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    As Senate Weighs Biden’s Commerce Pick, Here’s What to Watch

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The New WashingtonliveLatest UpdatesMilitary Ban on Transgender People LiftedBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs Senate Weighs Biden’s Commerce Pick, Here’s What to WatchA Senate committee will question Gina M. Raimondo, President Biden’s pick for commerce secretary, at a hearing Tuesday morning.Governor Gina M. Raimondo is the Biden administration’s pick to lead the Commerce Department.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesJan. 26, 2021Updated 7:34 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Commerce Department has taken on new importance in recent years, with wide-ranging authority over issues as broad as technology exports and climate change. On Tuesday, President Biden’s nominee to run the sprawling agency, Gina M. Raimondo, will appear before the Senate Commerce Committee for a confirmation hearing. Ms. Raimondo, the current governor of Rhode Island, is a moderate Democrat and former venture capitalist.Here are five things to watch for as the hearing gets underway at 10 a.m.Countering China’s growing technological reachSenators of both parties are likely to question Ms. Raimondo on how she plans to use the Commerce Department’s powers to counter China’s growing mastery of cutting-edge and sensitive technologies, like advanced telecommunications and artificial intelligence.The Trump administration made heavy use of the department’s authorities to crack down on Chinese technology firms, turning often to the so-called entity list, which allows the United States to block companies from selling American products and technology to certain foreign firms without first obtaining a license. Dozens of companies have been added to the Commerce Department’s list, including telecom giants like Huawei and ZTE, which many American lawmakers see as threats to national security.“You can be reasonably confident that the members will demand a tough line” on China, said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who was a high-level commerce official during the Clinton administration.The Commerce Department was also given responsibility for outlining President Donald J. Trump’s U.S. ban on the Chinese-owned social media apps TikTok and WeChat — actions that were subsequently halted by a court order — and for studying bans against other Chinese apps. Mr. Biden has said he sees TikTok’s access to American data as a “matter of genuine concern,” but it’s unclear how the new administration will address these issues.But the Commerce Department has other capabilities that some tech experts say were underutilized in the Trump administration, like the role it plays in setting global technology standards that private firms must operated under. China has taken an increasingly active role in global standards-setting bodies in recent years, helping to ensure adoption of technologies that are made in China, Mr. Reinsch said, and senators may press Ms. Raimondo on the issue.Jump-starting the economic recoveryMr. Biden has emphasized Ms. Raimondo’s role in helping to promote small businesses while serving as the governor of Rhode Island — both before and during the pandemic.As commerce secretary, she would wield certain authorities that could help struggling businesses and advance the Biden administration’s goals of building up domestic industry and revitalizing American research and development.That includes economic development programs and manufacturing partnerships that the Commerce Department offers to small and midsize enterprises, as well as its core mission of promoting American exports.The department could also play a bigger role in expanding high-speed internet access for rural and low-income communities, a particularly critical issue as the pandemic has forced much commerce and schooling online. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department, leads the government’s efforts on broadband access.The New Washington More

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    Biden Wants to Raise Taxes, Yet Many Trump Tax Cuts Are Here to Stay

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Biden AdministrationliveLatest UpdatesReview of Russian HackingBiden’s CabinetPandemic ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBiden Wants to Raise Taxes, Yet Many Trump Tax Cuts Are Here to StayWhile Democrats have vowed to repeal the former president’s signature 2017 law, his successor is more likely to tinker with it, given constraints.President Biden could end up doing more to cement the Trump administration’s tax cuts than to roll them back.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesJan. 22, 2021Updated 10:55 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump has left the White House. But many of his signature tax cuts aren’t going anywhere.Democrats have spent years promising to repeal the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans passed without a single Democratic vote and was estimated to cost nearly $2 trillion over a decade. President Biden said during a presidential debate in September that he was “going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.”Mr. Biden is now in the White House, and his party controls both chambers of Congress. Yet he and his aides are committing to only a partial rollback of the law, with their focus on provisions that help corporations and the very rich. It’s a position that Mr. Biden held throughout the campaign, and that he clarified in the September debate by promising to only partly repeal a corporate rate cut.In some cases, including tax cuts that help lower- and middle-class Americans, they are looking to make Mr. Trump’s temporary tax cuts permanent.Mr. Biden still wants to raise taxes on some businesses and wealthy individuals, and he remains intent on raising trillions of dollars in new tax revenue to offset the federal spending programs that he plans to propose, including for infrastructure, clean energy production and education. Much of the new revenue, however, could come from efforts to tax investment and labor income for people earning more than $400,000, in ways that are not related to the 2017 law.Mr. Biden did not include any tax increases in the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan he proposed last week, which was meant to curb the pandemic and help people and companies endure the economic pain it has caused.His nominee for Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, told a Senate committee this week that the president would hold off on reversing any parts of the tax law until later in the recovery, which most likely means as part of a large infrastructure package that he is set to unveil next month. Republican lawmakers repeatedly questioned Ms. Yellen about Mr. Biden’s tax plans, warning that repeal of the 2017 cuts would hurt American workers and businesses and push companies to ship jobs overseas.Ms. Yellen said Mr. Biden had made clear that he “would want to repeal parts of the 2017 tax cuts that benefited the highest-income Americans and large companies.” But she added that “he’s been very clear that he does not support a complete repeal.”Mr. Biden could end up cementing as much of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts as he rolls back. To meet a budget constraint that was necessary to pass the 2017 law with no Democratic votes, Republicans set tax cuts for individuals to expire at the end of 2025. On Thursday, in follow-up answers to written questions from Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, Ms. Yellen said she would work with Congress to make tax cuts permanent for families earning less than $400,000 a year.Such a move would most likely reduce the tax revenue that Mr. Biden could otherwise claim to raise from his proposed changes to the Trump tax by at least half and as much as two-thirds, according to calculations by The New York Times. The calculations used analyses from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the Tax Policy Center, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model.All told, over a decade, Mr. Biden’s proposed changes to the law could net just $500 billion in additional revenue. In contrast, he has proposed roughly $2 trillion in tax increases unrelated to the law, by the Budget Model’s calculations.Not all of Mr. Biden’s intentions for the law’s provisions are clear. In the campaign, he said he would remove a limitation that Mr. Trump placed on the deduction of state and local taxes from federal income taxes, known as S.A.L.T., a move that primarily hurt higher-income residents of high-tax states like New York and California.Ms. Yellen did not commit to such a repeal this week, telling lawmakers she would “study and evaluate what the impact of the S.A.L.T. cap has had on state on local governments, and those who rely upon their services.” Repealing the cap would further reduce federal tax revenues.The Biden AdministrationLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 22, 2021, 3:53 p.m. ETBiden’s top economic adviser warns the economy will be in ‘a much worse place’ without more aid.White House orders intelligence agencies to look at violent extremism in the U.S.Texas threatens to sue the Biden administration over pause in deportations.The 2017 law cut taxes for individuals and lowered the corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. It created a new deduction for owners of certain businesses, like limited liability companies, whose owners pay taxes on their profits through the individual tax code. It also overhauled how the United States taxes the income that companies earn overseas, which Republicans said would encourage them to invest and create jobs in America.Most American workers received at least a small tax cut under the law. Its benefits flowed heavily to high earners: The Joint Committee on Taxation’s initial estimates suggested that more than one-fifth of the tax savings from the law in 2021 would go to people earning $500,000 a year or more. That share is set to rise sharply by 2026 if the individual tax cuts expire as scheduled.Democrats denounced the law as a giveaway to the rich, and it has struggled to attain widespread popularity. An online poll for The Times by the research firm SurveyMonkey found last month that Americans remained evenly split on whether they support or oppose the law. Only one in five respondents was certain of having received a tax cut from it.During the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden proposed trillions of dollars in tax increases on corporations and the rich, but his plans stopped short of a full repeal of Mr. Trump’s tax law. He said he would raise income taxes to pre-Trump levels only at the top bracket, an increase to 39.6 percent from 37 percent. He called for raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent, where Mr. Trump set it — still short of the top rate of 35 percent that preceded the law.Even Mr. Biden’s international tax plan, which is meant to encourage domestic investment and job creation while raising revenue from large corporations, would work within the boundaries of what Mr. Trump and Republicans did in 2017. Instead of scrapping the overhaul, Mr. Biden would double the rate of the tax — while eliminating a new exemption that Democrats say encourages corporate investment abroad.The upshot is that Mr. Trump’s 2017 cuts will govern tax policy for years to come, said George Callas, a managing director at Steptoe, a law firm in Washington, who helped write the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as an aide to Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Mr. Callas said the Biden plan “does in a way concede that the new architecture of the international tax system that the T.C.J.A. created is being accepted as the architecture going forward.”Democrats say the changes that Mr. Biden is proposing for the law would rebalance its incentives for investment and hiring toward the United States, while ensuring that corporations and the rich paid their “fair share” of taxes.Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, incoming chairman of the Finance Committee, which will be the starting point in the Senate for any tax changes Mr. Biden wants to make, said in an interview that his top tax priorities in many ways matched Mr. Biden’s.They include limiting a deduction for high earners who run companies that are not organized as corporations and overhauling the exemption for qualified business asset investment overseas — the provision that Democrats say encourages offshoring, though Republicans like Mr. Callas disagree. Mr. Wyden also wants to raise taxes on heirs of large fortunes and on investment income for high earners, through a variety of avenues.