Latest news with #Axios'
Axios
10 hours ago
- Business
- Axios
GOP tax chief says Trump bill will keep foreign nations "in check"
House Ways and Means chair Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said a measure in President Trump's proposed tax bill that takes aim at foreign investors is a way to keep other nations "in check." Why it matters: Wall Street is worried that a tax on foreign investment contained in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" could make overseas investors reluctant to buy U.S. assets — at a time they are already wary of U.S. policies. What they're saying: "A big concern is that foreign governments, based on agreements entered into by the Biden administration, is trying to suck away billions of dollars from U.S. companies," Smith told Axios' Neil Irwin at the Reagan National Economic Forum. "This is a way to help put them in check, so that they understand that if they do that to our businesses, there will be consequences for their actions. Hopefully it'll never take an effect," Smith said. Catch up quick: The provision, called Section 899, proposes increasing tax rates for foreign direct investment from countries with unfair tax policies, as judged by the Trump administration. So, for example, an overseas sovereign wealth fund that owns U.S. stocks and bonds could face a tax on the earnings on their investment. The fear is that such a levy turns off foreign investors at a crucial moment: there are concerns that the safe-haven status of U.S. assets is in question, which would make it more difficult to borrow. What to watch: Asked whether Smith was concerned about this possibility, the top tax lawmaker said discriminatory tax regimes were a risk to U.S. corporations. "We're the first country in 2017 that created a global minimum tax. They don't even accept our global minimum tax. That's completely unfair," Smith said. "We're being punished for actually following what they're trying to do," Smith added. The other side: "The measure risks detonating investor confidence and could set off a damaging pullback of foreign capital just as the US needs it most," said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, a financial advisory and asset management firm.
Axios
19 hours ago
- Business
- Axios
Ready or not, AI is starting to replace people
Businesses are racing to replace people with AI, and they're not waiting to first find out whether AI is up to the job. Why it matters: CEOs are gambling that Silicon Valley will improve AI fast enough that they can rush cutbacks today without getting caught short-handed tomorrow. While AI tools can often enhance office workers' productivity, in most cases they aren't yet adept, independent or reliable enough to take their places. But AI leaders say that's imminent — any year now! — and CEOs are listening. State of play: If these execs win their bets, they'll have taken the lead in the great AI race they believe they're competing in. But if they lose and have to backtrack, as some companies already are doing, they'll have needlessly kicked off a massive voluntary disruption that they will regret almost as much as their discarded employees do. Driving the news: AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios' Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen this week. Amodei argues the industry needs to stop "sugar-coating" this white-collar bloodbath — a mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting and other white-collar professions, especially entry-level gigs. Yes, but: Many economists anticipate a less extreme impact. They point to previous waves of digital change, like the arrival of the PC and the internet, that arrived with predictions of job-market devastation that didn't pan out. Other critics argue that AI leaders like Amodei have a vested interest in playing up the speed and size of AI's impact to justify raising the enormous sums the technology requires to build. By the numbers: Unemployment among recent college grads is growing faster than among other groups and presents one early warning sign of AI's toll on the white collar job market, according to a new study by Oxford Economics. Looking at a three-month moving average, the jobless rate for those ages 22 to 27 with a bachelor's degree was close to 6% in April, compared to just above 4% for the overall workforce. Between the lines: Several companies that made early high-profile announcements that they would replace legions of human workers with AI have already had to reverse course. Klarna, the buy now-pay later company, set out in 2023 to be OpenAI's "favorite guinea pig" for testing how far a firm could go at using AI to replace human workers — but earlier this month it reversed course, and rehiring support workers because customers want the option of talking to a real person. IBM predicted in 2023 that it would soon be able to replace around 8000 jobs with AI. Two years later, its CEO told the Wall Street Journal that so far the company has replaced a couple of hundred HR employees with AI — but increased hiring of software developers and salespeople. Zoom out: Every modern era of technological transformation has disrupted the labor market, from the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century to the assembly-line automation of the early 20th and the container ship-driven globalization of the millennium. The transitions have often been rough but economies emerged bigger and with more jobs, not less. Some AI experts fear the change could be so much faster with AI that there will be no time to adapt. Others view AI as a fundamentally different kind of tech that will force society to invent new approaches to jobs and salaries, like the notion of a universal basic income. Our thought bubble: Predicting employment levels has always been tough because there are so many complex variables to consider. Even if Amodei is right and AI cuts a devastating swath among office workers, there are other demographic forces at work that could make it harder for businesses to find the human workers they still need. For instance: The largest generation in history is retiring as Boomers age out of the workforce. The Trump administration is working overtime to limit immigration. Other black-swan crises will erupt that could boost or limit unemployment. What we're watching: The sociopolitical skews of AI's workforce impact are volatile and hold a great potential for splitting coalitions and dividing allies. The populist wing of Trump's MAGA movement is likely to resist AI-driven change even as the president's tech-insurgent allies push for more investment and weaker regulation. More broadly, Americans overall say that, unlike impatient CEOs and China-fearing office-holders, they want to see AI introduced with more care and less haste, per the 2025 Axios Harris 100 poll.
