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Republicans sharpen knives for China with eye on House majority

House Republicans plan to put sharp scrutiny on China next year if they win the majority, including establishing a select committee to take on Beijing on a range of economic and military issues.

And while much of the their agenda consists of aggressively investigating the Biden administration and pushing partisan priorities, Republicans are hopeful that work on China and the select committee will be a largely bipartisan, non-adversarial venture that has lasting impacts in tackling a generational challenge.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a member of House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, said that there is “huge opportunity in divided government” to get “bipartisan work” done on China.

Creating a China select committee has been a longtime goal of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who tried to work with Democrats to create one in 2020.

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Republicans say, pulled Democrats out of a planned China panel the day before the original launch date that February, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Washington Post reported at the time that Democrats had concerns about the China issue being too politicized.

After plans for a bipartisan group crumbled, McCarthy organized a House GOP China “Task Force,” led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Despite the task force lacking Democratic participation, McCarthy flaunted to Roll Call later that year that “more than 60 percent of the ideas are bipartisan.” A select committee would be a continuation of that effort.

Some proposals from members on the GOP China Task Force were included in a $280 billion bill to boost domestic chip manufacturing industry and fund scientific research that was passed and signed into law earlier this year. House GOP leaders whipped against the final version of the bill, however, over larger political and tax objections. 

“This really isn’t just a military effort, or even a whole-of-government effort,” said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), but an “all-of-society effort.” 

Waltz said he has experienced good bipartisan working relationships with Democrats when working on China policy that has a national-security focus. But he is not certain that would case on some domestic issues related to influence of the Chinese Communist Party — or for members who do not have access to classified information about Chinese threats.

“I just don’t know the appreciation for example, of some Democrats that are on Ed and Labor, and are they concerned about the amount of CCP-backed money flowing into university endowments? Or the number of university students who will get a visa to come to here on a liberal arts degree, and then switch their major to nanotechnology while here? And there’s no provision within our visa law to really kind of capture that,” Waltz said.

“There were kind of so many disparate, uncoordinated efforts going on that the task force really pulled a lot of that together,” said Waltz, a member of the Armed Services Committee who was also on the task force. 

Specific plans and focus for the select committee are in deliberation and may change depending on who is selected to be on it, but a person familiar with the plans expects it to put a large focus on domestic, economic and tech issues. Some standing committees with access to classified information take the lead on matters of hard military power.

Boosting U.S. competition with China in the tech space, the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in American universities and Beijing’s purchase of agricultural land in the U.S. are all possible areas of focus for a select committee, which is expected to collaborate with standing panels. McCarthy said in a September radio interview that he envisions the select committee focusing on China’s control of critical minerals, its stealing of U.S. technology and its fraught relationship with Taiwan.

“A select committee on China could go a long way towards coordinating policy across the many committee jurisdictions and thereby create a more coherent approach to our China policy,” said Gallagher, adding that it might also focus on human rights issues and “ideological warfare.”  

Both Gallagher and Waltz said that they are interested in looking at policy moves to incentivize rather than mandate the decoupling of supply chains that are too dependent on China.

“This will be won or lost economically way before it is militarily,” Waltz said.

GOP focus on Taiwan will extend far beyond the planned select committee. 

On the House Foreign Affairs Committee, likely to be chaired by McCaul in a GOP majority, weapons sales to Taiwan will be a large focus for Republicans, particularly with the Russian invasion of Ukraine stoking fears about a Beijing attack on the island.

“There’s a whole series of things you can do when it comes to hard power and deterrence over Taiwan,” Gallagher said.

McCaul has also called for a 90-day review of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and whether it is adequately enforcing compliance rules relating to trade and national security.

Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, plans to use his committee to dig into the origins of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan, China, with an eye on the theory that the virus originated in a lab.

China is also a top concern for the House Intelligence Committee.

“We know the Chinese Communist Party continues to invest and develop cyber, space, biological and nuclear weapons. Our members will continue to work with our Intelligence Community as well as our Congressional colleagues to best address these threats,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member on the Intelligence panel, said in a statement.

Source: TEST FEED1

House GOP lawmakers push permanent tax cuts amid soaring inflation

House Republicans on the chief tax-writing Ways and Means Committee are seeking to make the tax cuts and adjustments enacted in the 2017 overhaul of the tax system permanent, a move economists say would stimulate the economy at the same time the Federal Reserve is trying to rein in demand against 40-year-high inflation. 

Ways and Means Republicans touted a proposal on Wednesday that would extend tax provisions in the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It would renew a 20 percent deduction for businesses, maintain a higher standard deduction and extend lowered tax rates for households. 

Another bicameral measure proposed by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) would allow machinery costs to be written off as tax deductions when they’re purchased, as opposed to over time, and would effectively cost around $200 billion over 10 years. 

