Trone Garriott running for Iowa's 3rd Congressional District
DES MOINES, Iowa — State Senator Sarah Trone Garriot has announced she is running for U.S. Congress.
The Democrat from West Des Moines reavealed Monday morning she is running for Iowa's 3rd Congressional District. If she earns the party's nomination, she'll likely face incumbent Republican Congressman Zach Nunn in the 2026 election.
Trone Garriott was first elected to the Iowa Senate in November 2020, serving a term for the 22nd District. Because of redistricting, she and her family moved to the 14th District in 2022, and her bid was successful to oust then-Senate President Jake Chapman.
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In her announcement video, Trone Garriott said, 'I'm the only Iowa Democrat who flipped two seats from red to blue then won a district that went to Trump in 2024. I know how to win and I know how to deliver for Iowans.'
She also took aim at her presumptive opponent, Rep. Zach Nunn. 'Zach Nunn has failed us as Iowa struggles with higher costs, attacks on our personal freedoms, and reckless cuts to our public schools. Zach Nunn is not showing up, he's not listening, and he's not working for us.'
Trone Garriott is the coordinator of interfaith engagement at the Des Moines Area Religious Council. She's been with the organization since 2017. She's also an ordained pastor through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Trone Garriott is the mother of two sons, who attend public school in West Des Moines. She is married to William Garriott, a law professor at Drake University.
The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement on Trone Garriott's decision to run:
'Out of touch Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott is another activist attempting to radicalize Iowa – pushing a dangerous, extreme agenda that would raise costs, allow men in girls' sports, and weaken public safety. Iowans want leaders who deliver commonsense results, and that's exactly why they'll send Zach Nunn back to Congress.'
NRCC Spokeswoman Emily Tuttle
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Trone Garriott running for Iowa's 3rd Congressional District
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Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Republicans and Economists at Odds Over Whether Megabill Will Spur Growth Boom
WASHINGTON—Republicans see a golden age of prosperity ahead, driven by the tax-and-spending megabill they are trying to push through Congress by July 4. Nonpartisan experts project far more modest effects, forecasting a slight near-term economic expansion and larger federal budget deficits. The growth debate is at the core of this summer's fiscal fight. Republicans are trying to focus public attention on growth—from tax cuts, deregulation and fossil-fuel production—and play down the Congressional Budget Office estimate that the bill would increase budget deficits by $2.4 trillion through 2034. The White House highlights growth to bolster congressional support, countering claims from Elon Musk and others that the package irresponsibly darkens America's fiscal picture. 'Sextortion' Scams Involving Apple Messages Ended in Tragedy for These Boys The U.S. Economy Is Headed Toward an Uncomfortable Summer I Got Burned by the 401(k) 'Hierarchy Trap' Test Yourself Against These Teen Personal-Finance Whizzes, Round 2 Republicans and outside economists agree on the basic direction: tax cuts increase consumer spending and business investment, accelerating short-term growth. But they differ vastly on how large and meaningful that jump would be. The bill, according to public- and private-sector economists, would fall far short of Republicans' hoped-for boom. 'We would expect some dynamic revenue, some revenue feedback in that larger economy,' said Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, which favors lower tax rates and a simpler system. 'But it wouldn't come close to paying for itself.' President Trump said in a social-media post last month that the U.S. annual growth rate would triple or even quintuple the 1.8% in CBO's January forecast, which doesn't incorporate the effects of any GOP policies. Since 2005, real U.S. gross domestic product growth hit or exceeded 3% twice: in 2018 after the 2017 tax cuts, and in 2021 during the recovery from the pandemic. House Republicans assume a 2.6% growth rate, yielding enough revenue to cover the megabill's deficits. 'The economy is going to explode in capital formation. Jobs will increase. Wages will increase,' Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) said after meeting with Trump last week. 