“There is a broad swath of Senate Democrats who are in agreement that the 2017 bill was a giveaway” to the rich and multinational corporations, Mr. Wyden said. “Certainly there is support for rolling back the corporate rate provision, the individual rate being pushed up again.”Republicans have already begun to mount a defense of those portions of the law, both inside and outside Congress, warning that the changes that Mr. Biden proposes would drive more companies to move overseas.“Raising the U.S. rate or making the international regime more burdensome would have an adverse effect on U.S. global competitiveness,” said Rohit Kumar, co-leader of PwC’s National Tax Office and a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was the Republican leader during the tax cut debate.“Doing both would be a double whammy that would ultimately harm U.S. workers and anyone who has a pension or 401(k) invested in U.S. companies,” Mr. Kumar said.Congressional Republicans have also pushed through, as part of economic stimulus efforts over the last year, several changes to the law they wrote and passed. For example, they relaxed restrictions that the law placed on companies’ ability to deduct operating losses from previous years’ taxes, in order to reduce their tax bills.Those provisions alone amount to a $160 billion change in the law — which is more money than Mr. Biden could expect to raise in a decade by reversing Mr. Trump’s cut in the top income tax rate for the rich.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Biden Tells OSHA to Issue New Covid-19 Guidance to Employers

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Biden AdministrationliveLatest UpdatesBiden Takes OfficePandemic Response17 Executive Orders SignedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBiden Tells OSHA to Issue New Covid-19 Guidance to EmployersUnions, which largely support the new president, had complained that the Trump administration did little to protect workers from the coronavirus.Carolina Sanchez, left, whose husband died after contracting Covid-19 while working at a meatpacking plant, is comforted at a protest outside the Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Denver last September.Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated PressJan. 21, 2021Updated 6:37 p.m. ETPresident Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Thursday to release new guidance to employers on protecting workers from Covid-19.In one of 10 executive orders that he signed Thursday, the president asked the agency to step up enforcement of existing rules to help stop the spread of the coronavirus in the workplace and to explore issuing a new rule requiring employers to take additional precautions.The other executive orders also relate to the pandemic, including orders directing federal agencies to issue guidance for the reopening of schools and to use their powers to accelerate the production of protective equipment and expand access to testing.Critics accused OSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, of weak oversight under former President Donald J. Trump, especially in the last year, when it relaxed record-keeping and reporting requirements related to Covid-19 cases.Under Mr. Trump, the agency also announced that it would mostly refrain from inspecting workplaces outside of a few high-risk industries like health care and emergency response. And critics complained that its appetite for fining employers was limited. Mr. Biden’s executive order urges the agency to target “the worst violators,” according to a White House fact sheet.Union officials and labor advocacy groups have long pleaded with the agency to issue a rule, known as an emergency temporary standard, laying out steps that employers must take to protect workers from the coronavirus. The agency declined to do so under Mr. Trump, but Mr. Biden supported the approach during the campaign.“We talked about a national standardized strategy for working men and women in this country to function under this cloud of the pandemic,” Rory Gamble, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said after a meeting with Mr. Biden in mid-November. “He indicated he would do whatever it took.”OSHA’s oversight of the meatpacking industry under Mr. Trump attracted particular scrutiny from labor groups and scholars. A study published in the fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences connected between 236,000 and 310,000 Covid-19 cases to livestock processing plants through late July, or between 6 percent and 8 percent of the national total at that point.That figure is roughly 50 times the 0.15 percent of the U.S. population that works in meatpacking plants, according to the study, suggesting that the industry played an outsized role in spreading the illness.The study found that a majority of the Covid-19 cases linked to meatpacking plants had likely originated in the plants and then spread through surrounding communities.The Biden AdministrationLive UpdatesUpdated Jan. 21, 2021, 7:22 p.m. ETFauci offers reassurances on vaccines, but warns that virus variants pose a risk.Biden is invoking the Defense Production Act. Here’s what that means.The No. 2 official at the F.B.I. is departing.Despite the problems identified by the study, the Trump administration did not include meatpacking plants in the category of workplaces that OSHA should regularly inspect. Only a small fraction of the roughly $4 million in coronavirus-related penalties that the agency proposed under Mr. Trump targeted the industry. Fines for any given plant were generally below $30,000.The Labor Department under Mr. Trump said it had assessed the maximum fines allowed under the law. But former OSHA officials have said that the agency can impose bigger fines by citing facilities for multiple violations, which could raise proposed penalties to over $100,000.Even when it did inspect meatpacking plants and propose fines, OSHA rarely required these employers to place workers six feet apart, the distance recommended by its own guidance.During a court case involving a plant in Pennsylvania whose workers complained last year that they were in imminent danger because of the risk of infection, OSHA wrote in a letter on Jan. 12 that it was OK with spacing at the plant, even though some workers were spaced less than six feet apart. Separately, union officials at two other plants where OSHA issued citations said workers continued to stand close to one another after the citations.Debbie Berkowitz, a senior OSHA official during the Obama administration who is now at the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, said she expected the Biden administration to issue a rule requiring meatpacking facilities to space workers six feet apart and mandating other safety measures, such as providing high-quality masks and improving ventilation and sanitation at their facilities.