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    Trump Taps Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to Lead ‘Dept. of Government Efficiency’

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    How do you slash, cut, restructure and even dismantle parts of the federal government?If you’re President-elect Donald J. Trump, you turn to two wealthy entrepreneurs: the spaceship-inventing, electric-car-building owner of a social media platform and a moneymaking former pharmaceutical executive who was once one of your presidential rivals.Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency. It will be, he said, “the Manhattan Project” of this era, driving “drastic change” throughout the government with major cuts and new efficiencies in bloated agencies in the federal bureaucracy by July 4, 2026.“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Mr. Trump wrote in a statement. “I am confident they will succeed!”The statement left unanswered all kinds of major questions about an initiative that is uncertain in seriousness but potentially vast in scope. For starters, the president-elect did not address the fact that no such department exists. And he did not elaborate on whether his two rich supporters would hire a staff for the new department, which he said is aimed in part at reducing the federal work force.Mr. Musk, who became one of Mr. Trump’s biggest campaign contributors, said before the election that he would help the president-elect cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But he did not explain in any detail how that would be accomplished or what parts of the government would be slashed.“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Mr. Musk said in the statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Congress Unveils Short-Term Spending Deal

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      Speaker Mike Johnson dropped his demands for proof-of-citizenship voting requirements to strike a deal that includes more money for the Secret Service and funds the government through Dec. 20.Congressional leaders from both parties unveiled a short-term agreement to fund the government on Sunday, after Speaker Mike Johnson abandoned demands for a longer-term deal that also included new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.The deal, which extends federal appropriations through Dec. 20, includes an additional $231 million to help the beleaguered Secret Service protect candidates during the upcoming presidential election and into next year. According to the Treasury Department, the United States has spent about $6.3 trillion in fiscal 2024, which ends on Sept. 30.The timeline of the deal allows Congress to sidestep a government shutdown during the campaign season, but it all but ensures that spending disputes will dominate the lame-duck period between the election and the inauguration of a new Congress in January.“While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said in a statement heralding the temporary spending patch — known as a continuing resolution — and blaming Republicans for dragging their heels. “Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the MAGA way and wasted precious time.”In a letter on Sunday to his colleagues explaining why he was forced to take the deal, Mr. Johnson wrote, “A continuing resolution is the only option that remains.” He promised to put it to a floor vote this week.Mr. Johnson had made it a personal crusade to include in the spending package legislation requiring people to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, arguing it was necessary to prevent fraud, despite scant evidence of noncitizens voting. That requirement, known as the SAVE Act, was also supported by the hard right and by former President Donald J. Trump, who called on Congress not to pass a spending plan without “every ounce” of the proposal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After Trump Assassination Attempts, Congress Debates Secret Service Funding

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      Virtually everyone on Capitol Hill agrees that the Secret Service needs to do a better job. But Democrats and Republicans are at odds over whether to increase the agency’s budget.After the second assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump in two months, a fevered debate has broken out in Congress over whether the Secret Service needs more money.Because the dispute is unfolding on Capitol Hill and comes little more than six weeks before a presidential election, the question has, perhaps predictably, become mired in politics. And given that there are only 11 days before Congress’s deadline for extending federal spending, it is threatening to complicate already contentious negotiations aimed at heading off a government shutdown on Oct. 1.Republicans have sought to pin blame on Democrats and their anti-Trump statements for the actions of Ryan W. Routh, 58, who was arrested on Sunday after hiding in the bushes with an assault rifle at Mr. Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., in an apparent attempt to target the former president. They have accused the administration of providing better protection for President Biden than for Mr. Trump and plan to vote on Friday on a bill that would ensure that Mr. Trump is protected at the same level as the president — something the Secret Service says is already happening.Democrats, who routinely note that Mr. Trump has long trafficked in the kind of bellicose language that can fuel political violence, have said they are all for beefing up protections for him and fixing what is broken with the Secret Service.They have even offered to increase funding for the embattled agency, including potentially through a stopgap spending bill they are negotiating to avert a government shutdown. In doing so, Democrats are effectively daring Republicans — who are bent on slashing spending, not increasing it — to be the ones to object to paying for increased protection for Mr. Trump.“If the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared to provide it for them, possibly in the upcoming funding agreement,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on the floor this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Proposal to End Taxes on Overtime Pay Could Cost Billions