“[The tax cut] will begin to phase out — a huge hit to industry like farming, manufacturing and I’d just say business in general. They need capital the most. I’d like to highlight Jodey Arrington. He has a bill that will make full expensing permanent,” Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) said during a presentation Wednesday.

A write-up of that bill says it “makes permanent one of the most pro-growth policies in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: full and immediate expensing.” A write-up of Buchanan’s bill says it would “create certainty for the pro-growth provisions.” 

But economists say that cutting taxes and increasing the deficit at a time when persistent inflation needs to be tamed will only add fuel to the fire of price increases. Altogether, the tax cuts in the 2017 law added $1.9 trillion in government debt through 2028. 

“The method of financing is what matters. If it’s deficit financed, that’s going to have the highest risk of those tax changes playing into inflation at least in the short run. If it’s financed through other means, you’re not necessarily going to see that trade off,” Garrett Watson, an analyst with the Tax Foundation, said in an interview with The Hill. 

“The challenge and the ambiguity is that you’re doing two things at the same time. You are increasing long-run supply incentives, which are incentives to invest in the form of a 100 percent bonus, but you’re also in the short run, depending on the nature of how you finance it, feeding into the demand side,” he added. 

Asked whether the cuts will add to inflation and if Republicans are working in opposition to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, Ways and Means top Republican Kevin Brady (Texas) said that economic conditions were improved by the 2017 tax overhaul.

“Unlike the cruel economy of President Biden, under the modernized Republican tax code of 2017 America’s economy was growing, paychecks were rising twice as fast as inflation, jobs were coming back from overseas, millions of Americans were lifted out of poverty and communities enjoyed record business investment here in America,” Brady said in a statement to the Hill.

Data from the Labor Department released earlier this month showed that inflation has remained above 8 percent for seven months in a row. The Federal Reserve, in response, has raised the interest rates to slow economic activity and bring prices down. 

In the minutes of its latest rate-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve said that slower economic growth is specifically what would help inflation come down. 

“[Meeting] participants noted that a period of below-trend real GDP growth would help reduce inflationary pressures and set the stage for the sustained achievement of the Committee’s objectives of maximum employment and price stability,” the September meeting minutes read. 

“In light of the broad-based and unacceptably high level of inflation, the intermeeting news of higher-than-expected inflation, and upside risks to the inflation outlook, participants remarked that purposefully moving to a restrictive policy stance in the near term was consistent with risk-management considerations.” 

A June study published by the San Francisco Federal Reserve found that current inflation is caused more by supply factors than demand factors. “Supply factors explain about half of the run-up in current inflation levels” while “demand factors are responsible for about one-third, with the remainder resulting from ambiguous factors,” the study found. 

Some Republicans’ comments on Wednesday appeared to openly disagree with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. 

“All of this big government interventionist policy in the middle of a recession, by the way, including new taxes, has made real wages drop by $5,000. And here’s their answer: Let’s just pummel the American people more. Let’s try to solve this inflation problem with higher interest rates. Let’s try to reduce the growth of our economy instead of enhancing and letting loose the supply side,” Arrington, the Texas congressman, said. 

Other economists also pointed out that the GOP proposals could add to inflation.   

Harvard University economist Jason Furman quipped on Twitter that the Republican program could be dubbed the “Inflation Increasing Act of 2023.” 

Some economists have also noted that deficit-financed tax cuts just brought down the government of the United Kingdom, so the political sensitivity around such measures during a period of increased inflation is high. 

“Obviously we’ve seen what’s been happening in the U.K. If you push for unfunded tax cuts in a way that people don’t believe will be sustainable, that will be problematic,” the Tax Foundation’s Watson said. 

Analysts say that over a longer span of time, some of the proposed tax cut extensions could be deflationary but that the prospect of a recession may complicate those effects. 

“To the degree current inflation is caused by supply shortages, new equipment could produce more goods faster. So it would slow price increases,” Howard Gleckman of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center said in an email to The Hill. 

“But if we are headed for an economic slowdown, or even a recession, by the time the new equipment comes online demand for goods may slow. In that case, companies would have to pay off equipment (at high interest rates) that is not productive. That could prolong a slump,” he said. 
 

Source: TEST FEED1

Republicans take fresh look at New Hampshire Senate race

Republicans are refocusing on the New Hampshire Senate race with just two weeks left before the November midterms as recent polling shows Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D) lead against Republican Don Bolduc shrinking. 

The New Hampshire Senate seat had been seen as one of Republicans’ best pickup opportunities going into the midterm cycle. But the primary win by Bolduc, who aligned himself with former President Trump, followed by his lackluster fundraising and significant deficit in the polls took the race out of the spotlight.

