“The headline in the New York Times seemed sympathetic: “The House Just Voted To Bankrupt Graduate Students”. The piece by Erin Rousseau, a graduate student at M.I.T., detailed an insidious little virus buried in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, just passed by Republicans in the House. The law would repeal section 117(d)(5) of the tax code, which exempts graduate students’ tuition waiver from taxation.” More …
Author: Editor
GOP Tax Plan Got a Triple Whammy of Brutal Reviews
“Three different groups offered critical analyses of the bill’s potentially negative effects on the federal budget, Americans’ taxes, and the broader US economy. While the Senate is still expected to make changes to the legislation, each of the new studies shows that the Senate’s bill has some significant underlying problems.” More …
Drilling Reawakens Sleeping Faults in Texas, Leads to Earthquakes
“For 300 million years faults showed no activity, and then wastewater injections from oil and gas wells came along.” More …
Wall Street’s Border Wall: How Five Firms Stand to Benefit Financially from Anti-Immigrant Policy
“An examination of Sterling Construction Company, the only publicly-traded company to receive a contract to build a border wall prototype, reveals that Trump-connected Wall Street investors from across the political spectrum stand to benefit financially from the wall.2 Investors in Sterling include far-right funder Robert Mercer and his firm Renaissance Technologies, as well as BlackRock and JP Morgan Chase, led by Democratic donors Larry Fink and Jamie Dimon, respectively. Sterling’s prototype contract appears to already be benefiting its shareholders by helping to drive up its share price to the highest levels in years.” More …
GOP Tax Bill Could Trigger a $25 Billion Cut to Medicare
“Republicans are trying to pass a $1.5 trillion tax cut — which the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday could trigger a sequestration across some major mandatory spending programs, like Medicare, federal student loans, and agriculture subsidies, and even some funding for customs and border patrol.” More …
Wells Fargo Overcharged Clients on Foreign Exchange Rates: Report
“Scandal strikes Wells Fargo yet again. The bank overcharged their corporate clients on foreign exchanges and levied hefty transactions fees through ingrained practices that rewarded employees for raking in the cash, according to a Wall Street Journal report.” More …
GOP Tax Plan Rattles Higher Education
“Congressional Republicans’ plans to slap unprecedented new taxes on higher education have left college leaders shocked and scrambling — the latest salvo in what some observers say is a growing culture war on a higher education system seen as elitist and out of touch.” More …
Trump’s Tax Promises Undercut by CEO Plans to Help Investors
“Major companies including Cisco Systems, Inc., Pfizer, Inc. and Coco Cola Co., say they’ll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting President Donald Trump’s promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class.” More …
Ex-Con Coal Baron Don Blankenship Is Running for U.S. Senate
“Blankenship’s candidacy is big news in West Virginia, where he is a well-known and deeply polarizing figure who spent decades as a ruthless advocate for the coal industry. If people in the rest of the country know Blankenship, it’s likely because of his 2015 conviction for conspiring to break mine-safety laws, leading to the 2010 disaster at the Upper Big Branch Mine. Twenty-nine men died in an explosion there, but Blankenship refused to shoulder any of the blame. While in prison, he wrote a 67-page booklet in which he claimed to be an “American political prisoner” and arguing that the deadliest mine disaster in four decades was caused by natural factors.” More …
Moody’s Warns Cities to Address Climate Risks or Face Downgrades
“Coastal communities from Maine to California have been put on notice from one of the top credit rating agencies: Start preparing for climate change or risk losing access to cheap credit.” More …