believe passage of the reconciliation bill would be a fitting coda to her decades-long political career
Amid Democrats’ contentious negotiations over the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was able to distract Capitol Hill reporters for a few minutes with her use of a certain C-word.
“I just told members of my leadership that the reconciliation bill was a culmination of my service in Congress because it was about the children,” the Democratic speaker said at a press conference late last month.
Continue reading...Minimum global corporate rate of 15% agreed by 136 countries as Yellen also says US will raise debt ceiling on 3 December
The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said on Sunday she was confident Congress would approve legislation to implement the global corporate minimum tax agreed by 136 countries.
Yellen told ABC’s This Week actions to bring the US into compliance with the global minimum tax would likely be included in the so-called reconciliation budget bill containing Joe Biden’s proposed spending initiatives.
Continue reading...The left of the party is celebrating holding firm on insisting on both parts of Biden’s domestic agenda over centrist objections
When House Democrats were forced to delay their planned vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this month, the reaction from progressives was a bit surprising considering it is a key part of Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
Rather than lamenting the delay of the vote, progressive groups praised the Democratic lawmakers who had demanded the scheduling change.
Continue reading...Steve Bannon has informed the House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol that he will not be cooperating with their subpoena to provide related documents.
This comes after Politico reported yesterday that Donald Trump has directed Bannon and three other former aides - former social media czar Dan Scavino, former defense department official Kash Patel and former chief of staff Mark Meadows - to ignore the subpoena, likely because he will attempt to block their testimony in court.
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