“Today, #immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than all US-born men, and 30% less likely to be incarcerated relative to white US-born men.”
#Shutdown deadline passes as #Senate votes on spending bill
The #House already passed the $1.2T bill. Funding for parts of the #FederalGovernment expired at 12:01AM Sat — but the Senate was working its way through a series of amendments to fund agencies for the next 6 months, which means the lapse in funding could end before fed #workers come in Mon.
#POTUS Biden on Mon called for major new spending initiatives to lower costs for #healthcare, #ChildCare & #housing & enough new taxes on the wealthy & major corporations to pay for those proposals & also shave $3 trillion off the #NationalDebt over the next decade.
That spending would be more than offset by dramatically increasing taxes on the wealthiest individuals & corporations, the WH said. #Biden’s #budget would increase the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations to 21% from 15%. It would raise taxes on US multinationals’ foreign income to 21% from 10.5%, & eliminate some #TaxDeductions for executive compensation.
“The U.S. has really come out of this into a place of strength & is moving forward like covid never happened,” said Claudia Sahm, a fmr #FederalReserve#economist who now runs an eponymous consulting firm. “We earned this; it wasn’t just a fluke.”
On Fri, President #Biden hailed fresh government data showing that annual #inflation over the second half of 2023 fell back to the #FederalReserve’s 2% target. Coupled w/Thursday’s news that the #economy grew by 3.1% over the past 12 months, the #Commerce Dept report showed that the #UnitedStates appears to have achieved an #economic soft landing.
There’s a lot of talk of states these days. Palestine and Israel, one state or two? Ukraine and Russia, one state or two? Where did the idea of nation-states originate, how did economic geography and cartography help to shape them, and what does their shaky durability say about their future?
And if you listen to the podcast, you'll be treated to what Madonna had to say about borders.
Intriguing to see an up-and-coming ACT MP and a long-serving Nat MP debate each other;
"I don't think we have to have this obsession with wanting to cut New Zealanders' jobs. In fact, people are important. I don't care whether they're in the private, sector, the public sector, or a politician like myself, they're all people, and this obsession to just go and cut 15,000 jobs is not the way forward."
"I actually do believe that we have a climate change problem... I did actually vote Green before I came all the way over to ACT... I do want to leave the world a better place, but I studied economics and international trade when I was at university..."