Earlier this month, both the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm and a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slashed their spending in the race to divert resources to other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia.

But recent polling showing the two candidates within the margin of error coupled with a favorable political environment for Republicans encouraged the National Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC) to recommit resources toward the race earlier this week. 

Still, Republicans recognize Bolduc’s win will rely heavily on key issues like inflation and rising heat and gas prices — and on the national mood. 

“He’s within striking distance. The environment is helping carry him even though he has practically no money of his own. We’ll have to see,” one national GOP operative told The Hill. “Hassan is a very weak incumbent. … It’s a race where if the environment breaks nicely for Republicans, it could carry a Republican over the top. If he’s going to win, it’s going to be on the strength of the environment.”

A second GOP operative added that the race would be “close,” but cautioned that it’s going to “take the wave picking up to get him over the finish line.”

The NRSC’s decision earlier this week to jointly launch a seven-figure TV advertising campaign and recent polling have given Bolduc’s campaign a reason to feel bullish.

“It’s a dead-even race. Been that way for a while. … The momentum is on our side. It’s been on our side,” said Rick Wiley, a senior adviser to the Bolduc campaign. “The secret weapon is Don Bolduc. He out-hustles and outworks her. Why would you underestimate a battlefield general? … He just had to be given a chance.”

Wiley likened the final stages of this race to that of Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) 2014 victory, which he worked on while at the NRSC. He also argued the turning point of the race was the negotiation surrounding the number of debates the two candidates would take part in.

“Republicans rarely win the debate on debates. We won the debate on debates,” Wiley said. “This debate on debates is more of a debate about a career politician not thinking she has to talk to the voters and thinking she’s entitled to the seat and doesn’t have to earn. And Don Bolduc’s going out and earning it.”

But some Democrats are skeptical that the last-minute funds in the state will make a difference in the race.

“I don’t think that’s a major investment, and I don’t think it’s going to be enough to move the needle,” said Scott Merrick, senior adviser on the 2020 Biden campaign in New Hampshire.

 “And then you look at … why are they actually investing that amount of money? And back to my earlier point, I think that it’s because the initial message that they sent to the New Hampshire Republicans when they first pulled that money was not one of confidence in the Bolduc campaign, and I think they’re trying to right that ship from a messaging perspective,” he continued. “But from a practical standpoint, I don’t think [a] small seven-figure buy over the last two weeks is going to get the job done.”

And while Gov. Chris Sununu (R) is at the top of the ticket this cycle and regarded as a popular Republican within the state, Democrats doubt he’ll have coattails for the retired Army general.

During the primary, Sununu referred to Bolduc as “not a serious candidate” and “kind of a conspiracy theorist-type candidate” before touting him in the general election.

“You can turn around and hug him and endorse him, and Sununu can do whatever he wants to do and flirt with Bolduc, but he already told New Hampshire voters what he thinks of the guy, and I don’t know that you can take that back,” said Harrell Kirstein, who served as a Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-N.H.) 2020 campaign manager.

Still, the race isn’t a shoe-in for the senator either. Though Hassan was a recognizable name in the state when she ran for Senate in 2016 — she served as governor from 2013 to 2017 — she won her first term as senator by about a tenth of a percentage point. Hillary Clinton won the state in 2016 with three-tenths of a percentage point, while President Biden won the state by 7 points.

Hassan does have a major spending advantage in the final weeks, however. The incumbent Democrat raised $9.6 million in the third fundraising quarter and had $4.8 million in the bank at the end of September. Bolduc had only raised $972,000 and had $768,000 in the bank fresh off his primary win. Nevertheless, some Republicans believe that can be overcome.

“There’s virtually no runway for a candidate to go toe-to-toe on the fundraising front with an incumbent who has been running for six years. Bolduc is trying to make up for that with aggressive person to person, town to town campaigning,” said Jeff Grappone, who served as a top aide to former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.). “He showed he could win in the primary while being outspent.”

Republicans also believe they have an opening because they view Hassan as a relatively weak incumbent who has been buoyed by a number of factors over the past year, including the state’s late primary that leaves only eight weeks between then and Election Day and the lack of a top-tier general election candidate. 

“When [Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)] runs, there’s tangible signs of excitement. Hassan has zero presence,” said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire-based GOP operative.

Granite Staters are also grappling with persistently high inflation and bracing for high energy costs. An U.S. Energy Information Administration winter fuels outlook report for this month projected that natural gas prices would be 28 percent higher compared to last winter in addition to an expected 27 percent increase in heating oil costs. 

That’s especially troublesome given that the New Hampshire Department of Energy says that, within the past five years, the state is at 60 percent of the average level of heating fuel reserves, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. 