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is calling for exempting overtime pay from taxes, the latest in a string of vague tax proposals that have befuddled tax experts, worried fiscal hawks and seemingly charmed voters.Mr. Trump floated the idea this past week during a campaign rally in Tucson, Ariz., telling the crowd that it would supercharge incentives to work more and put money back in the pockets of many Americans.“It’s time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that’s what we’re doing because this is a good one,” he said.The pitch is part of what has become Mr. Trump’s playbook during the presidential race: tossing out potentially huge tax cuts, defined in just a few words, to try and win over middle- and working-class voters. He has also vowed to exempt tips from taxes and end taxes on Social Security benefits, two ideas that have proven popular. At the same time, he has said he would further cut the corporate tax rate.As with his promise to end taxes on tips, though, Mr. Trump left many key details about the overtime plan unaddressed, making it hard to estimate its costs. Among the open questions is whether overtime pay would be exempt from just the income tax or if the exception would also apply to the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare.There is also the issue of how many Americans could benefit from Mr. Trump’s idea. More than 34 million Americans worked over 40 hours a week in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but only a subset of that group are owed time-and-a-half pay for overtime under federal law. The rules are complex, but in general Americans earning a salary of more than $43,888 a year may not be owed overtime, depending on their job. Americans paid by the hour, currently about 55 percent of the work force, are broadly eligible for overtime pay.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Johnson’s Spending Plan Falters, Facing Resistance From Both Parties

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      The speaker’s first effort to avert a government shutdown ran into a buzz saw of opposition from both far-right and mainstream Republicans.Speaker Mike Johnson’s initial plan to avert a government shutdown has run into a wall of Republican opposition, as lawmakers from an array of factions in his party balk at a six-month stopgap funding measure that Democrats have already rejected.Mr. Johnson has said he plans to bring up a spending bill this week that would extend federal funding through March 28, which includes a measure that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. The addition of the voting restriction bill was a nod to the right flank of his conference and an effort to force politically vulnerable Democrats to take a fraught vote.But his $1.6 trillion proposal was almost immediately met with an outpouring of skepticism by House Republicans on Monday evening as they returned to Washington after a lengthy summer recess. Hard-line conservatives, including Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said they would oppose the legislation because it would extend current spending levels they believe are too high.The legislation “doesn’t cut spending, and the shiny object attached to it will be dropped like a hot potato before passage,” Mr. Massie said, referring to the voting restriction. He added: “I refuse to be a thespian in this failure theater.”On the other hand, Republican defense hawks, including Representative Mike D. Rogers of Alabama, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said they opposed the plan because extending current spending levels for such a lengthy period would amount to a cut to military spending, which would otherwise be slated to increase in the coming months.The internal divisions were the latest headache for Mr. Johnson in a seemingly interminable series of skirmishes over government funding that have dogged him since Republicans took control of the House. Every episode has ended with the same result: passage of a bipartisan spending bill that has angered the right flank of the House Republican conference.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      In Las Vegas, Trump Calls Harris a ‘Copycat’ Over ‘No Tax on Tips’ Plan

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      Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday fumed over the fact that when it comes to exempting tips from being taxed, he and his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are on the same page.Mr. Trump, before a gathering of supporters at a Las Vegas restaurant, complained that Ms. Harris had stolen his idea and sought to cast her as an opportunist who was pandering to service industry workers by cribbing from one of his signature proposals.“She’s a copycat,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s a flip-flopper, you know. She’s the greatest flip-flopper in history. She went from communism to capitalism in about two weeks.”A Harris campaign spokesman declined to comment. This month, while in Las Vegas herself, Ms. Harris said she would seek to end federal income taxes on tips if she were elected. Mr. Trump first floated the idea in June, and it quickly garnered bipartisan support.He has publicly stewed over her embrace of the plan, especially in Nevada, a battleground state that Mr. Trump lost in 2016 and 2020.Before President Biden withdrew from the race in late July, Mr. Trump had appeared to be on a trajectory to end his electoral drought in the desert — where one of his hotels towers over the Strip. Mr. Biden, whose campaign called the “no tax on tips” overture a “wild campaign promise,” had been trailing Mr. Trump by an average of seven percentage points in Nevada.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Dangles New Tax Cut Proposals With Real Political Appeal

