Nichols permitted Bannon to stay out of prison while he appeals his sentence.Īnd yet, Bannon’s sentencing was not the day’s big news. Nichols’s sentence was at the upper end of the sentencing guidelines for his offense. This morning, Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, sentenced Trump ally Stephen Bannon to four months in prison and a fine of $6,500 for contempt of Congress after Bannon ignored a subpoena from the the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. “The election is not a referendum,” Biden said, “it’s a choice.”īut it’s a choice people might not see because of the headline-grabbing drama coming from the MAGA Republicans. After their plan explodes the deficit again, they have said they would cut Medicare and Social Security. They will pass massive tax cuts for the wealthy, after which they plan to repeal the administration’s actions-like the ability of Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act-that are bringing down the deficit. The pattern is for them to cut taxes for the wealthy and then, when the deficit increases, complain that there is no money for social welfare programs and that Democrats advocating them are in favor of wasteful spending.īiden emphasized that Republicans have told us what they will do if put back into power.
He highlighted it today because, as he pointed out, the Republicans are promising further tax cuts that will send the deficit soaring upward again. And Trump’s tax cuts sent it skyrocketing again, even before pandemic spending sent it higher still.īiden’s reduction of the deficit is due in part to the end of some of those pandemic programs, in part to the booming economy which is producing high tax revenues, and in part to higher taxes on the wealthy. Barack Obama cut that back to $600 billion. Bush took it back up to $1.2 trillion with unfunded wars. Bill Clinton-with help from Bush’s willingness to raise taxes-got the deficit to zero. Reagan sent the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. According to Politifact, Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan have exploded deficits, while Democrats have brought deficits down. Biden was pointing out that unlike the Republicans’ supply-side economics, the Democrats’ version of the economy actually works. Trump and the Republicans added $400 billion to the deficit, primarily because of their $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations.īiden was not simply talking about today’s numbers he was making a case that government investment in ordinary Americans is better for the nation’s finances than handing more money to the wealthy, which Republicans claim will goose the economy to produce higher tax revenues and thus balance the budget.
The deficit climbed every year of the Trump presidency, including in the years before the pandemic. This was the largest-ever decline in the federal deficit.
Indeed, the opposite is true: today the administration announced that the deficit this year fell by $1.4 trillion. Republicans insist that social welfare spending racks up government debt Biden emphasized today that the Democrats’ investment in the nation has not increased the federal deficit. Biden focused on the deficit, which is the gap between what the government takes in through taxes and other revenue sources and what it pays out.
He also highlighted that the country has added almost 700,000 manufacturing jobs and that companies are continuing to invest in new industries, at the same time that we are rebuilding our roads, airports, bridges, and ports.īut his main point today was to demonstrate how the Democrats’ program does not, in fact, blow up the nation’s finances the way Republicans have insisted for forty years. In 11 states, unemployment is at all-time lows, and 17 states have unemployment rates under 3%. This morning, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Democratic president Joe Biden contrasted his record in office against that of his Republican predecessor, and the visions of the Democrats and Republicans going forward.īiden began with his usual line: that he set out to rebuild the middle class by building “an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.” He noted that since he took office, the nation has added 10 million jobs and has seen unemployment drop to 3.5%, a 50-year low.
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