“Make no mistake: this is a very close race and national Republicans have made clear they are willing to spend big to elect Don Bolduc — the most extreme Senate nominee in modern New Hampshire history,” Hassan spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said in a statement. “We’ll continue to be clear about the contrast between Senator Hassan’s record of getting results with the fact that Don Bolduc would be a yes vote for a nationwide abortion ban, vote to end Social Security, and overturn our elections.” 

Nevertheless, Republicans see an opening — one that was considered exceedingly unlikely only weeks ago. 

“This was a state that was written off by the GOP apparatus,” said one GOP operative who is familiar with New Hampshire. “Bolduc is keeping his head down and working hard. … The way he’s running his campaign in sync with how voters on both sides of the aisles expect candidates to conduct their campaigns — retail politics and town halls.”

“Any New Hampshire candidate who runs and wins in a presidential year should know they will have to face the electorate in what might be a volatile year. … The pendulum swings hard. it swings fast,” the operative continued. “She now has to carry the baggage of Joe Biden and all of his warts into a tough reelect.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Cracks in US support for Ukraine risk helping Putin

Cracks are forming in what has largely been a united U.S. response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, with calls rising from the right and left for President Biden to push harder for peace talks.  

The push from figures ranging from former President Trump on the right to progressive leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on the left has thrust questions about the Biden administration’s strategy toward Ukraine into the fore as Kyiv has seized momentum on the battlefield. 

Supporters of current U.S. strategy say pressuring Ukraine into negotiations now would only help Russian leader Vladimir Putin. 

“It helps the Russians and it hurts the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians want the Russians out of their country. And right now they’re on track to do that,” said William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine now with the United States Institute of Peace. 

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) stirred up a hornet’s nest on Capitol Hill this week with the release of a letter calling for Biden to increase pressure on Kyiv to open negotiations with Moscow, and for the U.S. to explore direct talks with Russia.  

“The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks,” the 30 lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was retracted a day later amid intense criticism from within the Democratic Party.

One reason many Democrats were upset with the letter — a point Jayapal acknowledged when she withdrew it — was that it muddied a message the party is trying to send ahead of the midterms about how Republicans are a threat to U.S. unity behind Ukraine.

The letter came a week after Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) spurred concerns about GOP support for Ukraine with his warning that a Republican majority would not issue a “blank check” to Kyiv’s war efforts.  

Former President Trump has repeatedly pushed for peace talks in Ukraine while stumping for candidates ahead of November’s midterm elections.  

“With potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying, we must demand the immediate negotiation of the peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will be nothing left of our planet, all because stupid people didn’t have a clue,” Trump told a crowd in Arizona earlier this month. 

Other Republicans, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and former Vice President Mike Pence, have sought to push back on Republicans casting doubt on further support for Ukraine.

Kira Rudik, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament and leader of the liberal Golos party, attributed the strident remarks from U.S. politicians to election season and said that she expected a more united front to return in a few weeks.  

She said any peace deal that did not include the full restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty and security guarantees preventing Putin from attacking again would be unacceptable.  

“If I could talk to people who wrote this [CPC] letter … my question would be, OK, so what’s the plan? Because as of right now I have not seen any power or leader in the whole world who would say, OK, I’m taking it on myself that Putin will keep his word and he will not attack Ukraine again,” she told The Hill.  

“But what we are doing and we will continue doing is we are fighting and we will be fighting because this is our motherland and so far, nobody proved us wrong in terms of how you should act and how you should deal with Putin. You have to fight him back. There is no other way.” 

U.S. support for Ukraine’s military has been crucial to its successful counteroffensive that started in September and has kept up steady gains in the country’s eastern and southern fronts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top officials have often distilled their most urgent need down to one word: weapons.  

However, some groups pushing for peace say the U.S. is fueling the war by pouring weapons into Ukraine, and that it could pressure Ukraine to find a diplomatic solution by slowing or even freezing U.S. arms shipments.  

The Biden administration and Democratic leaders in Congress have held a firm line that the U.S. will support Ukraine until the war is won, and let Kyiv decide when it’s time for diplomacy. 

Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Code Pink, an anti-war advocacy group, helped lobby for the CPC letter, but said her organization wished it had gone further. She wanted lawmakers to call for freezing U.S. arms shipments and explain that the U.S. should engage in direct talks because it is responsible for “creating some of the context” that led to the war, such as the continued expansion of NATO in Russia’s backyard.  

Benjamin also cited former President John F. Kennedy’s reflection on the Cuban missile crisis, when he said nuclear powers “must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”   

Putin has stoked fears that he may resort to nuclear weapons, though on Thursday he said Russia has no plans to do so. Russian forces have occupied much of the Donbas in the Ukraine’s east and the Kremlin moved earlier this month to annex four regions — on top of Crimea, which it invaded and illegally annexed in 2014.  