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      The most recent and costliest of Mr. Trump’s ideas would end income taxes on Social Security benefits.First it was a tax cut for hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada, a swing state where Donald J. Trump proposed exempting tips from taxes. Then, in front of powerful chief executives gathered in Washington, Mr. Trump floated cutting the corporate tax rate, helping to ease concerns in the business community about his candidacy.Now Mr. Trump is calling for an end to taxing Social Security benefits, which could be a boon for retirees, one of the most politically important groups in the United States.Repeatedly during the campaign, Mr. Trump and Republicans have embraced new, sometimes novel tax cuts in an attempt to shore up support with major constituencies. In a series of social-media posts, at political rallies, and without formal policy proposals, Mr. Trump has casually suggested reducing federal revenue by trillions of dollars.While policy experts have taken issue with the ideas, Mr. Trump’s pronouncements have real political appeal, at times putting Democrats on their back foot. Nevada’s two Democratic senators and its powerful culinary union have endorsed ending taxes on tips, while the AARP supports tax relief for seniors receiving Social Security benefits.“You do have to scratch your head a little bit when someone’s going around offering free lunches everywhere,” said Jesse Lee, a Democratic consultant and former Biden White House official. “We’re all for people having their lunch, but we have to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it.”The most recent and most expensive of Mr. Trump’s plans is ending income taxes on Social Security benefits, which could cost the federal government as much as $1.8 trillion in revenue over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That would burn through the program’s financial reserves more quickly and hasten the moment when the government is no longer able to pay out Social Security benefits in full under current law.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Once a G.O.P. Rallying Cry, Debt and Deficits Fall From the Party’s Platform

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      Fiscal hawks are lamenting the transformation of the party that claimed to prize fiscal restraint and are warning of dire economic consequences.When Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016, the official Republican platform called for imposing “firm caps on future debt” to “accelerate the repayment of the trillions we now owe.”When Mr. Trump sought a second term in 2020, the party’s platform pummeled Democrats for refusing to help Republicans rein in spending and proposed a constitutional requirement that the federal budget be balanced.Those ambitions were cast aside in the platform that the Republican Party unveiled this week ahead of its convention. Nowhere in the 16-page document do the words “debt” or “deficit” as they relate to the nation’s grim fiscal situation appear. The platform included only a glancing reference to slashing “wasteful” spending, a perennial Republican talking point.To budget hawks who have spent years warning that the United States is spending more than it can afford, the omissions signaled the completion of a Republican transformation from a party that once espoused fiscal restraint to one that is beholden to the ideology of Mr. Trump, who once billed himself the “king of debt.”“I am really shocked that the party that I grew up with is now a party that doesn’t think that debt and deficits matter,” said G. William Hoagland, the former top budget expert for Senate Republicans. “We’ve got a deficit deficiency syndrome going on in our party.”The U.S. national debt is approaching $35 trillion and is on pace to top $56 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At that point, the United States would be spending about as much on interest payments to its lenders — $1.7 trillion — as it does on Medicare.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

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      Tom Cole, House GOP Spending Chief, Defeats Challenger in Oklahoma Primary

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      Representative Tom Cole, the veteran Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, fended off a primary challenge on Tuesday from a well-funded right-wing businessman, putting him on track to win a 12th term.Mr. Cole, who was first elected to Congress in 2002, has long been a fixture of Oklahoma politics and an influential legislative voice behind the scenes in Congress. The Associated Press called the race less than an hour after polls closed as Mr. Cole led by an overwhelming margin.Mr. Cole ascended to the helm of the influential Appropriations panel in April, assuming a coveted position on Capitol Hill that put him in charge of the allocation of federal spending. Top members of the committee can steer federal dollars not just across the government, but also to their own districts.But as the G.O.P. has veered to the right in recent years and become increasingly doctrinaire about slashing federal spending, the Appropriations gavel has morphed into a political liability for Republicans. Mr. Cole’s opponent, Paul Bondar, an anti-spending conservative businessman, tried to weaponize the congressman’s 15-year tenure on the committee against him. Mr. Bondar argued that Mr. Cole’s time on Capitol Hill had left him out of touch with his district, and attacked his voting record as insufficiently conservative.“Tom Cole voted with Democrats for billions in new deficit spending,” a narrator on a television advertisement said. “Paul Bondar opposes new federal spending.”Early on, Mr. Bondar committed to pouring large amounts of his personal wealth into the race. With more than $8 million spent as of late last week, it became one of the most expensive House primaries this year — and the most competitive primary challenge Mr. Cole had faced in years.“It’s like an old-fashioned bar fight,” Mr. Cole told Roll Call. “The guy who wins a bar fight isn’t the guy with the most money; it’s the guy with the most friends. And I have a lot of friends in that district.”Mr. Cole’s predecessor on the committee, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, also faced a well-funded primary challenge when she led the panel, and also was able to use her stature in the district to defeat it easily.In the end, Mr. Cole’s status as a political veteran in the district, as well as Mr. Bondar’s own political foibles — chief among them his recent move into the state from Texas — allowed him to prevail. A halting interview Mr. Bondar gave to a local television reporter in which he confessed to dialing in to the call from Texas was widely circulated in the district.“Can’t find his way around the district without a map,” Mr. Cole said of his opponent in an interview earlier this month. “It’s not like I’m an unknown quantity. My family’s lived in this district 175 years on my mom’s side and 140 on my father’s side.” More