'We're going to see the kind of growth and strength that this country wants.' Broadly, economists across the political spectrum discount elected officials' predictions. Tax Foundation: The conservative-leaning group estimates that the bill would boost long-term GDP by 0.8%, generating enough revenue to cover about one-third of its costs. That is compared with doing nothing and letting tax cuts expire Dec. 31. The gain is like adding an average of 0.1 percentage point to the annual growth rate; reaching 3% would require much larger changes, Watson said. Penn Wharton: Its budget model projects a 0.4% increase in GDP over the first decade. That is equivalent to raising the annual growth rate to 1.85% from 1.8%. 'Basically, I would call this flat,' said Kent Smetters, who runs the Penn model. 'We all know this is all going to get swamped by all the randomness.' Joint Committee on Taxation: The nonpartisan congressional scorekeeper projected that the bill's tax components would produce short-run growth through increased labor supply and capital stock. That would be counteracted by rising budget deficits, with a net effect of taking 1.83% annual growth to 1.86%. JCT estimates that the bill's tax provisions would cover less than 3% of their costs with revenue from economic growth. Yale Budget Lab: The think tank says the bill would bump the growth rate roughly to 2% from 1.8% through 2027, before the drag of federal debt weakens and reverses that effect. Those all contrast with the view of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, which has a far rosier scenario. It projects a 4.2% to 5.2% increase in short-term GDP and a long-term gain of 2.9% to 3.5%. That gain would be three to four times the Tax Foundation estimate, which itself is larger than Penn Wharton, Yale or JCT. Economists caution that tax policy can't move the needle much in the U.S. economy, particularly given higher costs and uncertainty caused by tariffs. Still, putting money in taxpayers' pockets could increase demand for goods and services. Lower business taxes—especially faster write-offs for equipment and factories—encourage investment and have the biggest bang for the buck. Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran said growth after 2017 demonstrates that the Republican formula can work. The economy and incomes grew solidly in 2018 and 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic scrambled everything. 'When Americans elected President Trump, they did so knowing that he was a pro-growth president,' Miran said. 'The bill is going to create a vibrant, dynamic economy.' Miran added that federal taxes as a share of GDP was barely unchanged from fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2024. According to CBO, revenue was 17.3% of GDP in 2017 and 17.1% in 2024. 'There was no long-term hole in revenues,' Miran said. But before the tax cuts passed, CBO forecast revenue increasing to 18.3% in 2024, and the law changed that trajectory. One of the most thorough academic studies found that the 2017 law increased domestic business investment but didn't come close to paying for itself. The Tax Foundation's Watson said policymakers should expect a more muted response from extending the 2017 tax cuts than from creating them. The bill includes new and revived business incentives but schedules them to expire. 'It's pro-growth,' Watson said. 'The more you add in some of these gimmicks and temporary changes, the more watered-down it gets.' Senators including James Lankford (R., Okla.) and Steve Daines (R., Mont.) are seeking changes to encourage growth. They are particularly focused on making permanent some business-tax provisions such as immediate deductions for equipment purchases. 'If you have an expiration, you just don't get predictability,' Lankford said. Capital-investment incentives would be muted because tariff uncertainty complicates business planning, said Seth Carpenter, global chief economist at Morgan Stanley, which estimates that the bill would boost growth in 2026 before turning neutral and then negative. Some projects might make sense with high tariffs but not lower ones. Even with the bill's new deduction for factory expenses, without tariff certainty, Carpenter said, 'I don't think you're going to be in any sort of hurry to start breaking ground.' Kimberly Clausing, a former Biden administration economist now at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she worries about the drag from budget deficits. 'If they failed,' she said, 'I actually think that would be the best possible macroeconomic outcome.' 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Atlantic
34 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Where Is Barack Obama?