Ukraine has set a basic precondition to talks that Russia leaves those territories, either voluntarily or by force, and a large majority of Ukrainians are against any territorial concessions in exchange for an end to Russian aggression.  

Medea said she expects more Ukrainians to soften their position as war casualties mount and after what is expected to be a brutal winter, with Russian missiles doing major damage to Ukraine’s energy system. And she said it’s in U.S. interests to make some concessions to Putin in order to end the bloodshed.  

“As Biden says, [Putin] needs an off ramp. Well, let’s give him one. I don’t think most Americans, if they were asked directly, do you know or care where that border in Donbas is drawn? They won’t,” she said.  

Rudik, the Ukrainian lawmaker, said the integrity of Ukraine’s border was a question of life and death, as Ukraine has invariably found torture rooms, mass graves and raped women in areas once occupied by Russia.  

“The line that we are talking about is the line between human rights and democracy and fighting for freedom, and being stripped of human rights and any ability to exist,” she said.  

“So it’s incredibly painful to hear, but I also understand that when it is so far away, you can become numb to that. But I’m not numb to the atrocities that are happening to Ukrainian people and this is why we will be fighting.” 

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) this week called the progressive letter an “olive branch to Putin,” and told The Hill Thursday it’s not even worth debating what an eventual peace deal might look like.  

“I’m not going to prognosticate on that because you don’t negotiate against yourself, OK. What you do is you change the facts on the ground, and the facts on the ground drive the negotiations,” he said. 

Auchincloss, a Marine veteran, dismissed the argument from Code Pink and others that ending the war now could save thousands of lives.  

“What’s going to ultimately be most conducive to Ukraine’s prosperity and peace and to the postwar international order that is so critical for the well-being of so many in the world is that we send this stark message to Moscow and to Beijing that might doesn’t make right. And that you need to respect the laws of diplomacy and indeed the laws of war.” 

Taylor, the former ambassador, noted that a large majority of lawmakers were still aligned with the Biden administration, despite some of the recent criticism.

“Ukrainians listen very carefully to what Americans say. They’re comforted. They’re reassured when they observe … overwhelming support for assistance and continued weapons deliveries,” he said.

However, even if the majority of U.S. lawmakers remain in sync with Biden’s strategy, the perception of growing dissent in Washington risks emboldening Putin, said Hein Goemans, a political science professor at the University of Rochester who studies war.  

“These kinds of actions of McCarthy and of the progressive group really actually support Putin in the belief that he can break apart the Western coalition, so I think it’s horribly counterproductive,” he said. “These people should answer the question: What deal do you think Putin would accept and what do you think he would do afterwards? I mean, it’s just so short-sighted.” 

Goemans posits that for wars to end, both sides need to agree on the likely outcome. And at the moment, Ukraine has every reason to believe it can beat Russia, while Putin is doubling down rather than accepting defeat.  

He added that it’s incumbent upon the U.S. to communicate to Russia that whatever it does — even if Putin turns to nuclear weapons — the West will not force Ukraine to take a peace deal on unfavorable terms.  

While lawmakers may ultimately fall in line behind the Biden administration, the divisions and political damage may not fade so quickly.  

“On the progressive side, [it] makes them look like they’re weak in the sense of not supporting freedom, not supporting the autonomy of nation states. I don’t think they’re in a good position,” said Melvyn Levitsky, a longtime U.S. diplomat who is now a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School.  

He said the progressive caucus isn’t big enough to be starting such high-stakes debates. However, a GOP majority may prove trickier for Biden to deal with, and would likely use its oversight powers to push its own priorities and strike side deals with Democrats, Levistsky added.  

“Even if the Republicans take the majority … I don’t think that there will be a push to kind of draw back,” he said. “It’s not a Republican image. But there’s also some leverage in that position as well, and they’ll have leverage in at least one house across the board.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five takeaways from the Alaska Senate debate

Incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) faced off with her two challengers, Trump-backed Republican Kelly Tshibaka and Democrat Pat Chesbro, in Thursday night’s Alaska Senate debate less than two weeks ahead of the midterms.  

The three candidates touched on issues like abortion, inflation and election security in the hourlong debate, which was moderated by Alaska Public Media news director Lori Townsend and Alaska’s News Source managing editor Mike Ross. 

Murkowski and Tshibaka emerged as frontrunners in the state’s nonpartisan primary earlier this year, but Chesbro is still in the ring. The fourth candidate on the ballot, Buzz Kelley, suspended his campaign last month. 

Alaska’s elections now use a ranked choice voting system, in which voters rank their candidates by preference. The new setup, approved by Alaskan voters in 2020, allows both Murkowski and Tshibaka to be on the November ballot, even though they hail from the same party. 

