Tag: taxes

The Trump Administration Misses Key Deadlines for Imposing Restrictions on Gain-of-Function Research

Biosafety hawks were initially optimistic that the incoming second Trump administration would at last place binding constraints on so-called “dangerous gain-of-function” research, in which pathogens are manipulated in laboratories to be more virulent or transmissible in humans.

The administration’s picks for top health policy jobs—most notably National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—are both gain-of-function critics who have asserted that this type of research created SARS-COV-2 in Wuhan, China.

In May, the White House issued an executive order creating a broader definition for dangerous gain-of-function research and promising that new restrictions on it would be issued within a few months.

“The conduct of this research does not protect us from pandemics. There’s always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out by accident even and cause a pandemic,” said Bhattacharya at the Oval Office press conference when the order was signed. With the order, “the public can say ‘no, don’t take this risk.'”

But the deadlines for the new restrictions called for in that order have since come and gone without any new policy being released. Meanwhile, there are indications that the NIH is continuing to fund risky virological research.

Gain-of-function critics who were optimistic that this research would finally be put back in the box are now concerned that the Trump administration will fail to implement meaningful restrictions.

“There was a promise to deliver these policies. It’s very disappointing to see that not emerge,” Bryce Nickels, a professor of genetics at Rutgers University, tells Reason. Nickels briefly served as a contractor advising the NIH on new gain-of-function policy before being let go in August.

In his role as an NIH contractor, Nickels reviewed draft policies on gain-of-function research that the May executive order called for. He said that there was no practical reason why the White House shouldn’t have been able to meet its deadline to issue the new policy.

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which is responsible for issuing the new gain-of-function regulations called for in the May executive order, did not respond to Reason‘s request for comment.

While arguments about COVID-19’s origins have polarized discussions about gain-of-function research, fears that it could cause a pandemic via a laboratory accident were once mainstream.

The past three presidential administrations issued policies imposing some restrictions on it. That included the 2014 “pause” on gain-of-function research involving MERS, SARS, and influenza viruses issued by the Obama administration.

This was followed by the implementation of a 2017 framework in the first Trump administration that allowed funding for gain-of-function research to start again, provided that the riskiest experiments received risk-benefit vetting by a department-level panel within HHS.

Finally, in 2024, the Biden administration issued a new framework on “dual-use research of concern” that was supposed to clarify when experiments involving enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential should receive that HHS-level review.

Critics have long argued that these policies failed to actually restrict the most dangerous gain-of-function experiments.

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Marijuana Industry Group Pushes Congress For Tax Relief—And To Apply The Fix Retroactively For Past Payments

A leading marijuana industry association has released a report calling on Congress to treat cannabis businesses like other lawful industries by allowing them to take federal tax deductions—and also to apply that policy retroactively to provide relief for past payments.

The report from the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) and a coalition of stakeholders states that “no industry understands the pain of taxes as acutely as the state-regulated cannabis industry which currently pays draconian tax rates as a result of the unforeseen consequences of” an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E.

That code precludes even state-licensed marijuana businesses from taking federal deductions for their expenses because cannabis remains a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

“This provision is a punitive poison pill that threatens every business in these state-regulated markets, but poses a particular threat to small businesses that have responded to the will of voters,” the report says. “Picture the medical dispensary serving veterans with an alternative to deadly opioids or providing comfort to cancer patients in your community: those businesses cannot survive without action to repeal §280E and, crucially, retroactive relief.”

NCIA says the costs of the IRS policy for the cannabis sector are “staggering,” with marijuana businesses paying an effective tax rate of more than 70 percent. That rate “is economically prohibitive, unsustainable, and counter-intuitive,” it says.

“In the cruelest of ironies, the failure to include retroactive relief for state-regulated cannabis businesses will fall primarily on two groups: small cannabis businesses located in early legalization states and equity-owned businesses provided state-licensing priority specifically because of injuries suffered as a result of cannabis prohibition.”

Notably, NCIA stressed that tax relief for the marijuana industry should be applied retroactively. Without that stipulation, the association said “taxes will continue to result in the closure and consolidation of many state-regulated small businesses.”

“Beyond having negative economic impacts, inaction will also harm public health by forcing consumers back to the untaxed, untested, and unregulated illicit market,” it said.

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Ukraine expects $3.5 billion fund for US weapons to sustain fight against Russia, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine expects there will be around $3.5 billion by next month in a fund to buy weapons from the United States and help sustain its more than three-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

The financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.

