What happened today at the Roundhouse?
Gun ban: The Senate Finance Committee has on its schedule Senate Bill 279, a ban on gas-operated semiautomatic firearms and high-capacity magazines, with certain exemptions.
Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire: The House Rural Development, Land Grants and Cultural Affairs Committee will hear a memorial, House Memorial 62, in the morning stating the 2022 disaster victims are entitled to full compensation from the federal government.
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USA Today
6 days ago
- USA Today
Are stimulus checks coming? What to know after Trump proposed tariff rebate
Last month, President Donald Trump teased that a potential rebate could be attached to the worldwide tariffs he announced earlier this year. 'We have so much money coming in, we're thinking about a little rebate,' Trump said on July 25 ahead of his trip to Scotland, where he planned to iron out the details of a United Kingdom trade agreement. The White House has announced that some of the tariffs, which were disclosed on April 2, have raised $100 billion in revenue. Trump didn't provide further details on the potential rebates, which are unlikely to pass in Congress, except to say they would only be available to people from certain income levels. The president would need congressional approval to authorize the rebates. While details are scarce, here's what you need to know about a potential tariff rebate. Previous story: Trump considers 'rebates' to US taxpayers from tariff income Sen. Josh Hawley introduces rebate bill Shortly after Trump's July comments, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, introduced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025. The proposed legislation would send rebate checks of at least $600 per individual to U.S. residents. A family of four could receive up to $2,400. The legislation allows the credit to increase if tariff revenues exceed 2025 projections. 'My legislation would allow hard-working Americans to benefit from the wealth that Trump's tariffs are returning to this country,' said Hawley in a news release announcing the bill. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said tariff revenue is expected to reach $300 billion annually. Yet, economists have said the policies could increase inflation and cost taxpayers thousands of dollars per year, especially if Trump doesn't reach trade deals with key partners like Canada and Mexico. For joint filers with an adjusted gross income of over $150,000 and people filing single who earn more than $75,000, the benefit would be reduced by 5%. The legislation has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee. It would need to pass both the Senate and the House of Representatives to become law. What are some of the hurdles facing the rebate? Republican lawmakers are unlikely to be excited about increasing federal spending. The stimulus checks issued during the COVID-19 pandemic cost the government about $164 billion. If checks were issued, it would mean a significant percentage of tariff revenue would be going back to taxpayers at a time when Trump himself has said his priority is paying down $37 trillion in debt. "The big thing we want to do is pay down debt,' Trump said in July. 'But we're thinking about rebates.' In an interview with Semafor, one conservative lawmaker shot down the idea. "People love spending money and granting new tax cuts when we can't afford it," Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, told the outlet. 'We're $37 trillion in debt and running $2 trillion a year deficits – some time, this madness just has to end.' How is a tax rebate different from a stimulus check? A tax rebate is a reimbursement made to a taxpayer for an excess amount paid in taxes during the year, while a stimulus check is a direct payment from the federal government to households. Tax rebates can be issued at any point during the year. Hawley's news release states that the parameters for the tax rebate would be similar to the stimulus checks issued in 2020 during the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic. When could a tax rebate be implemented? Hawley's bill has until the end of the current congressional calendar to pass through both chambers of Congress, or it will be considered dead and would need to be introduced again if lawmakers want to move forward with it. Michelle Del Rey is a trending news reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at mdelrey@
New York Times
6 days ago
- New York Times
U.S. Ethics Agency Warns Bessent Over Conflicts of Interest
The U.S. government's ethics watchdog agency warned this week that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has failed to comply with an agreement that required him to divest his financial assets, posing potential conflicts of interest as he leads the Trump administration's economic policy agenda. The United States Office of Government Ethics sent a letter dated Aug. 11 to Senator Michael D. Crapo, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, alerting him to Mr. Bessent's delinquency in fulfilling or amending the agreement. The questions about conflicts of interest come as Mr. Bessent is steering President Trump's agendas on taxes, trade and financial deregulation. A millionaire former hedge fund manager, Mr. Bessent pledged before his confirmation hearing in January to divest from dozens of funds, trusts and farmland investments. In a letter to the Treasury's ethics office at the time, Mr. Bessent, who was formerly the top investor for the liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, said that he would do so to 'avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest.' Cabinet officials are required to shed certain holdings and investments within 90 days of being confirmed to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest. Mr. Trump has pushed the boundaries of traditional government ethics norms by publicly pushing his business interests, and top Trump administration officials have reached unusual ethics agreements that have allowed them to oversee government matters that involve former lobbying clients or could benefit family members. Most members of Mr. Trump's cabinet have completed their compliance agreements, but Mr. Bessent has not yet lived up to that commitment. 'I am notifying you that Scott Bessent, secretary of the Department of the Treasury, has failed to timely comply with certain terms of the ethics agreement he signed and that O.G.E. previously provided to your office for consideration during his confirmation process,' Dale Christopher, the ethics office's deputy director of compliance, wrote to Mr. Crapo in a letter on Monday that was reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Christopher said that Mr. Bessent was required to divest from certain investments or sell assets by April 28. The Treasury secretary made changes to his ethics agreement on May 2 and June 5, but still has yet to fully honor his pledge and has offered no timeline for when he will comply. 