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Joe Biden hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis” in a White House address welcoming the wide-ranging legislative package.The president outlined the benefits to Americans during his remarks, which followed the surprise announcement of a deal last night between Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and holdout West Virginia senator Joe Manchin..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This bill will be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away, and give us a tool to meet the climate goals… we’ve agreed to by cutting emissions and accelerating clean energy. It’s a huge step forward.
This bill will reduce inflationary pressures on the economy. It will cut your cost of living and reduce inflation, it lowers the deficit and strengthens our economy for the long run as well.
This bill has won the support of climate leaders like former vice-president Al Gore, who said the bill is, quote, long overdue and a necessary step to ensure the United States takes decisive action on the climate crisis that helps our economy and provides leadership for the world.Climate activists have broadly welcomed the bill which, if passed by Congress, would give Biden a massive victory ahead of November’s midterms. Inflation at 40-year highs and soaring prices in supermarkets and at gas pumps have contributed to the president’s low approval ratings.It also follows months of stalling on Biden’s agenda, specifically by Manchin, who didn’t like the cost of $1.8tn Build Back Better spending package featuring measures like extended child tax credit.Biden acknowledged: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This bill is far from perfect. I know the bill doesn’t include everything that I’ve been pushing for since I got to office. For example, I’m going to keep fighting to bring down the cost of things for working families and middle class families by providing for things like affordable childcare, affordable elder care, the cost of preschool, housing, helping students with the cost of college, closing the health care coverage gap…
My message to Congress is this. This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis and promote energy security, all the time while reducing the burdens facing working class and middle class families.
So pass it. Pass it for the American people. Pass it for America. We’re closing the politics blog now on a rollercoaster Thursday for President Joe Biden. The day began with depressing economic news that the US was technically in a recession, but was brightened considerably by a bipartisan vote in the House that sends the $280bn Chips Act to his desk.And then there was the unexpected development that Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, blamed for single handedly blocking the majority of Biden’s first term agenda on the climate emergency and the economy, had reversed his position.The Inflation Reduction Act Manchin negotiated with Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is, Biden said, “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.”Thanks for joining us today. Before you go, please have a read of my colleague David Smith’s report on the reconciliation bill here. Here’s what else we followed today:
Former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has spoken with the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, and the committee is negotiating to obtain testimony from other members of the former president’s cabinet, the Associated Press reported.
Politico reported that the House panel and the justice department’s criminal inquiry had struck an testimony-sharing deal on witness transcripts and other evidence. The report came as Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spoke with the panel virtually.
Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping spoke for more than two hours by phone, in what was reported to have been a sometimes testy conversation including a discussion of Nancy Pelosi’s controversial upcoming trip to Taiwan.
At least 43 abortion clinics in 11 states have closed since the supreme court eliminated federal protections for the procedure last month, and seven states no longer have any providers, a study published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute revealed. Prior to the ruling ending Roe v Wade protections, the 11 states had a total of 71 clinics providing abortion care, the report says.
The Miami Herald reported that a state operation touted last month by Republican governor Ron DeSantis as a successful law enforcement action to “keep illegals out of Florida” ended up arresting mostly legal residents. Of 22 arrests in a three-day sweep from 7 to 9 June, the “vast majority” were not related to immigration, the Herald said.