“OSHA had been sidelined under Trump,” said Ms. Berkowitz. “This is a signal they’re going to play a significant role in mitigating the spread of Covid-19,” she added, alluding to Mr. Biden’s executive order.The Biden administration is likely to revisit a wide variety of labor and employment issues from the Trump era, including a rule that would make it harder for employees of franchises and contractors to recover wages that were improperly withheld from them, and another rule that would likely classify Uber drivers and other gig workers as contractors rather than employees.On Wednesday, the new administration fired the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, a Senate-confirmed official who has wide latitude over which labor law violations the board pursues. The official, Peter B. Robb, was appointed by Mr. Trump and clashed frequently with unions.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How Our Unemployment Benefits System Failed

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Jobs CrisisCurrent Unemployment RateThe First Six MonthsPermanent LayoffsWhen a $600 Lifeline EndedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow the American Unemployment System FailedA decline in funding and changes in the workplace — and how long people are out of work — have left a program unequal to the 21st-century economy. More

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    ‘We Need to Stabilize’: Big Business Breaks With Republicans

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘We Need to Stabilize’: Big Business Breaks With RepublicansLow taxes and light regulation made the party popular with corporate America for decades. President Trump and his supporters have frayed those bonds.After the deadly Capitol rampage by President Trump’s supporters, corporate America is flexing its political muscle like never before.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesJan. 15, 2021The longstanding alliance between big business and the Republican Party is being tested as never before.As President Trump and his allies sought to overturn the election results in recent months, chief executives condemned their efforts and called on Republicans to stop meddling with the peaceful transfer of power.Now, in the aftermath of the deadly Capitol rampage by Mr. Trump’s supporters, corporate America is turning its back on many senior Republicans, and flexing its political muscle.One major trade group called on Mr. Trump’s cabinet to consider removing him from office. Dozens of companies, from AT&T to Walmart, have said they will no longer donate to members of Congress who opposed the Electoral College certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.And a senior House Democrat asked big banks and other financial services companies on Friday to stop processing financial transactions for people and organizations that participated in the Capitol riot.Tim Ryan, the chief executive of PWC, who said his firm was among those suspending donations to members who voted against certification, called for the country to come together. “I believe this is the best country in the world, and we can’t let all that go to hell in a handbasket,” he said. “We need to stabilize. We need certainty.”He added, “If we can’t come together, can’t stabilize, or if it got worse, it wouldn’t be good for business.”The proclamations of chief executives might not normally matter much in political discourse, and there are some who are skeptical that their motives are anything beyond self-interest. But in a fractured moment, the unified voice of the mainstream business world carries a great deal of symbolic heft.A recent study by Edelman found that the public trusts business more than nonprofit organizations, the government or the media.“This thing was a little different. I mean, we had sedition and insurrection in D.C.,” said Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase.Credit…Sarah Silbiger/The New York Times“They’re not just the money,” said Nancy Koehn, a historian at Harvard Business School. “They’re also this collective seal of approval. They carry an enormous amount of weight, regardless of your political loyalties.”For decades, the Republicans were seen as the party of big business. Their support for low taxes and light regulation was manna to executives eager to raise profits and avoid government entanglements, and chief executives and big companies were reliable funders of Republicans up and down the ballot.Mr. Trump has frayed those bonds. Four years ago, few major chief executives supported Mr. Trump during his first campaign. And throughout his time in the White House, executives from many of the company’s biggest brands publicly sparred with the president on everything from gun control to climate change to immigration.“I can’t remember a time when the business community has spoken out so strongly in opposition to an administration on so many important issues,” said Rich Lesser, chief executive of Boston Consulting Group.“It’s not just a break with Trump but potentially with the Republican Party,” said Richard Edelman, chief executive of the global corporate communications firm Edelman. “It’s not OK what’s going on in America, and businesspeople are going to hold you to account.”Even as they objected to some of Mr. Trump’s stances, however, business leaders continued to take seats at the table, working with the Trump administration on issues including taxes and trade policy.But last week seemed to be a breaking point. Big business could evidently tolerate working with Mr. Trump despite his chauvinism, his flirtations with white nationalism and his claims of impunity, but the president’s apparent willingness to undermine democracy itself appeared to be a step too far.“This thing was a little different. I mean, we had sedition and insurrection in D.C.,” said Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. “No C.E.O. I know condones that in any way, shape or form. We shouldn’t have someone, you know, gassing up a mob.”The fallout has been swift. After the president exhorted his supporters to march on the Capitol, chief executives used their strongest language to date to repudiate Mr. Trump, and some of his longtime allies have walked away. Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and an ardent supporter of the president, renounced Mr. Trump, telling CNBC, “I feel betrayed.”Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have banned or suspended Mr. Trump’s accounts. Amazon, Apple and Google have cut ties with Parler, a messaging app popular among his supporters.Charles Schwab, the brokerage firm founded by a Republican who supported Mr. Trump, said it would shut down its political action committee altogether. And many companies, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have sought to punish Mr. Trump’s supporters in Congress by depriving them of crucial funds.“For those members of Congress that were involved in helping to incite the riot, and support the riot, there’s going to be consequences, no question about it,” said Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta Air Lines.Senator Ted Cruz fist bumped with a House member after a joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College presidential votes on Jan. 6.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesA total of 147 members, or more than half of Republicans in Congress, voted to overturn the election results, including Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy.Corporate giving represents a small but important part of overall campaign contributions. Company PACs gave $91 million to members of the House of Representatives in the last election cycle, accounting for 8 percent of that chamber’s total funds raised, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. In the Senate, the figure was smaller, accounting for just 3 percent of donations..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Some companies said they were only temporarily stopping their corporate giving, but executives were sending a clear message that they were fed up with Washington.“It’s just a sad time for our country,” said Chuck Robbins, the chief executive of Cisco, which is also halting donations to members who voted against certification. “At a time where we have so many challenges, the partisanship is astounding.”With political rancor worsening by the day and few politicians enjoying bipartisan support, business leaders have emerged as a uniquely potent force, the rare constituency whose pleas for stability and national unity are largely untainted by allegiance to one party or the other.“C.E.O.s have become the fourth branch of government,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, which has pressured big companies to take stands on social issues. “They’re trying to hold the country together.”Executives are confronting their newfound authority with a mix of swagger and reticence. “There’s no question that our voice is seen as more important than ever,” said Mr. Bastian of Delta, which said it was reviewing its political giving and has banned some pro-Trump protesters from its flights.But the impulse to speak out is tempered by a wariness about becoming too prescriptive. “Companies don’t want to take partisan points of view,” Mr. Dimon said. “I don’t want to tell my employees what to think.”At stake is much more than just the fortunes of Mr. Trump. With the democratic process itself appearing in jeopardy, executives are confronting broader concerns about what that might mean for the economy.“The erosion of norms and the destabilizing of democracy is bad for business,” Mr. Greenblatt said.Yet with many Republicans still aligned with Mr. Trump and more unrest on the horizon, companies may be forced to reckon with this version of the Republican Party for years to come.Cisco said it would no longer donate to members who opposed the election certification, for instance, but Mr. Robbins said that did not represent a wholesale split from Republicans. “There are plenty of members in the Republican Party who stood up and did the right thing last week that we’ll continue to support,” he said.But for those who interfered with the certification of the election, there are no signs that big business is prepared to forgive and forget. JPMorgan said it was pausing all political contributions for six months, and Mr. Dimon, who has flirted with a run for president in the past, was unsparing in his critique.“No one thought they were giving money to people who supported sedition,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    A Look at What’s in Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Plan

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesA Future With CoronavirusVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA Look at What’s in Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Stimulus PlanThe president-elect is rolling out a large spending package aimed at helping battle the virus and alleviate the economic toll it has taken.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. planned to lay out plans on Thursday for efforts to combat the coronavirus and address its economic toll.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesJan. 14, 2021Updated 7:24 p.m. ETThe incoming Biden administration unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan on Thursday that offered a wish list of spending measures meant to help both people and the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic, from state and local aid and more generous unemployment benefits to mass vaccinations.Below, we run through a few of the biggest provisions, how they would work and what they might mean for the United States economy as it struggles through a winter of surging coronavirus cases and partial state and local lockdowns.Let’s put that headline number in context.That $1.9 trillion figure is a lot of money, to put it mildly. Congress passed a $900 billion relief program in December, and its package in March was also about $2 trillion. By way of comparison, the major financial crisis spending package — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — clocked in around $800 billion.The administration is looking for $1,400 checks.