Bloomberg: “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said President Joe Biden favors boosting taxes on companies, and signaled openness to considering raising rates on capital gains, while steering clear of a wealth levy.”
“The administration is looking to boost the corporate tax to 28%, Yellen said. The Treasury chief said last week that revenue measures would be needed to help pay for Biden’s planned longer-term economic reconstruction program to help address concerns about debt sustainability.”
Washington Post: “The public inquest into the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol begins a new phase Tuesday when four law enforcement officials — three of whom resigned their posts and some of whom have never before spoken publicly about the attack — face lawmakers aiming to uncover what led to the violence and prevent future unrest.”
NBC News: Key Capitol security officials to be grilled about what went wrong on January 6.
“House Democratic leaders are quietly mounting a campaign for Shalanda Young, a longtime congressional aide, to replace Neera Tanden as nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget,” Axios reports.
“The nascent campaign for Young, who would be OMB’s first Black female leader, reflects a stark reality taking hold in the Democratic Party: Tanden’s prospects are rapidly fading.”
The North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill that would forbid mandatory mask wearing in the state, the Grand Forks Herald reports.
Politico: “The crumbled alliance between Trump and McConnell, who worked hand-in-glove on political and legislative strategy for four years, has finally brought the GOP to the reckoning that never happened after the 2016 election. Trump may take another swipe at McConnell in the coming days at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But McConnell probably won’t hear it: He is not expected to speak at CPAC, according to Republican sources. McConnell still hasn’t spoken to Trump in more than two months.”
“And interviews with nearly a dozen Senate Republicans on Monday night make clear that it will take more than a war of words with Trump to knock McConnell off his perch.”
Aaron Blake: “The focus on Tanden’s tweets makes plenty of sense in the context of the office to which she’s nominated and the president nominating her for that post. Indeed, some wagered that perhaps she was put forward to give Republicans (and perhaps Manchin, in a very red state) something to vote against, rather than other nominees. Perhaps this gives them more latitude in the future to support Biden’s agenda.”
“But it begs for a declared standard when it comes to who is confirmation-worthy. Can someone be extremely partisan but not attack senators? Is it okay for someone to attack someone’s appearance on social media and still be confirmed? And how much are apologies for past statements operative?”
“Whatever one thinks of Tanden’s qualifications, it’s a valid question. But it might have arrived too late for her nomination.”
President Joe Biden urged Americans to “remember those we lost and remember those we left behind” in a candle-lighting ceremony — noting the “grim milestone” of the U.S. surpassing 500,000 COVID-19 deaths, Axios reports.
Said Biden: “As a nation, we can’t accept such a cruel fate. We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow.”
“Donald Trump has confirmed his attendance at the Republican National Committee’s upcoming spring donor retreat, as the former president reemerges following his departure from the White House,” Politico reports.
Gallup: “Several weeks into his first term in office, 67% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of the coronavirus. Although not as high as his rating on the pandemic, approval of Biden is at the majority level on his overall job (56%) and his handling of foreign affairs (56%) and the economy (54%).”
A new Pew Research report finds 24% of Republicans and and 25% of Democrats “consistently” turned to “partisan news media bubbles” for their news.
“Republicans who stuck to their partisan bubbles tended to be much older than those that relied on outlets with left-leaning audiences or a mix of publications. About 80% of the Republicans who stuck to their partisan bubbles were older than 50, including 44% older than 65.”
“Democrats who get their political news only from outlets with left-leaning audiences were more likely to be white and have college degrees. Democrats who consistently turned to outlets with mixed or right-leaning audiences were more likely to be Black (29%) or Hispanic (21%).”
Jonathan Chait: “Donald Trump’s yearslong quest to prevent the public, Congress, or law-enforcement officials from seeing his tax statements came to a resounding end with a unanimous Supreme Court ruling. He did not take the defeat in stride. Instead, the former president released a statement that, even by Trumpian standards, brims with anger.”
“Trump’s response bears every hallmark of an authentically Trump-authored text, as opposed to the knockoff versions produced by his aides. It is meandering, filled with run-on sentences, gratuitous insults, and exclamation points.”
“The statement does contain one unambiguously true point: ‘This is something which has never happened to a president before.’ That’s correct, because every president for the past several decades has voluntarily released his financial information. Only Trump refused.”
In a hypothetical three-way Republican primary for president in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) gets 64% support compared to 12% for Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and 10% for Sen. Rick Scott (R), Politico reports.
That 52-point lead over Rubio represents a massive increase since July when he was ahead by just 11 points over Rubio.
Justice Clarence Thomas issued a startling opinion in which he cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election by questioning the security of mail voting, Slate reports.
“Thomas drew heavily from a 2012 New York Times article focusing on Florida’s mail voting regime, which focused on a handful of fraudulent schemes involving mail ballots. The justice also pointed to a Republican operative’s criminal attempt to steal an election in North Carolina using mail ballots. In reality, this kind of voter fraud is vanishingly rare, and its few perpetrators have been caught and prosecuted.”
“In a strikingly cynical move, the justice argued that laws curtailing mail voting may be justified without proof of fraud to prevent ‘the appearance of corruption.’ He drew this standard from the campaign finance context, in which the court has upheld limits on political spending to bolster public confidence that lawmakers are not corrupt.”
USA Today: Dissent by Clarence Thomas draws fire for revisiting baseless Trump election fraud claims.
“Hoping to build on the gains former President Donald Trump made with African American voters, the Republican National Committee says it plans to open Black Community Centers in states that are expected to be competitive in next year’s midterm elections,” McClatchy reports.
“While Trump won just 12% of Black voters in the 2020 election, that still accounted for the largest share of any Republican presidential candidate since former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole’s unsuccessful bid for the White House in 1996, according to exit polls.”
“While millions of Texans languished in their homes last week without heat, many of them racking up astronomical electricity bills, the state official in charge of consumer protection left to take an out-of-state trip,” the Houston Chronicle reports.
“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) left the state during the middle of the power outage crisis to meet with a fellow attorney general in Utah for a ‘previously planned meeting.’ Hs wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton (R), was also on the trip.”
“President Joe Biden raised $22.1 million to pay for the costs of his transition, far exceeding the $6.5 million his predecessor raised four years ago,” Bloomberg reports.
“Former President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election led to a delay in releasing $6 million in public money designated for presidential transitions. The GSA waited almost three weeks after the Nov. 3 election to ascertain Biden as the apparent winner, freeing up the money and getting his team access to detailed briefing books on government agencies.”
Jonathan Last wants Lara Trump to run for U.S. Senate in North Carolina because it would answer some burning questions:
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.