While chief of staff to Donald Trump, the retired general John Kelly “shoved” Ivanka Trump in a White House hallway, Jared Kushner writes in his forthcoming memoir. The detail from Breaking History, which will be published in August, was reported by the Washington Post.Kushner, the Post said, writes that he and his wife saw Kelly as “consistently duplicitous”.“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office. Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”Kushner writes that Kelly offered a “meek” apology about an hour later.Kelly told the Post: “I don’t recall anything like you describe. It is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a woman. Inconceivable. Never happen. Would never intentionally do something like that. Also, don’t remember ever apologising to her for something I didn’t do. I’d remember that.”A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump said her husband’s description was accurate, the Post said.The Post also said Kushner writes that Kelly gave his wife “compliments to her face that she knew were insincere.“Then the four-star general would call her staff to his office and berate and intimidate them over trivial procedural issues that his rigid system often created. He would frequently refer to her initiatives like paid family leave and the child tax credit as ‘Ivanka’s pet projects.’”Read the full story:Trump chief of staff ‘shoved’ Ivanka at White House, Kushner book saysRead moreBarack Obama’s presidential portrait will be unveiled at the White House in a September ceremony hosted by his former vice-president Joe Biden, the Associated Press reports.Portraits of the former president and first lady Michelle Obama will be presented in the East Room on 7 September, according to Obama’s office.It will mark the first time the former first lady has returned to the White House since her husband left office in January 2017. Barack Obama went back in April to mark the 12th anniversary of his signature health care law.The House of Representative has delivered a big win for Joe Biden, passing the $280bn Chips and Science Act that includes $52bn to boost the production of semiconductors.The bill cleared the Senate 64-33 in a bipartisan vote yesterday, the president urging the House to get the bill to his desk as soon as possible to help ease a shortage in semiconductors he said is holding back US defense, healthcare and vehicle manufacturing industries.Biden received the news of the bill’s House passage, 243-187 in a strong bipartisan vote, during a virtual round table with business leaders at the White House this afternoon.The moment @POTUS gets word that the CHIPS Act has enough votes to pass the House pic.twitter.com/2CqAnr8oVc— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 28, 2022
Biden earlier highlighted the Chips Act as a central plank of his agenda to boost American industry, as he also hailed the newly announced $739bn Inflation Reduction Act.In a statement, the president said the Chips Act “will make cars cheaper, appliances cheaper, and computers cheaper. It will lower the costs of every day goods. And, it will create high-paying manufacturing jobs across the country and strengthen US leadership in the industries of the future at the same time.”Republicans had threatened to whip members against voting for the Chips Act after they were angered by last night’s announcement of the reconciliation bill, brokered in a deal between Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and previously reluctant West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.Read my colleague David Smith’s report on the proposed new legislation here:Joe Biden hails Senate deal as ‘most significant’ US climate legislation everRead moreIt’s a double helping of Joe Biden today, the president just delivering remarks on the economy at an afternoon White House roundtable of business leaders.Once again, the president is downplaying the suggestion, bolstered by this morning’s dismal GDP figures, that the US is in a recession:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There’ll be a lot of chatter today on Wall Street and among pundits about whether we are in a recession. But if you’re looking at our job market, consumer spending business investment, we see signs of economic progress in the second quarter as well.
And yesterday, Fed chairman [Jerome] Powell made it clear that he doesn’t think the US economy is currently in a recession. He said, quote, there are too many areas of economics where the economy is performing too well.For the second time today, following his address earlier this afternoon on the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden listed positive factors, including job creation, low unemployment and foreign investment in US industry..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I applaud by the bipartisan effort to get the Chips Act to my desk, which would advance our nation’s competitiveness and technological edge by boosting our domestic semiconductor production and manufacturing.
Another thing Congress should do is to pass the Inflation Reduction Act to lower prescription drug costs, reduce the deficit, help ease inflationary pressures and ensure 13m Americans can continue to save an average of $800 per year on health care premiums.
Both of these bills are going to help the economy continue to grow, bring down inflation and make sure we aren’t giving up on all the significant progress we made in the last year. Former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has spoken with the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s January 6 insurrection, and the committee is negotiating to obtain testimony from other members of the former president’s cabinet, the Associated Press reports.The panel is looking into the days following the deadly Capitol riot and discussions between senior officials over whether to try to remove the then-president from office.The negotiations come as the committee was interviewing Trump’s former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, on Thursday. The former South Carolina congressman was special envoy for Northern Ireland on January 6 2022, a post he resigned immediately after the riot.The AP says Mnuchin’s interview, and the negotiations with others, were confirmed by three people familiar with the committee’s work, who spoke on condition of anonymity.The agency says the committee asked Mnuchin about discussions among cabinet secretaries to possibly invoke the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump after the attack on the Capitol, according to one of the people, and is in talks to interview former secretary of state Mike Pompeo. The panel has already interviewed former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, former labor secretary Eugene Scalia and former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller as it focuses on Trump and what he was doing in the days before, during and after the riot. We’ve written plenty about the Inflation Reduction Act today, and heard that Joe Biden believes it’s “the most significant bill to tackle the climate crisis in history”. So what’s actually in it?My colleague Oliver Milman has this handy explainer to what made it into the package. And what didn’t:What’s in the climate bill that Joe Manchin supports – and what isn’t Read moreWe now have the White House readout of Joe Biden’s two hour conversation with China’s President Xi Jinping this morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The call was a part of the Biden administration’s efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication between the US and PRC [People’s Republic of China] and responsibly manage our differences and work together where our interests align.