'O.G.E. will continue to monitor the status of the secretary's compliance with his ethics agreement,' Mr. Christopher wrote. 'O.G.E. has also advised Treasury's ethics officials to emphasize to the secretary that it is his personal responsibility to avoid taking any action that could create a real or apparent conflict of interest with regard to his holdings.' In a follow-up letter that the ethics office sent to the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Mr. Christopher said that Mr. Bessent subsequently indicated through Treasury ethics officials that he was committed to complying with the divestiture agreement by Dec. 15. 'The ethics officials explain that the assets are illiquid and are not readily marketable,' Mr. Christopher wrote. 'They add that excluding the farmlands, the assets also have significant restrictions on who can acquire them and that the secretary has been working to divest them since his confirmation in January 2025.' Treasury officials told Mr. Christopher that Mr. Bessent would continue to be recused from 'particular matters' affecting his assets and that the department's ethics staff had given Mr. Bessent's office a 'screening memorandum' to help identify potentially conflicting matters that the secretary might encounter. Mr. Bessent said in a statement that he divested 90 percent of the assets that he was required to before assuming office and that just 4 percent of the required divestitures remain. He explained that much of what remains is farmland, which is 'an inherently highly illiquid asset,' and made clear that he was not using the job for personal financial gain. 'The honor of serving the American people under President Trump can't be ascribed a dollar value,' Mr. Bessent said. 'As agreed upon with O.G.E., I am working towards selling the rest of my required divestitures before the end of this year.' The Treasury secretary added that he was 'committed to full transparency and disclosure in my personal finances.' After he was nominated, Mr. Bessent shuttered his Key Square Capital Management investment fund and resigned from several nonprofit organizations and trusts that he oversaw. The letter from the Office of Government Ethics does not specify exactly which holdings Mr. Bessent has yet to divest. However, in a June letter to the Treasury's ethics office, Mr. Bessent said that he would not divest from a private equity fund or his investments in a flavored water company and a clinical stage drug development company. He explained that the assets, which he originally pledged to divest, proved too difficult to sell and that officials from the government ethics office confirmed that they did not pose conflicts of interest. 'I initiated the process to find buyers for these private holdings, but all three assets are privately held investments for which there is no liquid market for their resale,' Mr. Bessent wrote. The biggest potential conflict of interest for Mr. Bessent is his ownership of as much as $25 million of soybean and corn farmland in North Dakota. The land spans thousands of acres in Burleigh, Kidder, Eddy, Benson and Wells Counties and earns Mr. Bessent as much as $1 million a year in rental income, according to his financial disclosure form. Cropland values in the state have been rising by more than 10 percent annually over the last four years, according to data from North Dakota State University. Farm brokers in North Dakota were not aware of a public listing of Mr. Bessent's properties and noted that there was traditionally a six-week marketing period before an auction. Wealthy individuals such as Mr. Bessent might also try to sell a big portfolio of land privately. The sale of Mr. Bessent's farms could be complicated by the U.S. trade war with China, which the Treasury secretary has been actively trying to defuse. According to William Wilson, a professor at North Dakota State University, about 70 percent of North Dakota soybeans are exported to China. As trade tension escalated this year, however, China has purchased more of its soybeans from Brazil and has bought virtually none from the United States. Although real estate holdings can be more complicated to sell than other assets, senior government officials have historically been able to take other measures to distance themselves from assets that could pose conflicts of interest. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter, who was a peanut farmer, put his family farm supply business into a blind trust. According to his presidential library, the trust allowed for a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the business while he was in office. When Mr. Carter reclaimed the business after his failed re-election bid, it was $1 million in debt. It is not clear how Mr. Bessent, who has at times referred to himself as a farmer, is disentangling his holdings from trade negotiations with China. At his confirmation hearing in January, he said that one of his first acts as Treasury secretary would be to push China to honor the commitments to buy American farm products that it made during Mr. Trump's first term. Soybean purchases have continued to be a central part of the trade negotiations with China. In a post on Truth Social this week, Mr. Trump urged China to quadruple its purchases of American soybeans. 'Our great farmers produce the most robust soybeans,' Mr. Trump said. Ethics watchdog groups have raised alarm about Mr. Bessent having conflicts of interest while serving as the nation's top economic policymaker. On Wednesday, the Campaign Legal Center and the Democracy Defenders Fund filed a formal complaint with the government ethics office and requested that the Treasury's inspector general investigate whether Mr. Bessent had violated criminal conflict-of-interest laws. The groups pointed to Mr. Bessent's role overseeing trade negotiations, regulation of cryptocurrency markets and policies that affect private equity funds. 'Secretary Bessent's continued deferral of his ethics obligations raises serious concerns about whether he is complying with the ethics laws or not,' wrote officials from the Campaign Legal Center and the Democracy Defenders Fund, which is led by the former Obama administration ethics czar Norm Eisen. Democrats in Congress have also been scrutinizing Mr. Bessent's holdings. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, suggested that Trump administration officials were being duplicitous by flouting federal ethics guidelines. 'If these guys gave a whit about clearing the stink of corruption off this administration,' Mr. Wyden said, 'then you wouldn't have the Treasury secretary picking and choosing which ethics requirements to follow and which to blow off.'