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to make good on Democrats’ promise to send more money to households in the form of one-time checks. Its proposal would send out $1,400 per person for those under certain income thresholds, topping off the $600 checks that came as part of the December relief package.It also wants an unemployment insurance supplement of $400 a week.Mr. Biden is asking Congress to extend emergency unemployment insurance programs through the end of September — they are set to expire in mid-March — while providing “a $400 per week unemployment insurance supplement to help hard-hit workers.”That amount is higher than what lawmakers included in the December stimulus, which provided a $300 supplement for 11 weeks, but it is lower than the $600 weekly benefit included in the first package in March.Schools could get money to reopen.The administration says it wants to make “the necessary investments to meet the president-elect’s goal of safely reopening a majority” of kindergarten-to-eighth-grade schools within Mr. Biden’s first 100 days in office.Administration officials are suggesting $170 billion for schools, supplemented by additional state and local funds. About $130 billion of that would go toward reopening, while much of the rest of the money would go to help colleges dealing with the shift to distance learning and other pandemic-tied problems.The minimum wage could rise.After holding steady at $7.25 for more than a decade, the federal minimum wage would rise to $15 per hour under the proposal, which would also end the tipped minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities. Many states and localities have already raised their own wage floors. It is not clear how quickly the higher wage would phase in.Research from the Congressional Budget Office in 2019 suggested that raising the wage to $15 nationally could increase pay for tens of millions of workers, though potentially at some cost to jobs — perhaps 1.3 million people who would otherwise work would not be, in part because employers would reduce payroll.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    The Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to Finish

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Business Rules the Trump Administration Is Racing to FinishFrom tariffs and trade to the status of Uber drivers, regulators are trying to install new rules or reduce regulations before President-elect Joe Biden takes over.President Trump is rushing to put into effect new economic regulations and executive orders before his term comes to a close.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJan. 11, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETIn the remaining days of his administration, President Trump is rushing to put into effect a raft of new regulations and executive orders that are intended to put his stamp on business, trade and the economy.Previous presidents in their final term have used the period between the election and the inauguration to take last-minute actions to extend and seal their agendas. Some of the changes are clearly aimed at making it harder, at least for a time, for the next administration to pursue its goals.Of course, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. could issue new executive orders to overturn Mr. Trump’s. And Democrats in Congress, who will control the House and the Senate, could use the Congressional Review Act to quickly reverse regulatory actions from as far back as late August.Here are some of the things that Mr. Trump and his appointees have done or are trying to do before Mr. Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. — Peter EavisProhibiting Chinese apps and other products. Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Alipay. It was the latest escalation of the president’s economic war with China. Details and the start of the ban will fall to Mr. Biden, who could decide not to follow through on the idea. Separately, the Trump administration has also banned the import of some cotton from the Xinjiang region, where China has detained vast numbers of people who are members of ethnic minorities and forced them to work in fields and factories. In another move, the administration prohibited several Chinese companies, including the chip maker SMIC and the drone maker DJI, from buying American products. The administration is weighing further restrictions on China in its final days, including adding Alibaba and Tencent to a list of companies with ties to the Chinese military, a designation that would prevent Americans from investing in those businesses. — Ana SwansonDefining gig workers as contractors. The Labor Department on Wednesday released the final version of a rule that could classify millions of workers in industries like construction, cleaning and the gig economy as contractors rather than employees, another step toward endorsing the business practices of companies like Uber and Lyft. — Noam ScheiberTrimming social media’s legal shield. The Trump administration recently filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to narrow its interpretation of a powerful legal shield for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. If the commission doesn’t act before Inauguration Day, the matter will land in the desk of whomever Mr. Biden picks to lead the agency. — David McCabeTaking the tech giants to court. The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit against Facebook in December, two months after the Justice Department sued Google. Mr. Biden’s appointees will have to decide how best to move forward with the cases. — David McCabeAdding new cryptocurrency disclosure requirements. The Treasury Department late last month proposed new reporting requirements that it said were intended to prevent money laundering for certain cryptocurrency transactions. It gave only 15 days — over the holidays — for public comment. Lawmakers and digital currency enthusiasts wrote to the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, to protest and won a short extension. But opponents of the proposed rule say the process and substance are flawed, arguing that the requirement would hinder innovation, and are likely to challenge it in court. — Ephrat LivniLimiting banks on social and environmental issues. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is rushing a proposed rule that would ban banks from not lending to certain kinds of businesses, like those in the fossil fuel industry, on environmental or social grounds. The regulator unveiled the proposal on Nov. 20 and limited the time it would accept comments to six weeks despite the interruptions of the holidays. — Emily FlitterOverhauling rules on banks and underserved communities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is also proposing new guidelines on how banks can measure their activities to get credit for fulfilling their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act, an anti-redlining law that forces them to do business in poor and minority communities. The agency rewrote some of the rules in May, but other regulators — the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — did not sign on. — Emily FlitterInsuring “hot money” deposits. On Dec. 15, the F.D.I.C. expanded the eligibility of