The two presidents discussed a range of issues important to the bilateral relationship and other regional and global issues, and tasked their teams to continue following up on today’s conversation, in particular to address climate change and health security. It seems they also touched on Nancy Pelosi’s controversial upcoming trip to Taiwan, which has angered Chinese leaders. The White House readout said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Taiwan, President Biden underscored that the United States policy has not changed and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese take, according to the Associated Press, was equally defiant.The news agency quoted an account of the call by China’s ministry of foreign affairs.“Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this,” it said.“President Xi underscored that to approach and define China-US relations in terms of strategic competition and view China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge would be misperceiving China-US relations and misreading China’s development, and would mislead the people of the two countries and the international community.” At least 43 abortion clinics in 11 states have closed since the supreme court eliminated federal protections for the procedure last month, and seven states no longer have any providers, a study published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute has found.Prior to the ruling ending Roe v Wade protections on 24 June, the 11 states had a total of 71 clinics providing abortion care, the report says. 🚨 As of July 24, these 7 US states 👇 had banned abortion completely following the SCOTUS decision to overturn #RoeVWade:❌ Alabama❌ Arkansas❌ Mississippi❌ Missouri❌ Oklahoma❌ South Dakota❌ Texas#BansOffOurBodies https://t.co/6r9oaGNzqJ— Guttmacher Institute (@Guttmacher) July 28, 2022
As of 24 July, there were only 28 clinics still offering abortions, all located in the four states with six-week bans. Across these 11 states, the number of clinics offering abortions dropped by 43 in just one month. The seven states no longer offering any abortion provision are Alabama (previously 5 clinics), Arkansas (2), Mississippi (1), Missouri (1), Oklahoma (5), South Dakota (1) and Texas (23 ).“Obtaining an abortion was already difficult in many states even before the supreme court overturned Roe,” Rachel Jones, Guttmacher’s principal research scientist, said.“These clinic closures resulting from state-level bans will further deepen inequities in access to care based on race, gender, income, age or immigration status since long travel distances to reach a clinic in another state will be a barrier for many people.”Joe Biden thanked Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, for their “extraordinary effort” in negotiating the reconciliation bill.It had looked like Manchin had killed hope of any of the president’s signature policy goals on the climate emergency or the economy passing when he withdrew from talks on Build Back Better earlier this year.The West Virginia senator, however, insisted earlier today he “never walked away” and was always open to renewed discussions, on parts of the package at least, which were finally concluded on Wednesday after weeks of secret meetings with Schumer and his staff.Biden said: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I know can sometimes seem like nothing gets done in Washington. I know it never crossed any of your minds. But the work of the government can be slow and frustrating and sometimes even infuriating.
Then the hard work of hours and days and months from people who refuse to give up pays off.
History has been made. Lives have changed with this legislation. We’re facing up to some of our biggest problems. And we’re taking a giant step forward as a nation. Biden closed his address with remarks on data that came out this morning showing the economy had shrunk for a second successive quarter, and that the US was technically in a recession.He listed low unemployment, overseas investment in US manufacturing and yesterday’s passing by the Senate of the Chips Act boosting semiconductor production among a number of reasons why he believes the US economy is strong.“That doesn’t sound like a recession to me,” Biden said.Joe Biden hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis” in a White House address welcoming the wide-ranging legislative package.The president outlined the benefits to Americans during his remarks, which followed the surprise announcement of a deal last night between Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and holdout West Virginia senator Joe Manchin..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This bill will be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis and improve our energy security right away, and give us a tool to meet the climate goals… we’ve agreed to by cutting emissions and accelerating clean energy. It’s a huge step forward.
This bill will reduce inflationary pressures on the economy. It will cut your cost of living and reduce inflation, it lowers the deficit and strengthens our economy for the long run as well.