Last month, while Donald Trump was in the Middle East being gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, Barack Obama headed off on his own foreign excursion: a trip to Norway, in a much smaller and more tasteful jet, to visit the summer estate of his old friend King Harald V. Together, they would savor the genteel glories of Bygdøyveien in May. They chewed over global affairs and the freshest local salmon, which had been smoked on the premises and seasoned with herbs from the royal garden. Trump has begun his second term with a continuous spree of democracy-shaking, economy-quaking, norm-obliterating action. And Obama, true to form, has remained carefully above it all. He picks his spots, which seldom involve Trump. In March, he celebrated the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and posted his annual NCAA basketball brackets. In April, he sent out an Easter message and mourned the death of the pope. In May, he welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ('a fellow Chicagoan') and sent prayers to Joe Biden following his prostate-cancer diagnosis. No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His 'audacity of hope' presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement. Obama occasionally dips into politics with brief and unmemorable statements, or sporadic fundraising emails (subject: 'Barack Obama wants to meet you. Yes you.'). He praised his law-school alma mater, Harvard, for 'rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt' by the White House 'to stifle academic freedom.' He criticized a Republican bill that would threaten health care for millions. He touted a liberal judge who was running for a crucial seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When called upon, he can still deliver a top-notch campaign spiel, donor pitch, convention speech, or eulogy. Beyond that, Obama pops in with summer and year-end book, music, and film recommendations. He recently highlighted a few articles about AI and retweeted a promotional spot for Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, a new Netflix documentary from his and Michelle's production company. (Michelle also has a fashion book coming out later this year: 'a celebration of confidence, identity, and authenticity,' she calls it.) Apparently, Barack is a devoted listener of The Ringer 's Bill Simmons Podcast, or so he told Jimmy Kimmel over dinner. In normal times, no one would deny Obama these diversions. He performed the world's most stressful job for eight years, served his country, made his history, and deserved to kick back and do the usual ex-president things: start a foundation, build a library, make unspeakable amounts of money. But the inevitable Trump-era counterpoint is that these are not normal times. And Obama's detachment feels jarringly incongruous with the desperation of his longtime admirers—even more so given Trump's assaults on what Obama achieved in office. It would be one thing if Obama had disappeared after leaving the White House, maybe taking up painting like George W. Bush. The problem is that Obama still very much has a public profile—one that screams comfort and nonchalance at a time when so many other Americans are terrified. 'There are many grandmas and Rachel Maddow viewers who have been more vocal in this moment than Barack Obama has,' Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, told me. 'It is heartbreaking,' he added, 'to see him sacrificing that megaphone when nobody else quite has it.' People who have worked with Obama since he left office say that he is extremely judicious about when he weighs in. 'We try to preserve his voice so that when he does speak, it has impact,' Eric Schultz, a close adviser to Obama in his post-presidency, told me. 'There is a dilution factor that we're very aware of.' 'The thing you don't want to do is, you don't want to regularize him,' former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close Obama friend and collaborator, told me. When I asked Holder what he meant by 'regularize,' he explained that there was a danger of turning Obama into just another hack commentator—' Tuesdays With Barack, or something like that,' Holder said. Like many of Obama's confidants, Holder bristles at suggestions that the former president has somehow deserted the Trump opposition. 'Should he do more? Everybody can have their opinions,' Holder said. 'The one thing that always kind of pisses me off is when people say he's not out there, or that he's not doing things, that he's just retired and we never hear from him. If you fucking look, folks, you would see that he's out there.' From the April 2016 issue: The Obama doctrine Obama's aides also say that he is loath to overshadow the next generation of Democratic leaders. They emphasize that he spends a great deal of time speaking privately with candidates and officials who seek his advice. But unfortunately for Democrats, they have not found their next fresh generational sensation since Obama was elected 17 years ago (Joe Biden obviously doesn't count). Until a new leader emerges, Obama could certainly take on a more vocal role without 'regularizing' himself in the lowlands of Trump-era politics. Obama remains the most popular Democrat alive at a time of historic unpopularity for his party. Unlike Biden, he appears not to have lost a step, or three. Unlike with Bill Clinton, his voice remains strong and his baggage minimal. Unlike both Biden and Clinton, he is relatively young and has a large constituency of Americans who still want to hear from him, including Black Americans, young voters, and other longtime Democratic blocs that gravitated toward Trump in November. 