May 10 2024
Things fall apart
1 ELECTION 2024 Less than 17% of Biden’s 4 marquee spending bills spent
2 House Speaker receives bipartisan support
3 NYC nonprofit develops innovative low-income assistance program
4 Hospital bankruptcies surge after buyouts
5 The international order is coming apart
5/10/1869 Transcontinental railroad completed
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1 ELECTION 2024 Less than 17% of Biden’s 4 marquee spending bills spent
A POLITICO analysis shows that hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress approved at Biden’s urging remain unspent heading into his November rematch with former President Donald Trump. If Trump wins, he could take a wrecking ball to Biden’s greatest legislative achievements: four laws containing $1.6 trillion in loans, grants and tax credits meant to green the economy, revive the country’s manufacturing base, repair its roads and bridges and challenge China for technological supremacy. POLITICO spent months assessing the implementation of the four laws that make up the backbone of Biden’s legacy: the 2021 pandemic relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan; the bipartisan infrastructure law passed later that year; the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act; and the president’s premier climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.
Less than 17 percent of the $1.1 trillion those laws provided for direct investments on climate, energy and infrastructure has been spent as of April, nearly two years after Biden signed the last of the statutes. Out of $145 billion in direct spending on energy and climate programs in the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate law in U.S. history, the administration has announced roughly $60 billion in tentative funding decisions as of April 11. The government has awarded less than $700 million of the $54 billion that Congress had made available in the CHIPS and Science Act, a law aimed at boosting competition with China, though the Commerce Department has announced $29 billion in tentative awards to semiconductor manufacturers in recent months. Awarding money means the federal government has committed to pay out an agreed-upon sum. A tentative award is still under negotiation. And only $125 billion has been spent from the $884 billion provided by the infrastructure law and the pandemic law, both of which Biden signed in 2021. Roughly $300 billion of that won’t be legally available to spend until the next two fiscal years. For much of this money, the government does not provide a centralized, easily accessible way for the public to see how much has been formally awarded or spent. The IRA also unleashed a gusher of private company investments in clean energy and manufacturing by offering a series of tax breaks that, based on recent estimates, are worth at least $525 billion. Those initiatives are hitting turbulence, with some major electric vehicle, battery, solar and wind projects being delayed or canceled because of changing or uncertain markets.
Politico
2 House Speaker receives bipartisan support, securing his job
The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a resolution by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, with Democrats stepping in to help save the Republican leader, closing for now another dramatic chapter in the GOP’s intraparty squabbling. Greene (R., Ga.), who has accused Johnson (R., La.) of betraying his party by relying on Democratic votes to avoid government shutdowns and fund foreign aid, forced a vote on removing the speaker despite the opposition of most other congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump. Her decision to trigger the motion to vacate the chair after more than a month of threats gave leaders two legislative days to bring it up, but Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.) moved immediately to block the effort. The vote was 359-43 to table, or set aside, Greene’s motion, with seven voting present.
WSJ
3 NYC nonprofit develops innovative low-income assistance program
A New York City nonprofit group, flush with millions in private capital, is piloting a first-of-its-kind savings program to address the racial wealth gap — by giving thousands of students in Harlem $10,000 each to invest. The Harlem Children’s Zone, an influential anti-poverty organization, said it is raising $300 million for an initiative called Wealth Builds that will launch in Upper Manhattan, where the group operates, and expand to 10 other cities, including Atlanta and Minneapolis. The group said it has already raised enough money to provide the funds to more than 2,200 youths: the entire student body at two charter schools it runs called Promise Academy, from kindergarten to 12th grade.
A kindergartner enrolled this year in the program could expect the $10,000 allotment, which will be controlled by professional money managers, to accrue interest of about 5 percent a year, Mr. Owusu-Kesse said. At the age of 25, the student could have roughly $26,000 in savings.
NYT
4 Hospital bankruptcies surge after buyouts
Healthcare bankruptcies surged in 2023, and it turns out many of the companies that went under had one thing in common: private equity (PE) ownership. At least 21% of the 80 healthcare companies that filed for bankruptcy last year were PE-owned, according to a report from the nonprofit Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP). “PE’s excessive use of debt and aggressive financial strategies put healthcare companies at risk, and in turn threaten the stability of critical healthcare resources across the country,” Eileen O’Grady, research and campaign director at PESP, wrote in the report.
Fortune
5 The international order is coming apart
At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global gdp, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year. Look deeper, though, and you see fragility. For years the order that has governed the global economy since the second world war has been eroded. Today it is close to collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers. Even if it never comes to conflict, the effect on the economy of a breakdown in norms could be fast and brutal. As we report, the disintegration of the old order is visible everywhere. Sanctions are used four times as much as they were during the 1990s; America has recently imposed “secondary” penalties on entities that support Russia’s armies. A subsidy war is under way, as countries seek to copy China’s and America’s vast state backing for green manufacturing. Although the dollar remains dominant and emerging economies are more resilient, global capital flows are starting to fragment, as our special report explains. The institutions that safeguarded the old system are either already defunct or fast losing credibility. The World Trade Organisation turns 30 next year, but will have spent more than five years in stasis, owing to American neglect. The imf is gripped by an identity crisis, caught between a green agenda and ensuring financial stability. The un security council is paralysed. And, as we report, supranational courts like the International Court of Justice are increasingly weaponised by warring parties. Last month American politicians including Mitch McConnell, the leader of Republicans in the Senate, threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it issues arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel, which also stands accused of genocide by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. So far fragmentation and decay have imposed a stealth tax on the global economy: perceptible, but only if you know where to look. Unfortunately, history shows that deeper, more chaotic collapses are possible—and can strike suddenly once the decline sets in.
Economist
5/10/1869 Transcontinental railroad completed, unifying United States
Sources
[1] https://www.politico.com/interactives/2024/biden-trillion-dollar-spending-tracker/
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/09/nyregion/harlem-childrens-zone-students-invest.html
[4]Fortune
[5]https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/09/the-liberal-international-order-is-slowly-coming-apart
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