This bill has won the support of climate leaders like former vice-president Al Gore, who said the bill is, quote, long overdue and a necessary step to ensure the United States takes decisive action on the climate crisis that helps our economy and provides leadership for the world.Climate activists have broadly welcomed the bill which, if passed by Congress, would give Biden a massive victory ahead of November’s midterms. Inflation at 40-year highs and soaring prices in supermarkets and at gas pumps have contributed to the president’s low approval ratings.It also follows months of stalling on Biden’s agenda, specifically by Manchin, who didn’t like the cost of $1.8tn Build Back Better spending package featuring measures like extended child tax credit.Biden acknowledged: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This bill is far from perfect. I know the bill doesn’t include everything that I’ve been pushing for since I got to office. For example, I’m going to keep fighting to bring down the cost of things for working families and middle class families by providing for things like affordable childcare, affordable elder care, the cost of preschool, housing, helping students with the cost of college, closing the health care coverage gap…
My message to Congress is this. This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis and promote energy security, all the time while reducing the burdens facing working class and middle class families.
So pass it. Pass it for the American people. Pass it for America. Joe Biden is about to deliver a hastily arranged address about the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House says.You can watch the president’s remarks here. More
Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?This shocking documentary series reveals the lies oil lobbyists told to undercut democracy, prevent action against global heating – and bring our planet to the brink Al Gore described it as “in many ways the most serious crime of the post-world war two era, whose consequences are almost unimaginable”. Can you guess which one the former vice-president meant? Genocide in the former Yugoslavia? Genocide in Rwanda? The attack on the twin towers? The oxymoronic “war on terror” that produced – rather than eliminated – terrorism? The nuclear arms race? The invasion of Ukraine? The crimes of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot? Or other ones I haven’t the space to cite?Gore is in fact referring to a very specific moment that occurred on 25 July 1997. That day, the US Senate voted by 95-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, ruling that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would become known as the Kyoto protocol – despite the Clinton administration’s desire for the US to be a world leader in the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It meant that Clinton would only be allowed to take action when developing countries – particularly India and China – were bound by the same strictures.‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us allRead moreThe worry, touted by purported experts (many of whom were briefed and funded by US oil companies), was that Kyoto would be a disaster for the US. Imposing strict emission controls on the US – while industrialising nations such as India and China were not similarly constrained – would cost the US upwards of 5,000 jobs, put more than 50 cents on a tank of gas, whack up electricity bills 25% to 50% and put the struggling US economy at a competitive disadvantage in international markets. Or so it was claimed.Jane McMullen’s excellent and shocking first instalment of a three-part series, Big Oil V The World (BBC Two) reveals another reason for senators Robert Byrd and Chuck Hagel’s resolution. For many years, the big oil lobby had poured scorn on the growing scientific orthodoxy that humanity is hurtling towards a climate catastrophe and that the leading reason is the rise in emissions of greenhouse gases.What I didn’t know, and this documentary helpfully explains, is that the US’s largest oil company, Exxon, had labs filled with researchers who had produced detailed reports showing the reality of the climate crisis. That research, though, was suppressed.The bitter irony, clinched by one of the company’s former climate scientists, Ed Garvey, was that Exxon could have been part of the solution rather than the problem. Garvey worked on Exxon’s carbon dioxide research programme from 1978 to 1983, when it was closed because falling gas prices made it seem an expendable luxury.Garvey also recalls that there were scientists at Exxon developing alternatives to fossil fuels such as solar power and lithium batteries. But their work was shelved. The future of the planet, Garvey suggests, was deemed less important than Exxon’s short-term profit.Although the Clinton administration in which Gore served had from the outset committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000, and leaders of industrial nations such as the British prime minister, John Major, called for even deeper cuts, the Senate resolution effectively destroyed the president and his vice-president’s hopes of the US leading the world. Instead, the US, through its inaction, helped hasten the climate catastrophe we now live in.To clinch this rhetorical point, the programme repeatedly cuts from talking heads to scenes more hellish than those imagined by Dante or Milton. Floods in China, a fiery hellscape in California, storms lashing Louisiana and, in one shot, battering an Exxon gas station.After seeing such images, I wonder how Hagel, who sponsored that 1997 Senate resolution and went on to become defence secretary, sleeps at night. He was among the climate crisis deniers this documentary catches up with to hear them repent. Off-screen, the excellent interviewer asks Hagel if he feels he was misled, given that Exxon, whose execs lobbied him before the Senate vote, was making a concerted effort throughout the 1990s to cast doubt on the reality of the climate emergency and the role of human activity in increasing global temperatures – even though their own scientists were telling them that the science was sound.