Here are five takeaways from the Alaska Senate debate.  

Trump gets only a passing mention 

Former President Trump made Murkowski a top target after she and six other Republican senators broke rank with their party leader and voted to convict him on charges of “incitement of insurrection” over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump endorsed Tshibaka’s bid last year and has slammed the 20-year Republican senator as “worse than a Democrat.”  

But despite the former president’s concerted and high-profile efforts to influence the race and oust Murkowski, he got only a passing mention in Thursday’s debate.  

Asked by moderators whether Trump should testify before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 in compliance with the panel’s recent subpoena, Murkowski said the former president should answer the summons. 

“When a subpoena is issued to a former president it is not done lightly. I think this needs to be taken seriously. I think that he should accept and testify under subpoena. I doubt that he will,” Murkowski said. 

Tshibaka sidestepped the question, saying the legality of the subpoena is to be judged by the court system and arguing that the matter hasn’t been a core topic in her conversations with Alaskan voters. 

“The people who engaged in illegal activity that day were the ones who entered the Capitol and broke the laws and they should be held accountable,” Tshibaka said, declining to mention Trump by name in her response.  

Murkowski defends her record 

The incumbent senator underscored her bipartisan record across her two decades in the upper chamber, highlighting work with both Republicans and Democrats.  

She touted her work on the bipartisan infrastructure law, an effort championed by Democrats, and underscored her work with a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by “very conservative Republican” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on the Safer Communities Act.

On the subject of election security, she also noted her work on the bipartisan Electoral Count Act and said she has been “the only Republican that has, over the years, come forward” to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Act as a template for safer election laws. 

Murkowski also emphasized her moderate stance on the contentious issue of abortion. “The bipartisan effort that I have introduced in the United States Senate is one that, again, codifies Roe, but does so in ensuring that there are limitations,” she said.

Murkowski bucked her own party earlier this week to say she’d rank Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola first on her ballot in the state’s House race. 

Tshibaka paints opponent as extreme 

Though Murkowski owned her bipartisan policy choices, Trump-backed Tshibaka repeatedly sought to paint Murkowski as the extreme candidate, emphasizing the incumbent’s support for some Biden administration policies. 

Tshibaka accused Murkowski of confirming “radical environmentalist nominees” in the state in conformity with the Biden administration’s environmental approach and hit at her positions on abortion as “extreme.” She referred to Murkowski throughout the debate as “the incumbent.”  

Murkowski in turn took a stab at Tshibaka for her absence from Alaska in recent years. 

“Frankly, she’s been gone from the state for 28 years, and she’s out of touch with Alaskans and what Alaskans expect and want. Alaskans want results. They don’t want partisan political rhetoric,” Murkowski said.  

Alaska v. The Swamp 

Tshibaka more than once tried to tie Murkowski to dark money groups and donors affiliated with the Beltway, arguing that the incumbent is “beholden” to those groups.

“Unlike others, I haven’t accepted dark money from large, lower-48 commercial trawlers,” Tshibaka said. 

“Why are you beholden to lower-48 and D.C. dark money that doesn’t care about our Alaska future?” she asked Murkowski. 

The incumbent senator acknowledged that she received funding from outside of Alaska but insisted that Tshibaka “couldn’t be further from the truth” in her allegations of being beholden to those donors. 

“We recognize that there are outside groups that are weighing in, they’re weighing in on my campaign. They’re weighing in on your campaign… They’re weighing in on a host of different campaigns… But as a candidate, we know we can’t control that,” Murkowski said. 

“There is no Lisa Murkowski being beholden to any outside interests,” she added. 

A low-key affair

Ultimately, while the race between Tshibaka and Murkowski has drawn national attention as Trump and others wade in, Thursday’s debate didn’t provide any major fireworks and probably won’t significantly impact the outcome.

Still, as sedate as the debate was, there are still questions as to how the race will play out, thanks to the state’s new voting system. With ranked-choice voting, a candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to clinch the win outright.  

If no candidate secures that share in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped off the ballot — and those who ranked that candidate first will then have their votes shifted to their second choice. 

The system may end up being a boost for Murkowski, as she’ll likely snap up some support from Democrats who rank the moderate Republican as their second choice.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Musk officially closes Twitter deal: reports

Elon Musk officially owns Twitter after closing the deal by a court-imposed Friday deadline, according to multiple outlets, ending a six-month journey over his controversial $44 billion acquisition.

CNBC first reported Thursday evening that Musk had taken control of Twitter and the company’s CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Segal had left and would not be returning. Multiple outlets reported that Agrawal and Segal, along with other Twitter executives, were fired.

