Journalists and other critics of how money influences U.S. politics expressed alarm and disappointment in response to Friday reporting that shortly after the nation’s latest election, the research nonprofit OpenSecrets had to lay off a third of its staff.
Citing a current staffer, Politico‘s Daniel Lippman revealed that OpenSecrets “laid off 10 employees yesterday due to financial difficulties” and “much of the research team were among the casualties, which constituted around a third of the group’s total headcount.”
“Our greatest hope is to restore people’s faith in our democracy and increase participation across the board,” said the chair of the campaign behind the measure likely bound for the U.S. Supreme Court.
As billionaire-backed Republicans dominated U.S. elections on Tuesday, voters in Maine—among the top 10 states in terms of smallest populations—overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to limit political spending, an initiative that could reach the country’s top court.
Maine Question 1 targets super political action committees (PACs), dark money groups that, for the most part, are barred from directly contributing or coordinating with a candidate but can raise and spend unlimited amounts of funds.
“Biodiversity finance remains stalled after a deafening absence of credible finance pledges from wealthy governments and unprecedented corporate lobbying,” said one campaigner.
Officials at the international biodiversity conference that began in October were forced on Saturday to suspend talks without reaching an agreement on a key issue of the summit—a detailed finance plan for a dedicated biodiversity fund—after the meeting went into overtime and delegates began leaving.
The failure to reach an agreement on biodiversity finance was denounced by the head of environmental group Greenpeace’s delegation at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which took place over two weeks in Cali, Colombia.
“It’s no secret that political spending is a huge way for billionaires to rig the system to their liking,” said Americans for Tax Fairness. “Enough is enough.”
A new analysis out Tuesday shows that 150 of the nation’s wealthiest families have poured nearly $2 billion into this year’s U.S. election—the latest evidence bolstering calls for new taxes on the super rich and an end to unlimited campaign spending.
The new report from Americans for Tax Fairness, published Tuesday, shows how spending by 150 of the richest families in the U.S. has smashed campaign spending records, with $700 million more spent than the $1.2 billion that wealthy donors poured into the 2020 campaign.
With the recent deployment of the US’s most advanced anti-missile system to Israel, manned by American troops, it looks ever more likely that the US is preparing for war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu may be planning an ‘October surprise’ in order to sway the upcoming presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. In such circumstances it seems sensible to hold off speculating on the future of America and the world until after the November election.
But this is also a special moment of high anxiety. We face what may be a definitive turning point in modern history. Personally, I feel my entire political life is on the block. It’s a strange sensation; one that combines a feeling of vindication that I’ve been right all along even as I sense the axe blade of modern fascism above my neck about to sever any hope for a progressive future.
Musk’s latest attempt to aid Donald Trump “appears to veer smack dab into violating federal law against paying people to register and vote,” said Public Citizen.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk may be able to “throw his money around in an attempt to directly influence the outcome of this election,” as one legal expert said of his latest ploy to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen on Wednesday said Musk has crossed a legal line in recent days by offering voters direct cash payments in exchange for signing a petition.
The group filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Musk’s pledge to award a randomly selected registered voter in a swing state with $1 million each day until Election Day, if they sign a petition in favor of the First and Second Amendments.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign proposals “would dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances.”
Republican nominee Donald Trump’s claim that he wants to “fight for and protect Social Security” was called into further question Monday after a conservative think tank released an analysis projecting that the former president’s economic proposals and mass deportation plan would significantly damage the New Deal program’s finances.
The new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) specifically focuses on Trump’s proposals to end taxes on tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime pay; implement sweeping tariffs on imports; and launch what he’s described as the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
The think tank projected that, if enacted, Trump’s agenda would “increase Social Security’s 10-year cash shortfall by $2.3 trillion through FY 2035” and “lead to a 33% across-the-board benefit cut in 2035, up from the 23% [the Congressional Budget Office] projects under current law.”
Trump’s plans would also “increase Social Security’s annual shortfall by roughly 50% in FY 2035” and “advance insolvency by three years, from FY 2034 to FY 2031.”