“We now know about some of these large oil companies … they lied,” says Hagel. “Yes I was misled. Others were misled. When they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly – they lied.” If the truth had been told to Hagel and other climate crisis-denying senators, would the situation be different? “Oh absolutely,” says Hagel. “I think it would have changed the average citizen’s appreciation of climate change and mine. It would have put the United States and the world on a different track. It has cost this country and it’s cost the world.”Last August, the UN secretary general António Guterres said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group’s report confirming the link between human activity and rising greenhouse emissions is “a code red for humanity”. That Senate resolution, McMullen’s film argues, contributed to our climate emergency.No one in this programme explores the hideous political ramifications of this terrible state of affairs, namely that the virus of capitalism (in the form of big oil) undercut democracy through a sustained campaign of disinformation. How easy it proved for corporations to sucker politicians such as Hagel to subvert not just the will of the people but the wellbeing of the planet. If McMullen’s film has a moral, it’s that democracy must be healthy enough to resist commercial lobbying, so that we don’t get fooled again. In 2022, that seems an unlikely scenario.TopicsTelevision & radioTV reviewTelevisionDocumentaryClimate crisisFactual TVOilOil and gas companiesreviewsReuse this content More
Boeing, GM, FedEx: these are as complicit as the far right in threatening US democracyRobert ReichCorporations are underwriting the thuggery of Trump and his allies – all because they want to pay as little tax as possible In 2016, when clashes with taxi drivers broke out in 2016 in Paris, Uber’s then-chief executive Travis Kalanick texted fellow executives that “violence guarantees success” in what was a key market for the company.Uber leveraged the violence against its drivers to win sympathy from regulators and the public, as it also did in South Africa where Uber drivers were burned when their cars were set on fire. (This look inside Uber’s internal deliberations came from records Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann turned over to the Guardian.)John Bolton says he ‘helped plan coups d’etat’ in other countriesRead moreI’ve been thinking about Uber’s capitalist thuggery in light of the corporations underwriting Trump’s thuggery, which includes violent groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who led the attack on the US Capitol.Tuesday’s hearing of the January 6 committee added more grim details, such as numerous connections between these violent groups and Trump confidants Roger Stone, Michael Flynn.Trump’s thuggery continues. A phone message received by White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson just before she testified before the January 6 committee warned that someone “let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”If this sounds like a gangster threat, that’s the point.During Hutchinson’s earlier depositions before the committee, her legal counsel was paid for by Trump’s “Save America Pac” (the Pac paid the legal expenses of other panel witnesses, too.) When she realized “she couldn’t call her attorney to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got more information’” because the attorney “was there to insulate the big guy”, according to a friend, she secured free counsel who would not inhibit her. Now, after testifying in public, Hutchinson is in hiding.Meanwhile, the “big guy” continues to stir up his mob with lies about stolen elections and secret plots – fueling a new wave of threats against committee members.Several have increased their personal security. Committee chair Bennie Thompson, co-chair Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have security details; other members have requested them.Kinzinger, one of the panel’s two Republican members alongside Cheney, says he’s received “constant” death threats. “There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” Kinzinger told ABC. “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”Kinzinger has announced he will not be seeking re-election. Cheney has paused participating in public events in part because of safety concerns.Does any of this remind you of Hitler’s Brown Shirts or Mussolini’s Blackshirts?At the least, it should raise questions about the wealthy individuals and corporations that continue to bankroll this thuggery – among them, billionaires Peter Thiel, Rebecca Mercer, Charles Koch, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, ex-casino mogul Steve Wynn, and shipping magnate Richard Uihlein.Funding is also coming from Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, General Dynamics, Toyota, AT&T, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, GM and FedEx.In April alone, the most recent month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4m to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.Toyota is even funding Trump ally Andrew Biggs, a fervent devotee of the big lie who refuses to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify before the committee. Six congressmen who have refused to testify have raked in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since the assault on the Capitol.Why are these wealthy individuals and corporations doing this? Presumably because they want to pay as little in taxes as possible and believe Trump and his Republicans will deliver even more tax cuts than they did before.But how is this capitalist thuggery in pursuit of profits different from Uber’s thuggery? And is it more excusable than the political thuggery it’s enabling?To state the question in historical terms, how different is their behavior from the wealthy European industrialists who quietly backed the fascists in the 1920s and 1930s?These billionaire and corporate funders are as complicit as are the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in threatening American democracy.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