Musk’s agreement to buy Twitter faced several turns. The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO sought to back out of the deal in July, but earlier this month he agreed to follow through on the initial April agreement as he faced a lawsuit from Twitter.

A judge halted the trial earlier this month on the condition that he close the deal by Friday. 

Musk hasn’t disclosed his plans for Twitter in much detail, but he indicated he wants to pull back some content moderation measures in a way critics warn could lead to more hate speech and disinformation on the platform. 

It’s not clear if any changes to Twitter will be immediate enough to impact the approaching November midterm elections, but updates to Twitter’s policies could come ahead of the 2024 election.

One of the most high-profile changes Musk has indicated he would take is allowing former President Trump back on the platform. 

Trump was permanently banned from Twitter after posts he made about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capital last year were deemed to incite violence. Musk has said he disagrees with that decision, and could give Trump access to his account that lets him reach a wider audience ahead of a potential 2024 run. 

Trump has said he would not return to Twitter, preferring to stay on his own Truth Social, but observers have cast doubt on the idea that he could turn down such a large audience.

Despite Musk’s calls for a “free speech” platform, indicating a laxer approach to moderating content, he told investors in a public message Thursday that Twitter “obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump loses latest bid to shield tax returns from House committee

A federal court cleared the way Thursday for a Democratic-led House committee to review former President Trump’s tax returns, although the Supreme Court could still block the action.

Judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that courts won’t stand in the way of the House’s chief tax committee seeing Trump’s financial documents, denying a petition by the former president to reconsider a previous ruling.

Democrats on the committee were quick to show their approval of the ruling.

“The law has always been on our side,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”

Ways and Means oversight subcommittee Chairman Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said Trump’s tax records should be seen by the public.

“It has been 1,303 days since we made a legal demand for Trump’s tax returns – nearly as long as the Civil War. I’ve been leading this fight and never given up. Americans deserve to know exactly how far Trump’s crimes go,” he wrote on Twitter.

The case to obtain Trump’s returns is one of several long-standing lawsuits in which the Democratic-led House is trying to obtain records related to Trump, including tax returns.

Developing

Source: TEST FEED1

Why the GDP rebound isn't soothing recession concerns

U.S. economic growth rebounded sharply during the third quarter, according to data released by the Commerce Department Thursday, rising at an annualized rate of 2.6 percent and proving that the U.S. has avoided a recession thus far.

But beneath a strong headline number were several warning signs of a deeper slowdown ahead.

While household spending and exports helped fuel a strong quarter of growth, both are likely to fall as higher interest rates and inflated prices weigh on buyers.

Meanwhile, declines in business spending and other crucial economic engines are likely to accelerate as the global economy slows.

Here’s why the latest gross domestic product (GDP) estimate isn’t soothing recession anxiety.

Trade flows skewed our view of the economy

Much of the ebb and flow of U.S. GDP over the past year has been driven by short-term trade shocks fueled by the uneven recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the first six months of the year, U.S. households gobbled up imports and foreign buyers, reeling from global shocks, spent much less on American exports. While the U.S. economy was still somewhat strong, the imbalance turned GDP growth negative in the first and second quarters.

That dynamic reversed in the third quarter, according to the Commerce Department data released Thursday, as American households spent much less on imported goods and exports to foreign countries rebounded sharply, thanks in part to U.S. energy exports. 

But as Europe slips into recession, experts say the U.S. won’t be able to count on exports propping up growth again.

“We see signs of weakening trade flows in early Q4 with the precipitous decline in ocean freight rates and congestion at domestic ports in October highlighting the impacts of waning US domestic demand. Meanwhile, the strong dollar and weakening global demand will drag on exports,” wrote Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics, in a Thursday analysis.

The last hurrah for consumer spending?

Despite stubbornly high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates, consumer spending has grown over the past two years. Personal consumption expenditures, which make up roughly one-third of GDP, rose 1.4 percent in the third quarter after rising 2 percent in the second. 

Spending on goods has fallen steadily throughout the year, dipping 1.3 percent in the third quarter alone, after Americans spent far more on physical items than services for much of 2020-2021. Services spending rose 2.8 percent, but may also reflect higher prices for health care and shelter that are not subtracted from GDP data.

While the Federal Reserve may be heartened by slowing spending on goods, growth in services spending may prompt the bank to keep ratcheting up interest rates until households begin to pull back even more.

“Looking ahead, gradually cooling job growth and softening wage gains, coupled with depleting savings buffers, elevated prices and more costly borrowing rates, will constrain consumer spending,” Klachkin explained.

Softer domestic sales spell trouble

Consumer spending may still be on the rise, but another key driver of U.S. growth appears to be flattening out.