“We received more than $2 billion from our partners specifically for the PURL program,” Zelenskyy said at a joint news conference in Kyiv with visiting European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. “We will receive additional money in October. I think we will have somewhere around $3.5-3.6 billion.”

Zelenskyy declined to provide details of what weapons the first shipments would include, but said that they would definitely contain missiles for Patriot air defense missile systems and munitions for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

An end to the war appears no closer, despite months of U.S.-led peace efforts.

The Patriot systems are vital to defend against Russian missile attacks. The HIMARS systems have significantly bolstered the Ukrainian military’s precision-strike capability.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for peace talks, telling reporters on Wednesday that “we remain open for negotiations and prefer to settle the Ukrainian crisis by political and diplomatic means.”

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US government to invest $96 million in Ukraine’s minerals

The US government on Sept 17 pledged US$75 million (S$96 million) to kick-start a landmark deal to invest in Ukraine’s vast mineral reserves, a commitment that will ease fears in Kyiv that the Trump administration is walking away from the war-torn country.

When  an agreement in spring granted the US a stake in Ukraine’s critical minerals, Kyiv cast it as a way to lock in American support through business ties.

President Donald Trump has made it clear that he would no longer give US money to Ukraine for the war effort, leaving Kyiv scrambling to retain whatever American engagement it could.

Many observers doubted that the deal could draw US investment while the fighting continues. But the new American pledge and a matching commitment by the Ukrainian government will bring a fund created under the agreement to US$150 million.

The flow of US government money into Ukraine’s minerals, hydrocarbons and related infrastructure could help reassure private investors and attract badly needed capital to sustain the country’s war economy.

It also shows the new mercantile nature of the US-Ukrainian alliance under Mr Trump.

While the Biden administration spent tens of billions of dollars to aid Kyiv, Washington now focuses on opportunities to profit through investments and sales. It provides weapons to Ukraine only through purchases facilitated by a Nato-backed procurement system that uses European funds.

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With Cigarette Taxes Sky High, More New Yorkers Than Ever Turn to the Black Market

In 2023, New York raised its cigarette excise tax by $1.00 to $5.35 per pack. New York City imposes its own tax of $1.50 per pack, and that’s before you include federal and sales taxes, making for the most expensive smokes in the country. That is, cigarettes are expensive in New York for those who pay those taxes. But state officials were warned that such a high rate would drive consumers to the black market, and that’s exactly what happened. According to recent research, more New Yorkers than ever are turning to tax-evading illicit sources for their nicotine needs.

Taxes Into Good Health—or Not

When the New York excise tax was hiked, the Albany Times-Union noted, “it’s the nation’s highest and brings a pack of cigarettes at many retailers to about $12….Health advocates hailed the increase, saying it will lead to fewer smokers and cancer deaths. Anti-tax groups, though, predicted it will increase trafficking in illicit untaxed cigarettes in the state.”

Health advocates like taxing vices on the theory that raising taxes simultaneously generates government revenue while escalating prices for allegedly bad things—like cigarettes—out of reach of many consumers. What they rarely consider is that there are other options, such as buying cigarettes smuggled from jurisdictions with lower levies.

“New York has created a cigarette-smuggling empire, and the worst is yet to come,” Todd Nesbit, an economics professor at Ball State University, and Michael LaFaive, of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, warned even before the 2023 tax increase. “It’s the unavoidable consequence of the state’s decadeslong history of raising the cigarette tax.”

“If enacted, consumers will go across borders to do their shopping or rely on black-market suppliers,” agreed the Tax Foundation’s Adam Hoffer. “Tax revenues will fall, illicit activities will thrive, and law enforcement spending will need to increase.”

In fact, as Nesbit, LaFaive, and Hoffer emphasized, even before the dollar-per-pack tax hike, more than half of cigarettes sold in the state of New York lacked local tax stamps and were smuggled from elsewhere. Since 2023, illicit dealers appear to have claimed even more market share.

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The Rise Of Neo-Feudalism: Germany’s Conservatives Bow To Socialist Wealth Taxes

In Germany, a heated debate has erupted over the taxation of inheritances and wealth—and the Union (CDU/CSU) isn’t even attempting to curb these anti-civilizational trends. In fact, it has become part of the problem.

Unassuming, loyal voters of the Union parties are rubbing their eyes in disbelief these weeks. Faced with the envy-driven push by the Social Democrats for higher inheritance taxes and the possible reintroduction of a wealth tax, many are shocked—or even repelled—by the statements of their own political representatives.

