Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to lean on artificial intelligence to keep taxpayer services running even as its human workforce shrinks. The agency plans to roll out Salesforce-built AI agents to handle routine questions and case updates, positioning the technology as a way to maintain service levels after staff cuts and a wave of…
Food prices have become the most visible pressure point in the cost-of-living squeeze, and low income families feel it first and hardest. As president Donald Trump moves to roll back tariffs on a wide range of imported foods, the central question is whether cheaper trade at the border can meaningfully ease grocery inflation that has…
The IRS has quietly set the rules that will shape how much of your 2026 income ends up in Washington, and the changes are more modest than many taxpayers might expect. Brackets are inching higher, key thresholds are shifting, and some temporary breaks are on track to disappear, creating a mix of small wins and…
The Congressional Budget Office has quietly deflated one of President Donald Trump’s favorite fiscal talking points, trimming its estimate of future tariff revenue by roughly 1 trillion dollars and erasing a key offset in his budget math. I see that revision not as an obscure bookkeeping tweak but as a fresh warning that Washington is…
President Donald Trump’s signature tax package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is quietly reshaping how Americans give to charity by reopening the door to deductions for people who do not itemize. Starting in 2026, millions of standard-deduction filers will again be able to write off at least some cash gifts, even as traditional itemized…
The Trump administration is rolling out one of the most sweeping overhauls of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in years, combining the restoration of full payments after the shutdown with new work rules and a mass reapplication requirement. For tens of millions of households that rely on SNAP to buy groceries, the update means short…
The White House is treating the Supreme Court tariff case less as a cliffhanger than as a logistical problem to solve. Even if the justices strike down President Donald Trump’s current duties, his team is quietly assembling fallback tools to keep pressure on trading partners and preserve the political narrative that tariffs are here to…
Americans staring down rising rents, grocery bills and car payments have already started mentally spending President Donald Trump’s promised $2,000 tariff checks. The Treasury Department, however, is signaling that households should think less about a quick shopping spree and more about shoring up their finances, and the calendar is another reason to hit pause. Between…
President Donald Trump has put the idea of fresh stimulus-style payments back on the table, and for households still squeezed by higher prices and lingering debt, the obvious question is how large a check might actually land in their mailbox or bank account. The answer depends on what kind of plan, if any, Congress ultimately…
President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping overhaul of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that will shrink benefits and tighten eligibility for millions of households that rely on food aid. The changes are pitched as a way to promote work and crack down on fraud, but the practical effect will be less money for groceries…