“Trump has said he would close Social Security’s long-term shortfall by increasing drilling for oil and natural gas and by growing the economy,” the analysis notes. “However, we’ve shown that increased energy exploration is unlikely to have a meaningful effect on Social Security—even if the gains were deposited into the trust fund. We’ve also shown that it would require unrealistically fast economic growth to close Social Security’s existing long-term funding gap.”
Social Security Works (SSW), a progressive advocacy group that supports expanding the New Deal program, highlighted CRFB’s analysis in a social media post on Monday, writing, “Donald Trump plans to slash $2.3 TRILLION from Social Security while giving massive tax handouts to Wall Street billionaires.” (The Social Security Works Political Action Committee has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for the presidency.)
SHAMEFUL: Donald Trump's plans to slash Social Security by $2.3 TRILLION!
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare—which endorsed Harris in July—said it is “not surprising that Donald Trump’s ill-conceived plans would devastate the financial health of Social Security and lead to huge benefit cuts.”
“Trump’s plans are of a piece with his overall recklessness with Social Security. He suspended the payroll tax that funds the program during Covid—and hoped it would be eliminated,” said Richtman. “His White House budgets would have slashed Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) by billions of dollars. He said earlier this year that he was ‘open’ to ‘cutting entitlements,’ then tried to walk it back. He once called Social Security a ‘Ponzi Scheme.’ Time and again, Trump has chosen political expediency without considering—or caring about—the consequences. Despite his posturing, Donald Trump is no friend to Social Security or American seniors.”
In a footnote of its analysis, CRFB states that Harris’ proposals thus far “would not have large effects on Social Security trust fund solvency.”
The Harris campaign quickly seized on CRFB’s findings. Joseph Costello, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, said in a statement Monday that “Donald Trump’s agenda poses an imminent threat to Social Security, and seniors could have their benefits cut by a third.”
“This is yet another reason that Americans simply cannot afford the risk of another Trump term, where he would pursue unchecked power to use his Project 2025 agenda to hurt the American people,” said Costello. “Vice President Harris is committed to protecting Social Security benefits and is the only candidate who will actually fight for seniors, not just pay them lip service on the campaign trail.”
According to the latest report from Social Security’s Board of Trustees, the program is currently positioned to fully pay all benefits and administrative costs until 2035. Thereafter, even if Congress does nothing to shore up the program, it would be able to pay 83% of scheduled benefits.
To bring in more revenue and ensure Social Security’s solvency through the end of the century, progressives in Congress have called for raising or scrapping the payroll tax cap, which allows the rich to stop contributing to the program just weeks into each year while ordinary Americans pay in year-round.
The Harris campaign has broadly signaled support for that approach, saying in its economic policy platform that the Democratic nominee would “shore up Social Security and Medicare so that these essential programs will stay solvent in the long run by making corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share in taxes.”
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The Republican presidential nominee is threatening funding if teachers “don’t teach what he wants,” said one teachers union leader. “That’s indoctrination and it’s dangerous.”
Education advocates implored voters to take Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s latest comments on public schools on Friday after his appearance on the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends,” where he explained how he would punish schools that teach students accurate U.S. history, including about slavery and racism in the country.
Trump was asked by a viewer who called into the show how he would help students who don’t want to attend their local public schools, and said he plans to “let the states run the schools” to allow for more “school choice.”
Labor unions and women’s advocacy groups on Monday paid tribute to Lilly Ledbetter, the former Goodyear employee whose fight for equal pay made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress, after her death at the age of 86—with economic justice advocates hailing Ledbetter as “an icon.”
“Lilly Ledbetter simply wanted to be paid the same as her male Goodyear co-workers,” said the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) on social media. But to workers who have benefited from the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, added the union, “she was a true hero.”
U.S. President Joe Biden called on Floridians in evacuation zones to leave their homes “now, now, now” on Tuesday, and the mayor of Tampa issued a stark warning that those who “choose to stay” are “going to die” from the expected impact of Hurricane Milton—but desperate residents are grappling with the fact that hotels and airlines may make evacuating impossible for many.
Florida bars companies from price gouging during an emergency like Milton, but as thousands of people began evacuating the state’s western coast on Monday, accusations poured in about sky-high airline ticket prices and hotels in neighboring states that are charging exorbitant rates.