Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
California’s latest tax fight centers on a one-time levy aimed squarely at the state’s richest residents, with a union-backed proposal designed to pull in $100 billion from a few hundred billionaires. Supporters frame it as a last-ditch way to stabilize health care and schools without squeezing middle-class taxpayers, while critics warn it could rattle markets…
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…
Millions of households are watching the debate over new $2,000 direct payments and assuming that, if Congress acts, the money will simply arrive. The reality is more complicated. One policy choice, how strictly lawmakers tie the checks to tax-filing status and income documentation, could quietly shut out a large slice of the country that has…
Nickels have quietly become one of the U.S. Mint’s most expensive coins to produce, and policymakers are openly weighing whether it still makes sense to strike them in their current form after 2026. If minting is cut or the metal content changes, the five-cent pieces already in your pocket could shift from forgettable change to…
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…
Mike Johnson built his reputation in Congress arguing that lawmakers, not the White House, should control the nation’s trade weapons. His past push to claw back tariff authority from the executive branch now sits awkwardly beside his role as House speaker, where he is under pressure to protect President Donald Trump’s expansive use of those…
President Donald Trump has put a headline number on his latest economic promise: a $2,000 “tariff dividend” that he says will be mailed out to American households starting in 2026. The idea has already been framed as a kind of stimulus check sequel, but the reality of who would qualify, when payments might arrive, and…
IRS migration data is quietly reshaping the country’s wealth map, showing that high earners are not just moving, they are clustering in a smaller group of low tax destinations. The headline story is about millionaires leaving certain states, but the deeper pattern is a broader shift of taxable income and spending power that is already…