John Oliver discusses Donald Trump’s plans for a second term, why it could be much worse than his first term, and what Trump has in common with a hamster.
The Satanic Temple and the Saucon Valley School District in Pennsylvania reached a settlement… but it could have been avoided if district officials just listened to atheists.
The power of the public needs to wake up and fight back. Yes the wealthy and businesses have made it ever harder to find any time to even read news much less take action. But unless we do the past will be our future. The wealthy bought the republican party and even some in the democratic party to support the oligarchy and return to the gilded age of robber barons and a government too small and powerless to stop them. Back then the US was basically run by wealthy corporations and business interests. The people, the public not only did not have a real voice, they simply did not matter. They were only livestock to make the companies more money and when they couldn’t do that anymore, they suffered and died. A life span for the worker was 47, the life span for the wealthy was into the late 70s. Is that what we want for the US? Please people rise up, vote for Biden, the wealthy are desperate and funding all the challenges to him. RFK, Jill Stein, Cornell West none of them can win. Period. The math doesn’t work, the system doesn’t allow it. There are only two candidates that can get the needed 270 electoral votes to win, to be president. These others are simply spoilers paid to tank Biden and help tRump. Don’t let them do it. Hugs. Scottie
Data: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; Chart: Axios Visuals
Former President Trump ranup the national debt by about twice as much as President Biden, according to a new analysis of their fiscal track records.
Why it matters: The winner of November’s election faces a gloomy fiscal outlook, with rapidly rising debt levels at a time when interest rates are already high and demographic pressure on retirement programs is rising.
Both candidates bear a share of the responsibility, as each added trillions to that tally while in office.
But Trump’s contribution was significantly higher, according to the fiscal watchdogs at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, thanks to both tax cuts and spending deals struck in his four years in the White House.
By the numbers: Trump added $8.4 trillion in borrowing over a ten-year window, CRFB finds in a report out this morning.
Biden’s figure clocks in at $4.3 trillion with seven months remaining in his term.
If you exclude COVID relief spending from the tally, the numbers are $4.8 trillion for Trump and $2.2 trillion for Biden.
State of play: For Trump, the biggest non-COVID drivers of higher public debt were his signature tax cuts enacted in 2017 (causing $1.9 trillion in additional borrowing) and bipartisan spending packages (which added $2.1 trillion).
For Biden, major non-COVID factors include 2022 and 2023 spending bills ($1.4 trillion), student debt relief ($620 billion), and legislation to support health care for veterans ($520 billion).
Biden deficits have also swelled, according to CRFB’s analysis, due to executive actions that changed the way food stamp benefits are calculated, expanding Medicaid benefits, and other changes that total $548 billion.
Between the lines: Deficit politics may return to the forefront of U.S. policy debates next year.
Much of Trump’s tax law is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the CBO has estimated that fully extending it would increase deficits by $4.6 trillion over the next decade.
High interest rates make the taxpayer burden of both existing and new debt higher than it was during the era of near-zero interest rates.
And the Social Security trust fund is rapidly hurtling toward depletion in 2033, which would trigger huge cuts in the retirement benefits absent Congressional action.
What they’re saying: “The next president will face huge fiscal challenges,” CRFB president Maya MacGuineas tells Axios.
“Yet both candidates have track records of approving trillions in new borrowing even setting aside the justified borrowing for COVID, and neither has proposed a comprehensive and credible plan to get the debt under control,” she said.
“No president is fully responsible for the fiscal challenges that come along, but they need to use the bully pulpit to set the stage for making some hard choices,” MacGuineas said.
Scottie's Playtime 