“The government ran a budget deficit of just under $1 trillion in the just-closed fiscal year,” the AP reports.
“The $984 billion deficit tally for 2019 came in more than $200 billion more than last year’s, despite very low unemployment and continuing economic growth.”
The 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, the New York Times reports.
“That’s a sharp change from the 1950s and 1960s, when the wealthy paid vastly higher tax rates than the middle class or poor. Since then, taxes that hit the wealthiest the hardest — like the estate tax and corporate tax — have plummeted, while tax avoidance has become more common.”
“When Republicans cut corporate and individual taxes in 2017, they promised two things: It would grow the economy and it would not add to the national debt. Neither of those have borne out,” the Washington Post reports.
“Not only has economic growth slowed, in part because of President Trump’s ongoing trade war with China, but the deficit has grown to its highest level in seven years, in part due to reduced tax revenue.”
“To counter these trends, the Trump administration has engaged in economic double-talk, including repeatedly saying, falsely, that the federal deficit — and by extension, the national debt — was falling or would fall in the future.”
NBC News: “The number of complaints made to a confidential hotline designed to allow the reporting of waste, fraud and abuse in the intelligence community has skyrocketed since Donald Trump took office, government records show.”
“According to the latest public report by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, the hotline received 563 contacts last year, up from 251 in 2016 and 369 in 2017.”
“The numbers for the latest fiscal year are on pace to be even higher: There were 297 complaints in just the first six months — from October 2018 through last March, according to the report.”
“The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to keep the government open through late November, setting up a huge showdown later this year over President Trump’s border wall that could force another shutdown before Thanksgiving,” the Washington Post reports.
“The short-term nature of Thursday’s legislation was the result of failed efforts to complete a broader spending package ahead of Sept. 30, when government funding runs out absent congressional action. The need for the stopgap measure shows how fundamental spending issues remain unresolved and deeply problematic, even though they were supposed to have been largely dispatched by a sweeping budget and debt ceiling deal completed over the summer.”
Bill Gates told Bloomberg that he “wouldn’t be against a wealth tax” like the one Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is proposing, but he didn’t think it was realistic.
Said Gates: “I doubt, you know, the U.S. will do a wealth tax, but I wouldn’t be against it. The closest thing we have to it is the estate tax. And I’ve been a huge proponent that that should go back to the level of 55 percent that it was a few decades ago.”
President Trump “is reviving last year’s promise to slash taxes for America’s middle class as he seeks to bolster his reelection bid against Democratic pledges to help people suffering under piles of student loan debt and wrestling to pay oversized medical bills,” CNN reports.
Trump promised — yet again — new tax cuts next year, claiming they would be “very, very substantial,” without offering any more details.
Said Trump: “We’re working on a tax cut for the middle-income people that is going to be very, very inspirational. It’s going to be something that I think everyone is looking for.”
“House Republicans plan to run on tried-and-true issues in 2020: repealing Obamacare and reducing the national debt, even though the GOP fell short of both goals the last time the party had full control of Washington,” Bloomberg reports.
Said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarth: “The first thing we would do is make sure our debt is taken care of.”
“President Trump’s plan to pay for his proposed border wall by taking funds from more than four dozen Air Force military construction projects poses various national security risks for the U.S. armed forces, according to a report compiled by the U.S. Air Force,” NBC News reports.
“The report details the importance of each of the 51 military projects chosen by the Trump administration to lose their funding, including construction of a new gate to address a growing security concern at an overseas U.S. base, projects to build facilities to safely store more than $1 billion in munitions overseas, and even replacing a boiler whose failure is ‘imminent’ and could cause the evacuation of an entire base in Alaska.”
“The U.S. budget gap widened to more than $1 trillion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Thursday, the first time deficits have topped that amount in seven years,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that the Trump administration would consider proposing a package of tax cuts in 2020, trumpeting the strength of the U.S. economy despite the ominous financial indicators of recent weeks,” Politico reports.
“I think there’s no question the U.S. economy is in very good shape. As we look around the world, there’s no question that China is slowing, Europe is slowing — the U.S. is the bright spot of the world. And regards to a middle class tax cut, you know, we’ll be looking at tax cuts 2.0, something that will be something we’ll consider next year. But right now, the economy is in very, very good shape.”
President Trump tweeted a link to an op-ed by Sen. Ted Cruz and veteran anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist calling on the administration to index capital gains to inflation.
Vox: “More concerning still, some legal scholars believe that executing this change through the executive branch is illegal, and that congressional action would be necessary to do this — action that, with Democrats in control of the House, will probably never come.”
“The income tax is the Swiss Army Knife of the U.S. tax system, an all-purpose policy tool for raising revenue, rewarding and punishing activities and redistributing money between rich and poor,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The system could change fundamentally if Democrats win the White House and Congress. The party’s presidential candidates, legislators and advisers share a conviction that today’s income tax is inadequate for an economy where a growing share of rewards flows to a sliver of households.”
“For the richest Americans, Democrats want to shift toward taxing their wealth, instead of just their salaries and the income their assets generate. The personal income tax indirectly touches wealth, but only when assets are sold and become income.”
The Trump administration proposed cutting funding for Baltimore’s main rat extermination program — right before President Trump tweeted that parts of Baltimore were a “rat and rodent infested mess,” the Baltimore Sun reports.
President Trump tweeted that he would push a “major middle income tax cut” if Republicans keep the Senate and presidency and take back the House in the 2020 elections.
Said Trump: “If Republicans take back the House, and keep the Senate and Presidency, one of our first acts will be to approve a major middle income Tax Cut! Democrats only want to raise your taxes!”
Washington Post: “We learned this week that the deficit is rising faster than the Congressional Budget Office previously predicted and that it could hit $1 trillion as soon as this year. The GOP’s tax cuts haven’t created the growth it promised, which means less revenue is coming in to the federal government. Combine that with spending hikes, and the president who said he would not just balance the budget but also eliminate the entire national debt is on a very fiscally unconservative trajectory toward a massive broken promise.”
“Not to worry, though; he can just get around to fixing it after he wins reelection.”
“That’s the constant refrain emanating from the White House and GOP circles. Repeatedly, internal leaks and GOP lawmakers have suggested President Trump could get serious about this come January 2021.”
President Trump said “he wasn’t currently looking at any form of tax cuts, a reversal from a day earlier when he floated possible moves to bolster economic growth,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Trump: “I’m not looking at a tax cut now. We don’t need it. We have a strong economy.”
The CBO says federal deficits are projected to grow much more than expected over the next decade thanks to the two-year budget agreement lawmakers and the White House struck last month, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The agency increased its forecasts for deficits over the next decade by $809 billion, to $12.2 trillion… The increase primarily reflects higher federal spending under the new budget deal, partly offset by lower projected interest rates.”
New York Times: “Rising deficit projections are the result of sluggish growth in federal revenue after Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts went into effect, and several bipartisan agreements to raise military and nondefense domestic discretionary spending, which Mr. Trump signed into law.”
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.
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