brokered deposits for insurance coverage. These deposits are infusions of cash into a bank in exchange for a high interest rate, but are known as “hot money” because the clients can move the deposits from bank to bank for higher returns. Critics say the change could put the insurance fund at risk. F.D.I.C. officials said the new rule was needed to “modernize” the brokered deposits system. — Emily FlitterNarrowing regulatory authority over airlines. The Department of Transportation in December authorized a rule, sought by airlines and travel agents, that limits the department’s authority over the industry by defining what constitutes an unfair and deceptive practice. Consumer groups widely opposed the rule. Airlines argued that the rule would limit regulatory overreach. And the department said the definitions it used were in line with its past practice. — Niraj ChokshiRolling back a light bulb rule. The Department of Energy has moved to block a rule that would phase out incandescent light bulbs, which people and businesses have increasingly been replacing with much more efficient LED and compact fluorescent bulbs. The energy secretary, Dan Brouillette, a former auto industry lobbyist, said in December that the Trump administration did not want to limit consumer choice. The rule had been slated to go into effect on Jan. 1 and was required by a law passed in 2007. — Ivan PennAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Facing Intensifying Crises, Biden Pledges Action to Address Economy and Pandemic

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesCalls for Impeachment25th Amendment ExplainedTrump Officials ResignHow Mob Stormed CapitolAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFacing Intensifying Crises, Biden Pledges Action to Address Economy and PandemicWith job losses, record coronavirus numbers and politics in turmoil after the storming of the Capitol, the president-elect pressed for quick passage of a stimulus package to help struggling Americans.President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said it was up to Congress to decide whether to impeach President Trump, but he stressed that he expected lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get to work quickly after he is sworn in on Jan. 20.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesMichael D. Shear and Jan. 8, 2021WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Friday promised an accelerated response to a daunting and intensifying array of challenges as the economy showed new signs of weakness, the coronavirus pandemic killed more Americans than ever, and Congress weighed impeaching President Trump a second time.As Washington remained consumed with the fallout from the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday and Democrats stepped up their efforts to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his role in inciting the attack, Mr. Biden signaled that he intended to keep his focus on jobs and the pandemic, declining to weigh in on whether the House should impeach Mr. Trump.On a day the Labor Department reported that the economy lost 140,000 jobs in December, ending a seven-month streak of growth after the country’s plunge into recession in the spring, Mr. Biden said there was “a dire, dire need to act now.”He pledged to move rapidly once he becomes president to push a stimulus package through Congress to provide relief to struggling individuals, small businesses, students, local governments and schools.Mr. Biden and his aides have not yet finished the proposal or settled on its full amount. Forecasters expect further job losses this month, a casualty of the renewed surge of the coronavirus pandemic and state and local officials’ impositions of lockdowns and other restrictions on economic activity meant to slow the spread.“The price tag will be high,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Del.“It is necessary to spend the money now,” he said, apparently referring to his entire batch of economic plans, including both immediate aid and a larger bill that includes infrastructure spending. “The answer is yes, it will be in the trillions of dollars.”The Biden team is also preparing a wave of economic actions that will not require congressional approval. Mr. Biden’s aides said on Friday that the president-elect would direct the Education Department to extend a pause on student loan payments that was initially issued under Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden called on Congress on Friday to take “prompt action” to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.He also pledged to ramp up efforts to slow the spread of the virus, which is now claiming 4,000 lives each day — more than those who perished during the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Biden’s team said the president-elect would immediately provide more vaccines to states when he takes office, breaking sharply from Mr. Trump’s practice of holding back some shots for second doses.“People are really, really, really in desperate shape,” Mr. Biden said.While he said the question of impeaching Mr. Trump was up to Congress, he assailed the president once again for his conduct in office even as he sought to position himself as focused on the issues of greatest immediate concern to voters: their health and economic security.“I thought for a long, long time President Trump was unfit to hold the job,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m focused on the virus, the vaccine and economic growth. What the Congress decides to do is for them to decide.”“But,” he added quickly, “they’re going to have to hit the ground running.”Along with the powers of the presidency that he will assume at noon on Jan. 20, Mr. Biden will take responsibility for guiding the country through a collision of crises more varied and intense than any that faced his recent predecessors. In addition to the pandemic and the faltering economy, they include racial tensions that demand reconciliation after simmering for decades and a deep political divide that flared into violence on Wednesday and rocked the country’s assumptions about its tradition of peaceful transfers of power.“It’s bigger than his presidency. It’s going to take a generation working on all this,” said Rahm Emanuel, who was former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff as he entered office during the economic crisis more than a decade ago.