Tag: taxes

White House Announces New Minimum Tax on Billionaires

President Joe Biden will announce a new minimum tax targeting billionaires as part of his 2023 fiscal year budget on Monday, according to the White House.

The Biden administration announced the proposal on Saturday in a fact sheet ahead of the budget release, stating that the president’s plan “rewards work, not wealth.”

“President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will make America’s tax code fairer and reduce the deficit by about $360 billion in just the next decade,” the fact sheet stated.

As part of his 2023 budget, Biden is asking Congress to pass legislation mandating the richest American families to pay a minimum of 20 percent on all of their income, including unrealized investment income.

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Biden To Ask for $813 Billion Military Budget for 2023

President Biden plans to ask for $813.3 billion for military spending for the 2023 fiscal year, anonymous US officials told Bloomberg.

Of that number, $773 billion would go to the Pentagon, and the rest will be for other government agencies’ military spending, including the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons program.

Biden’s request represents a $31 billion increase from the $782 billion for military spending that was included in the massive $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill he signed earlier this month. Also packed into the omnibus bill was an additional $6.5 billion for the Pentagon to pay for troops deployments in Eastern Europe and restock weapons being sent to Ukraine.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are growing calls in Congress from both Republicans and Democrats for more military spending. The Pentagon is in a position where it can get just about anything it requests.

Included in Biden’s request for the 2023 budget is $130.1 billion for research and development of advanced weapons, such as hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence. The Pentagon views such spending as vital to its focus on countering Russia and China.

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Hunter Biden Bio Firm Partnered With Ukrainian Researchers ‘Isolating Deadly Pathogens’ Using Funds From Obama’s Defense Department.

An investment firm directed by President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was a leading financial backer of a pandemic tracking and response firm that collaborated on identifying and isolating deadly pathogens in Ukrainian laboratories, receiving funds from the Obama administration’s Department of Defense in the process, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) – a subsidiary of the Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz-founded Rosemont Capital – counted both Biden and Heinz as managing directors. Heinz is the stepson of former U.S. Secretary of State and current Climate czar John Kerry.

Amongst the companies listed on archived versions of the RSTP’s portfolio is Metabiota – an ostensibly San Francisco-based company that purports to detect, track, and analyze emerging infectious diseases.

Financial reports reveal that RSTP led the company’s first round of funding in 2015, which amounted to $30 million. Former managing director and co-founder of RSTP Neil Callahan – a name that also appears many times on Hunter Biden’s hard drive – sits on Metabiota’s Board of Advisors alongside former Clinton official Rob Walker who discussed, in another unearthed Hunter Biden hard drive e-mail, reaching out to the Obama Department of Defense with regard to Metabiota.

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As possibility of 4th doses looms, White House says it has no money for them

Federal regulators and health officials are due to assess the need for fourth COVID-19 vaccine doses, which the Biden administration currently lacks the funds to purchase for everyone, the Washington Post reports. 

Second booster shots went from a questioned possibility to a more likely reality last week as drugmakers filed for the FDA’s green light for the additional dose. Pfizer and BioNTech submitted an application to the FDA seeking emergency authorization for a second booster shot of their COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older. Moderna followed suit days later, seeking emergency use authorization of a second booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine for all adults.

“Right now, we don’t have enough money for fourth doses, if they’re called for,” Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said on a forthcoming episode of the podcast “In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt” that was recorded March 21 and shared with the Post. “We don’t have the funding, if we were to need a variant-specific vaccine in the future.”

If regulators determine fourth doses, or second boosters, are necessary, federal officials have enough doses to cover a fourth shot for Americans age 65 and older and the initial regimen for children under age 5, three officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Post. The officials said they can’t place advance orders for additional vaccines for those in other age groups unless lawmakers pass a stalled $15 billion funding package.

If the U.S. aims to have enough doses for a fourth shot for everyone, there are currently not enough doses purchased. “They will run out of supply,” Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at Kaiser Family Foundation, told the Post. She estimates that about 750 million additional doses are needed to reach that goal.

The FDA is due to meet April 6 to discuss the country’s COVID-19 booster shot strategy, including the timing of boosters for the coming months and when the shots should be updated to target specific variants. The FDA has not scheduled a specific vote nor is it expected to discuss Pfizer or Moderna’s recent applications for fourth vaccine doses at the meeting. 

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