'Should Obama get out and do more? Yes, please,' Tracy Sefl, a Democratic media consultant in Chicago, told me. 'Help us,' she added. 'We're sinking over here.' Obama's conspicuous scarcity while Trump inflicts such damage isn't just a bad look. It's a dereliction of the message that he built his career on. When Obama first ran for president in 2008, his former life as a community organizer was central to his message. His campaign was not merely for him, but for civic action itself—the idea of Americans being invested in their own change. Throughout his time in the White House, he emphasized that 'citizen' was his most important title. After he left office in 2017, Obama said that he would work to inspire and develop the next cohort of leaders, which is essentially the mission of his foundation. It would seem a contradiction for him to say that he's devoting much of his post-presidency to promoting civic engagement when he himself seems so disengaged. To some degree, patience with Obama began wearing thin when he was still in office. His approval ratings sagged partway through his second term (before rebounding at the end). The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013 was a fiasco, and the midterm elections of 2014 were a massacre. Obama looked powerless as Republicans in Congress ensured that he would pass no major legislation in his second term and blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'Obama, out,' the president said in the denouement of his last comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in 2016. In Obama lore, this mic-drop moment would instantly become famous—and prophetic. After Trump's first victory, Obama tried to reassure supporters that this was merely a setback. 'I don't believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes,' he said in an interview with The New Yorker. Insofar as Obama talked about how he imagined his post-presidency, he was inclined to disengage from day-to-day politics. At a press conference in November 2016, Obama said that he planned to 'take Michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, and do some writing, do some thinking.' He promised to give Trump the chance to do his job 'without somebody popping off in every instance.' But in that same press conference, he also allowed that if something arose that raised 'core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes.' That happened almost immediately. A few days after vowing in his inaugural address to end the 'American carnage' that he was inheriting, Trump signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The so-called Muslim travel ban would quickly be blocked by the courts, but not before sowing chaos at U.S. points of entry. Obama put out a brief statement through a spokesperson ('the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion'), and went on vacation. Trump's early onslaught made clear that Obama's ex-presidency would prove far more complicated than previous ones. And Obama's taste for glamorous settings and famous company—Richard Branson, David Geffen, George Clooney—made for a grating contrast with the turmoil back home. 'Just tone it down with the kitesurfing pictures,' John Oliver, the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, said of Obama in an interview with Seth Meyers less than a month after the president left office. 'America is on fire,' Oliver added. 'I know that people accused him of being out of touch with the American people during his presidency. I'm not sure he's ever been more out of touch than he is now.' Oliver's spasm foreshadowed a rolling annoyance that continued as Trump's presidency wore on: that Obama was squandering his power and influence. 'Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That's very nice of him,' the anti-Trump writer Drew Magary wrote in a Medium column titled 'Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?' in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.' Obama did insert himself in the 2024 election, reportedly taking an aggressive behind-the-scenes role last summer in trying to nudge Biden out of the race. He delivered a showstopper speech at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned several times for Kamala Harris in the fall. But among longtime Obama admirers I've spoken with, frustration with the former president has built since Trump returned to office. While campaigning for Harris last year, Obama framed the stakes of the election in terms of a looming catastrophe. 'These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections,' he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Yet now that the impact is unfolding in the most pernicious ways, Obama seems to be resuming his ordinary chill and same old bits. Green, of the Progressive Change Institute, told me that when Obama put out his March Madness picks this year, he texted Schultz, the Obama adviser. 'Have I missed him speaking up in other places recently?' Green asked him. 