TopicsUS politicsOpinionDonald TrumpUS economycommentReuse this content More
The pound rose against the dollar after Boris Johnson announced he is to be replaced as prime minister. Sterling gained more than 0.4 per cent to $1.2 as traders priced in the prospect of an end to months of chaos under Mr Johnson’s leadership. He will remain in place while the Conservative Party selects a new leader.As markets reacted to the news, sterling regained some of the ground it lost this week but remains more than 10 per cent down against the US currency.The pound hit a two-year low against the dollar on Tuesday amid growing fears for the future of Britain’s economy.The dollar has strengthened in response to a series of large interest rate increases by the US Federal Reserve.RecommendedA weak pound is serving to push up prices for goods that the UK imports, such as energy, food and manufactured products.Consumer price inflation hit 9.1 per cent in May and is expected to surge to 11 per cent later this year, meaning households face big falls in living standards as wages fail to keep up with the rising cost of essential goods.While new leadership of the country promises to bring some measure of political stability, the new prime minister will still face a long list of economic problems. Consumer confidence has hit its lowest level on record according to a long-running survey by Growth from Knowledge (GfK), while car sales fell to their lowest level for any June since 1996. The construction industry is also slowing down, new industry figures show.The Bank of England said on Tuesday that the prospects for the UK economy had “deteriorated materially” since Russia invaded Ukraine. More
Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling planPolicy would ban new ocean drilling but allow up to 11 lease sales in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast Joe Biden’s administration on Friday unveiled a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan that blocks all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within US territorial waters while allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast.The plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease sales but gives the interior department the right to make none. It comes two days after the US supreme court curbed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to the climate crisis.Environmental groups criticized the plan, and some expressed concern that the administration was backing away from the president’s “no more drilling” pledge during a March 2020 one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders.Biden at the time said, “No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore – no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill – period.”Environmental groups also argued that new leasing would impede the Biden administration’s goal to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 in an effort to keep global heating under the threshold of 1.5C (2.7F).“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities. We need a five-year plan with no new leases.”Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch said: “President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse.”On Friday, the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said she and the president “had made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy”. The department’s proposal, she said, was “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing”.California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plasticRead moreThe proposal to sell off 11 leases must go through a series of reviews and a period of public comment that is likely to be contentious. Most of the new leases would be offered in parts of the western and central Gulf of Mexico, far from where legislators have outlawed new drilling near Florida.The executive director of Healthy Gulf, Cyn Sarthou, said the organization was troubled by the apparent change of policy.“Now is not the time to continue business as usual,” Sarthou said. “The continuing threat posed by climate change requires the nation to focus on a transition to renewable energy.”Nearly 95% of US offshore oil production and 71% of offshore natural gas production occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. About 15% of oil production comes from offshore drilling.The proposed leases come after sales in two regions of the Gulf were abandoned because of legal challenges.Advocates for the oil industry welcomed the new proposal, including the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Manchin said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”One of the proposed new leases could be granted in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an area that is already highly vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown. “This decision is incredibly disappointing in the face of ongoing climate impacts that are already being deeply felt by our community around Alaska,” said the advocacy director at Cook Inletkeeper, Liz Mering.Mering added: “Alaskans have worked to ensure that Lower Cook Inlet remains this incredible place for our fisheries and tourism industry, which support a thriving local economy. Thirty-three years after the horrific Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskans still remember and recognize the risk of more oil fouling our waters, killing our fish and hurting Alaskans.”The proposal came a day after the administration held its first auction of onshore lease sales, drawing bids of $22m from energy companies seeking drilling rights on about 110 square miles of public land across Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.After the sale, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney Melissa Hornbein said: “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate.”TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOilGasUS politicsCommoditiesClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More