“He’ll take the first steps,” Mr. Emanuel said of Mr. Biden. “But you don’t deal with 20 years of change in a week or two. This is a generation’s worth of work.”Mr. Biden — who on Friday repeated his promise to work with Republicans to advance his agenda — now faces the real prospect that Mr. Trump could be standing trial for sedition in the Senate as he takes office.That work begins in earnest in 12 days, and aides to Mr. Biden said he expected lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get to work quickly, even as the issue of Mr. Trump’s fate dominates the conversation in Washington.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 8, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETMore national security officials resign from a White House in turmoil.A judge has blocked Trump’s sweeping restrictions on asylum applications.Josh Hawley faces blowback for role in spurious challenge of election results.Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s steps toward impeaching Mr. Trump a second time came after a surge of anger by members of both parties at what many called an insurrection by the president’s supporters. Mr. Biden on Friday called them “a bunch of thugs, insurrectionists, white supremacists, anti-Semites” who had “the active encouragement of a sitting president of the United States.”But Mr. Biden seemed aware of the political risk of becoming the primary spokesman for the punishment and removal of his predecessor, and the danger that a drawn-out impeachment and trial could delay or derail his hopes for quick passage of his biggest agenda items.He said he might have openly supported impeachment if the Capitol attacks had happened when Mr. Trump had six months left in his term. But he repeatedly suggested that the best way to be rid of the current president was to wait until Mr. Biden is inaugurated.“The question is, what happens with 14 days left to go, or 13 days left to go?” Mr. Biden said, adding later that “I am focused now on us taking control, as president and vice president, on the 20th, and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can.”The president-elect said he thought the events at the Capitol on Wednesday might serve as a moment that drove people together, and he singled out Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Mitt Romney of Utah, both Republicans, as examples of political adversaries who shared his anger at what had happened.“Many of them are as outraged and disappointed and embarrassed and mortified by the president’s conduct as I am,” Mr. Biden said.But in the same breath, he underscored the divisions that remain in Washington, lashing out at Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for leading the effort to overturn the election on Mr. Trump’s behalf and for spreading misinformation to the president’s supporters that helped whip them into a frenzy.He said he agreed with some Republicans who have said “how shameful it is the way Ted Cruz and others are dealing with this, how they’re responsible as well for what happened.”When asked whether Mr. Cruz should resign, Mr. Biden said, “I think they should be just flat beaten the next time they run. I think the American public has a real good, clear look at who they are. They are part of the big lie.”Mr. Biden said he was scheduled to unveil his legislative program for addressing the coronavirus crisis and its economic consequences on Thursday, six days before his inauguration as the 46th president.Mr. Biden’s economic team is deep into the process of developing proposals for a second stimulus bill and a larger economic package, including spending on infrastructure and tax increases on the rich. Aides and top congressional Democrats hope to speed the package through Congress once Mr. Biden takes office.“A devastating pandemic, an economic crisis, a country riven by political division and mistrust, institutions badly damaged and global alliances shredded,” said David Axelrod, who served as a political adviser to Mr. Obama during his first two years in the White House. “He has his hands full.”Mr. Biden and his aides have been particularly struck by two grim numbers in the jobs report on Friday: the loss of nearly 500,000 jobs in December in the leisure and hospitality industry, and of thousands of jobs in public education — a warning sign that state budget cuts could further hold back the recovery in months to come.They are particularly focused on direct checks to individuals, a policy that Mr. Biden and Democratic Senate candidates hammered in Georgia’s runoff elections that gave their party control of the chamber, and on efforts to fight the pandemic by accelerating testing for the virus and the deployment of vaccines.The contours of those proposals are beginning to take shape. The stimulus package will include Mr. Biden’s call for an additional $1,400 in direct payments to adults and children who qualified for $600 payments approved in the lame-duck stimulus passed last month, bringing the total benefit to $2,000 per individual.The challenge in steering his stimulus plans through a narrowly divided Senate was on display on Friday, when a moderate Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said that $2,000 direct payments should not be the first priority for legislation and that he would prefer checks to be targeted “to those who need it.”The package will also include additional benefits for the nearly 11 million Americans who are still classified as unemployed by the Labor Department, assistance for renters and help for small business owners, with a focus on businesses owned by women and minorities. It will feature what Mr. Biden promised would be tens of billions of dollars to help schools reopen safely, tens of billions to help state and local governments keep essential workers on the job and “billions of dollars to get vaccines from a vial into someone’s arm.”Leaders in the Senate — like Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, who will lead the Budget Committee, and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who will be the chairman of the Finance Committee — said in interviews this week that they were preparing to work quickly with Mr. Biden’s team to draft new economic rescue legislation.Mr. Sanders said that he had spoken to Mr. Biden on Thursday about proposals, and that Mr. Sanders’ staff was already working to flesh out details.“He is, I know, going to be doing everything that he can to address the economic and health care crises facing our country,” Mr. Sanders said of Mr. Biden. “The crisis is of enormous severity, and we’ve got to move as rapidly as we can.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More