Politico
11-08-2025
- Politico
House Republicans want another megabill. One GOP senator says it could be ‘damaging.'
And Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said he's open to considering as many as 200 tax proposals from his members that were ultimately not included in the first megabill. But most senators have questions about what could go into another reconciliation package — and they're casting doubts on whether it's even politically possible to do this all over again. 'You have to have a reason to do it,' said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). 'It's not easy to do, so you have to have a purpose for doing it in the first place.' That unifying purpose for Republicans the first time around was a desire to deliver Trump a major legislative victory early in his second term and prevent a tax hike that they feared would weaken the economy. Republican leaders' decision to throw in a debt limit extension through 2026 as Treasury warned the nation would soon exceed its borrowing authority added a do-or-die incentive. 'Without the pressure, I don't see how you get it done,' said one Republican senator, granted anonymity to speak freely, about prospects for passing a second reconciliation bill without an existential impetus for action. 'I don't think I see what the pressure is here.' At the same time, despite the White House's enthusiasm for another reconciliation bill, administration officials have not yet told lawmakers what policies they want considered, according to three people speaking on condition of anonymity. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — chairs of the committees on Armed Services and Budget, respectively — also said before leaving for recess they have not received guidance from the White House. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he still hadn't heard from the administration about its broader set of legislative priorities heading into the fall. At this point, the loudest reconciliation push in the Senate is coming from deficit hawks like Sen. Ron Johnson, who wants to use another bill to cut spending further than what conservatives were able to achieve in the first package. 'Leadership is telling us we'll do one or two more reconciliations in this Congress,' the Wisconsin Republican told reporters earlier this summer. 'So the clock's ticking' While Senate Majority Leader John Thune has left the door open to doing a second reconciliation bill, he hasn't provided a specific timeline for doing so. One of the three people waiting to hear from Trump said the push for another party-line package is coming not as much from the administration as from the House. There, Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) has said lawmakers should try to rework policies cut from the first reconciliation bill to comply with Senate rules. But there's skepticism in the Senate that the House will be able to successfully relitigate those proposals. 'My sense is that there's more enthusiasm in the House than in the Senate, and that makes sense,' said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). 'They can do things with 51 votes anyway, most of what we have to do requires 60. And that means that senators, if you have a desire to actually legislate, need to find ways to legislate — and reconciliation is damaging to that relationship.' But House Republicans are also navigating their own slim margins and ideological divides. Conservatives and centrists clashed over cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits in the 'big, beautiful bill,' and lawmakers could have a diminished appetite for further battles over hot-button issues, especially heading into an election year. Some House GOP aides were alarmed earlier this week when a hard-line think tank, the Economic Policy Innovation Center, pitched an extended moratorium on Medicaid funding for large abortion providers in a Republican Study Committee staff briefing. RSC leadership has stressed its megabill working group is designed at this point to generate ideas and put down markers, but EPIC's recommendation could be a harbinger of other disputes to come. Meanwhile, Republicans are already struggling to sell voters on the first megabill back in their home states and districts, where town halls and other constituent events in the early weeks of recess have so far been rocky. One House Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said there would be some 'hesitancy' to dive back into reconciliation. 'We did so much in the first,' the member said. 'It's going to be harder to do a second one.'