Why is the US about to give away $52bn to corporations like Intel? Robert ReichThe Chips Act would provide an enormous subsidy to chipmakers for making their chips in the US. This is extortion Congress will soon put final touches on the Chips Act, which will provide more than $52bn to companies that design and make semiconductor chips.The subsidy is demanded by the biggest chipmakers as a condition for making more chips in America.It’s pure extortion.Fed chief vows to keep raising rates until ‘compelling evidence’ of falling inflationRead moreThe world’s biggest chipmaker (in terms of sales) is already an American corporation – Intel, based in Santa Clara, California.Intel hardly needs the money. Its revenue rose to $79bn last year. Its chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, got a total compensation package of $179m (which was 1,711 times larger than the average Intel employee).Intel designs, assembles, and tests its chips in China, Israel, Ireland, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Vietnam, as well as in the US.The problem for the US is Intel is not helping America cope with its current shortage of chips by giving preference to producers in the United States. And it’s not keeping America on the cutting edge of new chip technologies.Obviously, Intel would like some of the $52bn Congress is about to throw at the semiconductor chip industry. But why exactly should Intel get the money?Among the other likely beneficiaries of the Chips Act will be GlobalFoundries, which currently makes chips in New York and Vermont – but in many other places around the world as well.GlobalFoundries isn’t even an American corporation. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Co.,the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.The nation where a chipmaker (or any other high-tech global corporation) is headquartered has less and less to do with where it designs and makes things.Which explains why every industry that can possibly be considered “critical” is now lobbying governments for subsidies, tax cuts, and regulatory exemptions, in return for designing and making stuff in that country.It’s a giant global shakedown.India, Japan and South Korea have all recently passed tax credits, subsidies and other incentives amounting to tens of billions of dollars for the semiconductor industry. The European Union is finalizing its own chips act with $30bn to $50bn in subsidies.Even China has extended tax and tariff exemptions and other measures aimed at upgrading chip design and production there.“Other countries around the globe … are making major investment in innovation and chip production,” says Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. “If we don’t act quickly, we could lose tens of thousands of good-paying jobs to Europe.”But who is “we,” senator?John Neuffer, the chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association (the Washington lobbying arm of the semiconductor industry) warns that chipmaking facilities are often 25 to 50% cheaper to build in foreign countries than in the United States.Why is that? As he admits, it’s largely because of the incentives foreign countries have offered.As capital becomes ever more global and footloose, it’s easy for global corporations to play nations off against each other. As the then-chief executive of US-based ExxonMobil unabashedly stated: “I’m not a US company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the US”People, by contrast, are rooted within nations, which gives them far less bargaining power.This asymmetry helps explain why Congress is ready to hand over $52bn to a highly profitable global industry but can’t come up with even $22.5bn the Biden administration says is necessary to cope with the ongoing public health crisis of Covid.If they are publicly owned, corporations must be loyal to their shareholders by maximizing the value of their shares. But over 40% of the shareholder value of American-based companies is owned by non-Americans.Besides, there’s no reason to suppose a company’s American owners will be happy to sacrifice investment returns for the good of the nation.The real question is what conditions the United States (or any other nation that subsidizes chipmakers) should place on receipt of such subsidies.It can’t be enough that chipmakers agree to produce more chips in the nation that’s subsidizing them, because chipmakers sell their chips to the highest bidders around the world regardless of where the chips are produced.If the US is going to subsidize them, it should demand chipmakers give highest priority to their American-based customers that use the chips in products made in the United States, by American workers.And Congress should demand they produce the highest value-added chipmaking in the US – design, design engineering, and high precision manufacturing – so Americans gain that technological expertise.What happens if every nation subsidizing chipmakers demands these for itself?Chipmakers will then have to choose. The extortion will then end.