Axios
a day ago
- Business
- Axios
Musk's real DOGE legacy will be decided by courts long after his departure
Elon Musk's DOGE days are over — but the bruise on his reputation and a legacy wrapped in ongoing litigation remain. The big picture: DOGE-driven cuts wreaked havoc on federal workers, prompting a litany of lawsuits seeking to rein in Musk's chainsaw. As the billionaire departs, judges across the country could still unravel key parts of the effort for which he became the face. Musk, who arrived in D.C. as a political outsider with unprecedented power, will depart the capital with his boasts of government savings contested, his favorability ratings deflated and his brands battered, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. How history remembers his turbulent tenure could in part be determined by the courts. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment. Driving the news: Ongoing legal battles over record transparency, firings at the U.S. Institute of Peace and various federal agencies, budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and access to sensitive personal information — among others — could hobble DOGE's reach long after Musk's departure. The latest: On Tuesday, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general accusing Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations to move forward. The states alleged Musk holds "virtually unchecked power" over the executive branch. As he closes the door on his time at DOGE, the remnants of that power remain — though not everything went to plan during Musk's roughly four-month tenure. By the numbers: Musk started with an audacious goal to find $2 trillion in savings through DOGE, which was originally set to sunset July 4, 2026. According to the most recent update to DOGE's website, the cost-cutting initiative claims only $175 billion in savings — though it's backtracked on its claims in the past. That estimate includes workforce reductions, which have seen more than 120,000 federal employees laid off or targeted for layoffs, per CNN's count. Those cuts have rocked D.C.'s economy and massively stressed the bureaucracy. Some workers have been caught in cycles of being fired and re-hired with no guarantee their job will stick. Catch up quick: Musk on Wednesday thanked President Trump for "the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending" as his time as a special government employee comes to its end. The mission of DOGE, he wrote, "will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government." What we're watching: The White House plans to send a $9.4 billion rescissions package to Congress next week, an administration official told Axios' Hans Nichols, to give lawmakers the chance to codify some of the cuts identified by DOGE.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrats Aren't Punishing Anyone For Their 'Original Sin'
Earlier this month, an adviser to Democratic donors texted me to ask if I had a copy of 'Original Sin,' the new book from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson chronicling former President Joe Biden's 'decline, its cover-up and his disastrous choice to run again,' in the words of the book's subtitle. I told him I didn't have one yet. 'I want to know if there's anyone else we should be mad at,' the adviser, who requested anonymity to preserve relationships, texted back. Even before the arrival of 'Original Sin,' most leading Democrats had landed on a quartet of Biden advisers as clear villains in the tale of Biden's physical, mental and political decline: first lady Jill Biden; Anthony Bernal, one of her top aides who seemingly managed to accumulate power through loyalty, gossip and fashion advice; strategist Mike Donilon; and lobbyist-turned-adviser Steve Ricchetti. Biden and those four, the Democratic Party's internal narrative goes, created a White House environment where bad news was snuffed out before it could reach the principal's ears, enabling an autopilot decision to run an aging and unpopular president for reelection with no backup plan if things went awry. The result? A revitalized Donald Trump threatening America with the very authoritarianism Biden's initial bid for the presidency was built around stopping, and a Democratic Party left listless and aimless. For two decades, HuffPost has been fearless, unflinching, and relentless in pursuit of the truth. to keep us around for the next 20 — we can't do this without you. All of the above advisers are so closely tied to Biden, whose unpopularity has already rendered him nearly persona non grata when it comes to the future of the Democratic Party, that there is little question they, too, will face a form of political exile. The question now facing Democrats is simple: Who still needs to say 50 Hail Marys as penance? Did anyone else commit a mortal sin deserving of banishment? A week after the book's release, the party seems to have made its decision: Not really. Party leaders and potential 2028 candidates are happy to say Biden should not have run again, but seem reluctant to draw any further conclusions about what it means for the party's decision-making process or who should play a role in shaping its future. So far, the number of Democrats publicly calling out additional top officials is small. Megadonor John Morgan, not known for his bashfulness, suggested top Biden officials should be 'disqualified' from a future in the party. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, now running for governor of California, has demanded that both former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and former Vice President Kamala Harris be upfront with voters about what they knew about Biden's condition. (Harris is a potential candidate for governor, and Becerra, like Villaraigosa, has already announced a bid.) 'People around the president were intentionally complicit, or told outright lies in a systematic cover-up to keep Joe Biden's mental decline from the public,' Villaraigosa told HuffPost, noting the book specifically says Biden once mixed up Becerra with another Latino member of the Cabinet. 'We've come to learn that this cover-up included two prominent California politicians. What did they know? When did they know it? Why didn't they say anything?' Harris didn't respond to a request for comment. Becerra, in a statement, simply said he 'met with President Biden when needed to make important decisions and to execute with my team at HHS.' 'It's clear the president was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic,' Becerra said. 'And we delivered.' Those looking for new villains in the pages of 'Original Sin' might not find what they are looking for. The book does not necessarily indict specific acts — if the actions it describes count as a cover-up, there's no shredding of confidential documents or witnesses bribed. Instead, it indicts a style of governance in which a small number of close advisers hold disproportionate sway and keep upsetting information from reaching the president's ears while they insist on a reality of a fully functioning president not matched by evidence — one that would be scandalous even if Joe Biden was winning back-to-back episodes of 'Jeopardy!' The most glaring consequence of this, in the book, is Biden's repeated belief in polls indicating he was winning the 2024 election against now-President Trump. Over and over again, Biden attempts to reassure interlocutors by telling them polls show he (and sometimes only he) is beating Trump. This, to put it lightly, was not actually the state of polling in late 2023 and early-to-mid-2024. One example: On July 3, 2024, Democratic governors from around the country flew into Washington to meet with Biden in the aftermath of his debate disaster. During the meeting, the president insisted polls showed him as the candidate best positioned to beat Trump (they didn't) and that voters cared more about saving democracy than about Biden's health (they also didn't). Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, on the way out of the meeting, confronted Ricchetti about the discrepancy between Biden's confidence and the polls the governors were seeing, which showed Trump gaining ground in blue states like New Mexico and Maine. 'The president's referencing polls where he's leading,' Healey told Ricchetti. 'What polls is he referencing? Because they're different from the polls that governors are seeing in our states.' 'I've been doing this for 30 years,' Ricchetti responded. 'I know polls.' A Biden spokesperson didn't address how the White House worked during the Biden administration, instead issuing a statement reiterating the former president's fitness for office: 'There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy. Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the president wasn't otherwise engaged in the important matters of the presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective president who led our country with empathy and skill.' The others blamed are similarly unapologetic. In an appearance in February at Harvard, Donilon blamed the party for abandoning Biden after what he insisted was a single bad debate performance. 'It was getting written as this fact, 'Oh, Biden was mentally impaired,'' he said. 