Final sales to private domestic purchasers — or, the money American households and businesses spend on U.S.-made goods and services — rose just 0.1 percent in the third quarter. It was the fourth quarter in a row the metric declined.

Economists use final sales to private domestic purchases to gauge how the economy is faring without the impact of volatile trade flows or federal government spending. Steady declines in these sales may lead to slower growth and hiring in the future.

The economy “clearly is at risk of falling into recession in the near term,” wrote Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at audit and tax firm RSM, in a Thursday analysis.

“It is critical that policymakers and firm managers prepare for a slowdown in demand.”

The housing sector is falling hard

While the U.S. economy has held up so far against rising interest rates, the housing sector is crumbling.

As home sales and prices plunged over the past three months, spending on residential construction plummeted 26.4 percent in the third quarter — almost 10 percentage points higher than the 17.8 percent decline in the second quarter. 

The Fed has likely triggered a recession within the housing sector by rapidly raising interest rates throughout the past year. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now north of 7 percent after being below 3 percent in early 2021, making homes increasingly unaffordable even as prices drop.

“Now both mortgage purchase applications and pending sales are below 2018 levels. A four-year setback is a serious correction. With mortgage rates still elevated, we are in for further sales declines, but those should eventually bring price relief to those who need to move this winter,” wrote Taylor Marr, Redfin deputy chief economist, in an analysis. 

Inflation is slowing, but not fast enough

One unequivocal bright spot from the Thursday GDP report was a steep drop in one measure of inflation.

Prices rose 4.2 percent during the third quarter, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Commerce Department’s inflation gauge. That’s much slower than the 7.3 percent inflation rate seen in the second quarter.

Slowing inflation may help assure Fed officials that their rapid interest rate hikes are having some dampening effect on price growth. Even so, the third quarter inflation rate is still twice the Fed’s annual target and just one of several ways the bank judges where prices are going.

“With inflation unlikely to retreat significantly in the near term, we expect the Fed to hike by another 75 [basis points] at next week’s November… meeting and 50 [basis points] in December” Klachkin wrote.

Source: TEST FEED1

Jan. 6 committee to seek interviews with Secret Service officials

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack is planning to seek interviews with a half-dozen current and former Secret Service officials, according to a source familiar.

Dates for the interviews have not yet been set but come after the committee was given more than 1 million electronic communications from the Secret Service after an internal watchdog notified the panel that some of its texts from Jan. 6 appeared to have been “erased.”

The development was first reported by CNN.

Among those the panel wishes to speak with are two men whose names were brought to the forefront of the probe following explosive testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who detailed a story relayed to her about how then-President Trump “lunged” at his security detail after being told they would not transport him to the Capitol to join his supporters.

Those men are Tony Ornato, who briefly stepped away from the Secret Service to take a civil role as Trump’s deputy chief of staff, and Bobby Engel, who led Trump’s security detail that day. Ornato relayed the story to Hutchinson in front of Engel, who was said to have witnessed the event.

Both men have previously sat with the panel, but the committee is also seeking information from the yet-to-be-named driver of the car when Trump allegedly reached toward the steering wheel.

The panel also wishes to speak with Secret Service leaders, including Director Kimberly Cheatle, who was the assistant director of protective operations on Jan. 6. 

Timothy Giebels, the head of former Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail, and Anthony Guglielmi, the agency’s communications director, are also of interest to the committee. Guglielmi didn’t join the agency until March of this year but handled its media response to the allegations laid out during Hutchinson’s testimony.

The Secret Service referred The Hill to the Jan. 6 committee for comment, and the panel did not immediately respond.

In a hearing earlier this month, the committee displayed new evidence it had gotten from the tranche of data turned over by the Secret Service — a cache that well exceeded what was asked for by the committee.

The panel showed intelligence reports, which corroborated earlier testimony from Hutchinson, showing that the Secret Service was well aware that Trump supporters gathered near the Ellipse prior to the attack on the Capitol were heavily armed, preventing them from entering the secure area where Trump was speaking. 

They also showed segments of an interview with an unnamed former White House employee who said there was “[water] cooler talk” of “how angry the president was when they were, you know, in the limo” and that he was “irate” on the drive back to the White House, but stopped short of repeating Hutchinson’s second-hand account that Trump “lunged” at his driver.

Other messages showed that even once Trump was back at the White House following his speech, he was insistent on joining the mob at the Capitol. A Secret Service memo noted he would be “holding” at the Capitol for two hours before heading to meet his supporters. It wasn’t until shortly before 2 p.m. that the agency shut down such plans.

Minutes later, Trump would fire off a tweet criticizing Pence, alarming one agent who noted it was probably “not going to be good for Pence,” and another who expressed alarm that the tweet had gotten more than 20,000 likes in just minutes.

Source: TEST FEED1