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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Biden’s proposed federal tax cut on gas could cost dearly in the futureExperts warn cutting the 18 cents will take a toll on highway upkeep and cause prices to rise further when the holiday ends America’s hard-pressed drivers may be about to receive a holiday. On Wednesday Joe Biden called on Congress to suspend the federal tax on gas and diesel until September as the country struggles with soaraway costs at the pump. But experts warned the tax holiday is unlikely to have a major impact on prices and will probably further harm the US’s already battered roads and bridges. If the tax cut even gets passed.Biden’s ‘cursed presidency’: gas prices are latest headache as midterms loomRead moreBlaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the surge in gas prices Biden proposed cutting the 18-cents-a-gallon federal taxes on fuel until September and called on states to cut their gas taxes too. “Together, these actions could help drop the price at the pump by up to $1 a gallon or more. It doesn’t reduce all the pain, but it will be a big help,” said Biden.The tax cut’s first obstacle may be its last. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, called the plan an “ineffective stunt” and other critics in his own party may join Republicans in blocking any cut.But with prices still soaring and midterm elections looming the administration is increasingly looking for ways to spare the public from prices at the pump, currently averaging at just under $5 a gallon.The non-partisan Tax Foundation called the plan a “uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices”. Pointing out that the money from the tax is the primary funding source for highway construction and its suspension could cost $10bn in funding.“Anything that could help the price at the pump is good, but it’ll come at a significant cost to the federal government that supposedly uses that money for the highway fund to maintain highways,” said Mark Finley, fellow in energy and global oil at the center for energy studies at Rice University.US energy economists also warn that dropping taxes on gasoline – a similar program has been suggested in the UK and other countries – does not address the fundamental issues of high demand.In a February report, the committee for a responsible federal budget found a federal gas tax holiday could “further increase demand for gasoline and other goods and services at a time when the economy has little capacity to absorb it”.“Gas prices are high because supply and demand are tight in the US and around the world both for oil and refined products. The prices are a signal that producers should produce more and consumers should consume less. You don’t fix the problem and you may exacerbate it, if you try to hide those signals,” said Finley.Moreover, prices may surge when the tax is lifted, according to a study released from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier this year, Maryland introduced a month-long gas tax holiday. The study found that prices rose when it expired and the tax may have cost the state $100m.Other states have tried similar measures. New York suspended its 16-cents-a-gallon tax this month for the rest of the year. Others, including Georgia, Florida and Connecticut, are cutting the tax but for shorter periods. California may send $400 to every registered vehicle owner.The debate over energy prices threatens to become one of the most contentious of the election season. This week, Exxon Mobil said global oil markets may remain tight for another three to five years, largely because of a lack of investment since the pandemic began. Biden has responded to rising prices at the pump – and a decline in his approval rating – by lobbying Opec+ countries, which include Russia, to accelerate production increases.Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia next month to ask the kingdom to turn on the spigots. But studies indicate that the Saudis are themselves at the limits of current capacity. The venture comes with a political cost, undercutting the administration’s commitment to renewable energy and an election pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state after the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Other measures that the administration has undertaken to reduce energy costs, including releasing millions of barrels of crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and greater ethanol blending, have not turned the tide on rising prices. According to Ed Hirs at the University of Houston’s department of economics, Biden’s actions, including a stern letter to refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel, will not keep the average price at the pump from reaching $6 by September.The debate over energy has in a sense been misframed, said Hirs. “We don’t see lines at the pump, there is no shortage of oil, all we see is a higher price and that’s in essence because Opec wants a higher price,” Hirs says.The message to the US consumer is equally blunt. After 2008, when oil hit $147 a barrel, US automakers had to accept government bailouts as the consumers jumped away from gas-guzzling SUVs and pick-up trucks.“If the war in Ukraine continues we could easily see the same thing by this time next year,” Hirs predicted. “We have to think of this in a different way. A lot of folks in the west think we’re entitled to gasoline and diesel, in the same way we’re entitled to iPhones. But we haven’t operated the economy like that.”Put plainly, there’s little the administration can do. “We’ve reached a point where supplies of gasoline, diesel and crude oil are below our five-year averages, so it appears we’ve been exporting as much as we can,” said Hirs. “As long as the conflict, really between the US and Russia, persists, the EU nations will be additional buyers. So the fellow in London looking to fill his car, and the woman in France, are competing with someone on I-95.”TopicsOilUS politicsBiden administrationanalysisReuse this content More