Union Politicians Fuel the Debate

When it comes to citizens’ lawful property and how they use it, Union circles have recently sounded like this: “Those who already had, always gain more. In recent years, particularly during the low-interest phase, wealth grew almost automatically, without much personal effort. Property values, stock values, and more—this is a problem of wealth distribution.” – Jens Spahn, CDU parliamentary group leader.

His colleague Dennis Radtke, social zealot and head of the Christian Democratic Workers’ Association (CDA), goes even further: “We should examine the exemptions in inheritance and gift taxes, under the concept of wealth assessment. These exemptions allow billions in wealth to be gifted and inherited without a single euro in taxes paid… This wouldn’t be a tax increase, just closing loopholes.“

In the view of this gentleman, the fundamental act of wealth creation—which, in a healthy bourgeois society, extends one’s economic actions to one’s descendants—is just a “loophole” if the state cannot freely access our assets.

This makes one thing clear: the party cartel is united when it comes to power. L’État, c’est moi! The citizen is nothing more than a supplier of political power, packaged in liquidable assets.

Generational Contract and Bourgeois Values

We can expect this understanding of the state from Germany’s socialist parties, whether the BSW, The Left, or the Greens. The openly socialist-populist SPD has long since fallen to the point of seeing citizens as nothing more than cows to be milked. Since the disastrous years under Angela Merkel, any voter should have realized that a party embracing open-border policies, eco-socialist climate politics, and bellicist tendencies—as seen in the Ukraine conflict—can no longer serve as a bourgeois counterweight.

Thanks to years of media propaganda, however, many Germans still perceive the chancellor as a representative of bourgeois values. Closer inspection reveals that the green-socialist spectrum of parties—including the Union—ultimately follows the same globalist ideology.

Undermining the family as society’s cornerstone, promoting state-driven culture and media influence, they all follow an unmistakably socialist script.

The centralization of political power in Brussels and dramatically increasing censorship pair with statist economic policies, whose latest victims are German industry. The inheritance and wealth tax debate fits perfectly into this ideological framework, trampling the true generational contract—between parents and heirs.

Neo-Feudal Tendencies

A power structure that manages to secure majority approval for substance taxes—whether inheritance or wealth taxes—through a debate framed around “justice” inevitably becomes a neo-feudal apparatus. Every form of wealth use—portfolio holdings, gifts, or inheritance—comes under arbitrary state administration. Every house, every stock account an individual acquires becomes a fief, requiring continuous tribute to avoid full expropriation.

The media-endorsed debate over “substance” or “resentment” taxes is thus anti-civilizational, anti-bourgeois, and devastating to capital formation. It accelerates pauperization trends now visible throughout the country.

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Blatant Lawlessness: Connecticut’s Department Of Labor And Union Leaders Betray Union Workers & Taxpayers

That question looms large in Connecticut where Department of Labor (CT DOL) commissioner Danté Bartolomeo has openly acknowledged ignoring a statute designed to protect union members.  

At issue is Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 31-77. This 1959 law requires unions to file verified annual financial reports, make them available to members, and submit them to the CT DOL for safekeeping and possible audit. It was enacted to deter corruption, protect workers’ dues, and hold union leaders accountable. The law also protects taxpayers, who subsidize union activities through paid union leave, administrative costs associated with dues collection, grants, and other state-supported benefits.  

For years, however, CT DOL has simply refused to enforce it.  

Commissioner’s Contradictions  

In an August 2025 letter to Senators Rob Sampson and Stephen Harding, Commissioner Bartolomeo acknowledged the statute but dismissed it as “redundant” because unions already file IRS Form 990s. She further complained that compliance is “burdensome” and rarely requested.  

This rationale is indefensible. Commissioners are not empowered to decide which laws are worth enforcing. The General Assembly writes the laws; the executive branch is obligated to carry them out. If Bartolomeo truly believed she had discretion to ignore Sec. 31-77, she would never have asked lawmakers last session for “technical changes.” That request alone proves she knows the law is binding — she has simply chosen not to comply.  

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UK, US Sign $42 Billion Tech Deal To Boost AI Partnership

The United Kingdom and the United States struck a technology pact on Sept. 16 that would bring $42 billion in investments from U.S. tech giants into the UK’s AI infrastructure.

