Monday, March 11, 2024

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1/ Biden proposed a $7.3 trillion budget for the next fiscal year that would raise taxes on high earners and corporations to keep Social Security and Medicare from hitting insolvency within the next decade. Additionally, the budget calls for restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit, fully funding nutrition assistance for women, infants and children through the WIC program, and allowing Medicare to negotiate more aggressively to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. Biden’s budget would cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years through changes to the tax code that target the ultra-wealthy and cutting to “wasteful subsidies.” The fiscal 2025 budget would cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade, and raise taxes by a net total of $4.9 trillion – more than 7% above what the government would collect without any policy changes. The plan, however, stand almost no chance of becoming law, given that Republicans control the House and have been unable to pass a budget for the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. (ABC News / Politico / Axios / Associated Press / NPR / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

2/ Trump suggested that he’s open to “cutting” Social Security and Medicare, but later backtracked and claimed he was talking about “cutting waste.” In an interview, Trump, when was asked how he’d resolve the long-term solvency problems of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, said that there was “a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements.” Biden immediately seized on the comments, saying: “Not on my watch.” He later added: “Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security and Medicare back on the chopping block again. Many of them are trying to cut Social Security and Medicare or raise the retirement age again. I will stop them.” Social Security is projected to be solvent through 2034, while Medicare is projected to be solvent through 2028. After that, benefits will face automatic cuts with policy changes to add revenue or reduce spending. (NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / CNN / CNBC)

3/ Trump posted a $91.6 million bond to appeal the $83.3 million judgement against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. In January, a federal jury awarded Carroll $83.3 m...

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