'I don't know how much time any of those people spent with him — I know how much time I spent with him. I know what I saw.' Tapper and Thompson's prodigious reporting — they interviewed more than 200 people, most of them after the 2024 election — does name and at least attempts to shame many other Biden loyalists, particularly those who led the charge in combating journalists and others who questioned Biden's vitality. But other high-profile figures in Biden's orbit mostly escape direct blame. Jeff Zients, Biden's second chief of staff, often seems like a background character, warranting just 31 mentions across the book's 332 pages. Other key players, like Biden's first chief of staff, Ron Klain, leave the White House after the midterms and aren't present as Biden's decline accelerates. Anita Dunn, the White House's communications guru, may be the Biden insider with the most to theoretically lose. She played a key role in blessing and running Future Forward, the super PAC that raised $560 million to support Biden and then Harris in the 2024 election. It's unclear if Future Forward will remain the major Democratic super PAC going forward, and a broader backlash to Biden world could snuff out its hopes. Dunn is mentioned just 27 times. (For comparison's sake, Donilon warrants 80 mentions and Ricchetti 59.) Some Democratic donors told me they are devoting additional skepticism to pitches from Biden-linked operatives, but there appears to be little desire for a party-wide reckoning. When I asked Villaraigosa, for instance, if he would no longer consider hiring former Biden operatives on his campaign, he demurred and kept the focus on higher-ranking officials. 'I only know what I read,' he said. 'The book focuses primarily on his coterie of advisers, the Cabinet and the vice president.' Other Democratic elites consider the book little more than a distraction driven by a hype machine that invariably spins up behind a book co-written by one of CNN's highest-profile anchors, and would prefer the party push forward and focus on countering the authoritarianism Biden's decision ultimately enabled. Others acknowledge the problem but have simply moved on to worrying about podcasts. A handful still have their heads in the sand. Does the party need to do more to repair its relationship with voters? In an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, Tapper said as much. 'I think one of the reasons the Democratic Party's numbers are still so low is that they have not reckoned with the lies that they told about this,' Tapper said. 'These are not lies about tariffs. These are not lies about economic policy or things that I don't fully understand as the average voter. These are lies about things that we all perfectly understand: aging, colds, being addled, not being your best. These are things that we all have access to.' Very few party operatives seem to agree. Most believe these questions about Biden's fitness for office won't haunt the party for long, enabling political comebacks for those close to Biden and allowing the party as a whole to move past the recent unpleasantness. 'It's much more important for the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee to be able to answer tough questions about Joe Biden's immigration policy than for them to be able to answer tough questions about his age,' said an adviser to a prospective presidential candidate, requesting anonymity to predict the future.
Axios
2 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Utah day care costs for two children balloon
Daycare for one toddler and one infant in Utah on average costs approximately $24,000 a year, according to data from Child Care Aware, an advocacy group. By the numbers: To put it in perspective, that's roughly $5,400 more annually than you'd pay for the average one-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City. The big picture: The cost of child care in the U.S. just keeps climbing as prices rose 29% from 2020 to 2024, outpacing overall inflation, Axios' Emily Peck reports. Why it matters: Rising costs put a huge financial strain on families, forcing some parents — typically women — to either ratchet back their working hours or leave the labor force entirely. For single parents, the calculus can be even more painful. It's also a drag on economic growth overall. By the numbers: The average annual cost of daycare tuition nationwide for one toddler and one infant rose to $28,168 last year, per the report. That's about 35% of median household annual income in the U.S., based on Census data released in 2024. Between the lines: The percentages are no less brutal in states with higher incomes. The cost of care for two children in Massachusetts is $47,012 — 44% of the median household income in that state. Zoom out: The U.S. doesn't have publicly funded universal childcare. However, the federal government does put money into the system for kids in low-income families through block grants to the states, as well as Head Start, the decades-old federal program that provides childcare, nutrition assistance and other services to the nation's poorest families There were worries that the White House would stop funding Head Start, but the administration has said that won't happen. Yes, but: President Trump's budget proposals look to keep federal funding levels for child care flat next year — that's effectively a cut given inflation, says Anne Hedgepeth, senior vice president of policy and research at Child Care Aware.