The deal was reached as President Donald Trump arrived in the UK for a two-day state visit, during which he is expected to meet King Charles and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Under the “Tech Prosperity Deal,” the two nations agreed to cooperate in advancing AI, quantum computing, and nuclear technology, according to a statement issued by the UK government.

Major U.S. tech companies—Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave—will invest in the UK’s AI infrastructure, including data centers and computer chips, as part of the agreement.

The deal is expected to generate more than 5,000 jobs in the northeast of England, which the UK government said will become a new AI growth zone.

The two countries will collaborate on research schemes to further the use of AI to allow for “targeted treatments and other shared priorities like fusion energy,” according to the statement.

This could lead to “life-changing breakthroughs like developing targeted treatments for those suffering with cancer or rare and chronic diseases,” the UK government said.

“This Tech Prosperity Deal marks a generational step change in our relationship with the U.S., shaping the futures of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, and delivering growth, security and opportunity up and down the country,” Starmer said.

The deal includes a $30 billion investment from Microsoft over four years, its largest commitment in the UK.

The company stated in a blog post that the funding will help develop the country’s “largest supercomputer,” which will be equipped with more than 23,000 advanced AI chips.

Under the U.S.–UK tech pact, Nvidia will partner with UK companies to deploy 120,000 advanced GPU chips across the country, marking its largest rollout in Europe to date, according to the statement.

“Today marks a historic chapter in U.S. – United Kingdom technology collaboration,” Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said.

OpenAI said it will team up with British company Nscale and Nvidia to launch a Stargate UK project to boost the UK’s sovereign computing capabilities, as part of the tech pact.

The UK and the United States signed a trade agreement in June on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada. The deal still left UK steel and aluminum subject to 25 percent tariffs, rates that the UK government is working to reduce.

Speaking to reporters before departing for the UK on Sept. 16, Trump indicated that he was willing to further negotiate trade with the UK government.

“They want to see if they can refine the trade deal a little bit. We made a deal, and it’s a great deal. And I’m into helping them,” the president told reporters.

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Major NYC strip club group bribed state auditor with lap dances, avoided $8M in taxes: AG

What a bunch of boobs.

A major strip club group bribed a state auditor — including with lap dances — to avoid paying more than $8 million in New York City sales taxes over the last 14 years, prosecutors charged Tuesday.

The State Attorney General’s Office unsealed a 79-count criminal indictment against the company, RCI, and five of its executives, accusing them of engaging in a naked, tax fraud scheme.

The affair was so brazen, a top RCI accountant even allegedly made at least 10 trips from Texas to New York to treat the former auditor at the company’s Manhattan jiggle joints, Rick’s Cabaret, Vivid Cabaret and Hoops Cabaret and Sports Bar, court papers state.

“RCI’s executives shamelessly used their strip clubs to bribe their way out of paying millions of dollars in taxes,” said AG Letitia James. “I will always take action to fight corruption and ensure everyone pays their fair share.”

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Michigan Lawmakers Embrace Marijuana Tax Hike Plan Proposed By Governor

Michigan Senate Democrats are reportedly moving toward implementing a major tax hike on marijuana that was previously proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

While no legislation to effectuate the policy change has been filed yet, the plan is to impose a 32 percent wholesale excise tax on cannabis—which would be in addition to the existing 16 percent in taxes that are placed on marijuana at the retail level.

The governor said in February that the proposal would “close a loophole that exempted the marijuana industry from wholesale tax, which is applied to similar smoking products, like cigarettes, and other tobacco items.” Aligning those tax policies, her office said, could help the state fund plans to “fix the damn roads for generations to come.”

“After voters legalized marijuana, the industry has grown exponentially thanks in part to Michigan’s industry-friendly taxes, the fourth lowest in the nation,” the governor said at the time. “The industry, which recorded billions in sales in 2024, uses Michigan roads to transport marijuana multiple times throughout the process, including to grow operations, testing labs, distribution hubs, and finally retail stores. This will add an additional $470 million to help fix roads across the state.”

It would also effectively double the total tax rate on cannabis in Michigan, which advocates say would unfairly burden businesses and consumers.

“Michigan’s cannabis consumers already pay more than their fair share of taxes. They should not be singled out to bear the costs of ‘fixing the damn roads,’” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment.

“Michigan’s excise taxes are about 10 times as high on cannabis as they are on alcohol,” she said. “Gov. Whitmer’s proposal would roughly double the tax burden on consumers, many of whom are medical patients who are struggling to make ends meet.”

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