'He did not respond to that.' (Schultz confirmed to me that he ignored the message but vowed to be 'more responsive to Adam Green's texts in the future.') Being a former president is inherently tricky: The role is ill-defined, and peripheral by definition. Part of the trickiness is how an ex-president can remain relevant, if he wants to. This is especially so given the current president. 'I don't know that anybody is relevant in the Trump era,' Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, who wrote a book called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Trump has succeeded in creating a reality in which every president who came before is suspect. 'All the standard rules of being an ex-president are no longer applicable,' he said. Still, Obama never presented himself as a 'standard rules' leader. This was the idea that his political rise was predicated on—that change required bold, against-the-grain thinking and uncomfortable action. Clearly, Obama still views himself this way, or at least still wants to be perceived this way. (A few years ago, he hosted a podcast with Bruce Springsteen called Renegades.) From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president Stepping into the current political melee would not be an easy or comfortable role for Obama. He represents a figure of the past, which seems more and more like the ancient past as the Trump era crushes on. He is a notably long-view guy, who has spent a great deal of time composing a meticulous account of his own narrative. 'We're part of a long-running story,' Obama said in 2014. 'We just try to get our paragraph right.' Or thousands of paragraphs, in his case: The first installment of Obama's presidential memoir, A Promised Land, covered 768 pages and 29 hours of audio. No release date has been set for the second volume. But this might be one of those times for Obama to take a break from the long arc of the moral universe and tend to the immediate crisis. Several Democrats I've spoken with said they wish that Obama would stop worrying so much about the 'dilution factor.' While Democrats struggle to find their next phenom, Obama could be their interim boss. He could engage regularly, pointing out Trump's latest abuses. He did so earlier this spring, during an onstage conversation at Hamilton College. He was thoughtful, funny, and sounded genuinely aghast, even angry. He could do these public dialogues much more often, and even make them thematic. Focus on Trump's serial violations of the Constitution one week (recall that Obama once taught constitutional law), the latest instance of Trump's naked corruption the next. Blast out the most scathing lines on social media. Yes, it might trigger Trump, and create more attention than Obama evidently wants. But Trump has shown that ubiquity can be a superpower, just as Biden showed that obscurity can be ruinous. People would notice. Democrats love nothing more than to hold up Obama as their monument to Republican bad faith. Can you imagine if Obama did this? some Democrat will inevitably say whenever Trump does something tacky, cruel, or blatantly unethical (usually before breakfast). Obama could lean into this hypocrisy—tape recurring five-minute video clips highlighting Trump's latest scurrilous act and title the series 'Can You Imagine If I Did This?' Or another idea—an admittedly far-fetched one. Trump has decreed that a massive military parade be held through the streets of Washington on June 14. This will ostensibly celebrate the Army's 250th anniversary, but it also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday. The parade will cost an estimated $45 million, including $16 million in damage to the streets. (Can you imagine if Obama did this?) The spectacle cries out for counterprogramming. Obama could hold his own event, in Washington or somewhere nearby. It would get tons of attention and drive Trump crazy, especially if it draws a bigger crowd. Better yet, make it a parade, or 'citizen's march,' something that builds momentum as it goes, the former president and community organizer leading on foot. This would be the renegade move. Few things would fire up Democrats like a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Obama. If nothing else, it would be fun to contemplate while Democrats keep casting about for their long-delayed future. 'The party needs new rising stars, and they need the room to figure out how to meet this moment, just like Obama figured out how to meet the moment 20 years ago,' Jon Favreau, a co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for the 44th president, told me. 'Unless, of course, Trump tries to run for a third term, in which case I'll be begging Obama to come out of retirement.'
Bloomberg
36 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
How the Republican Budget Bill Will Raise Your Electric Bill
Three years ago, largely in response to disruptions in the global energy supply triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, electricity prices in the US skyrocketed — and they have remained strikingly high, as the US grid is stressed by the growth in electric-car charging and a huge surge in data-center construction. To address rising consumer prices, America needs to generate more electricity. The budget bill currently being debated in the Senate would have the opposite effect. It would kneecap America's short-term wind and solar installations while undermining the hope for innovative new ' clean firm ' solutions such as geothermal and nuclear.
