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WASHINGTON — House Republicans can’t meet their own budget target that is necessary to pass President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda without making significant cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, the official budget scorekeeper confirmed Wednesday.
House Republicans adopted a budget blueprint last week that opens the door to pass Trump’s policy priorities on immigration, energy and taxes. It instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending under its jurisdiction by $880 billion.
That leaves Republicans in a deep predicament. The budget resolution, adopted by the slimmest of margins in the narrowly divided House, was the delicate product of negotiations among conservative hard-liners who demand steep spending cuts and swing-district GOP lawmakers who say they don’t want to slash funding for the health programs their constituents rely on.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says that the province will place a 25 per cent tariff on the electricity that it provides to 1.5 million homes and businesses in New York, Michigan and Minnesota as of Monday and could double the surcharge if the U.S. escalates its trade war with Canada.
"Unfortunately, President Trump has attacked our country and attacked our province economically so as of Monday we are putting a 25 per cent export tax, surcharge, whatever you want to call it. They are going to be paying 25 per cent more on their electricity in Minnesota, Michigan and New York and if it continues, the attack, I will up it to 50 per cent," Ford told Newstalk 1010.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday offered a full-throated defense of the White House's position on tariffs, insisting that trade policy has to be about more than just getting low-priced items from other countries.
"Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream," Bessent said during a speech to the Economic Club of New York. "The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this."
The remarks came with markets on edge over how far President Donald Trump will go in an effort to attain his goals on global commerce
Treasury Secretary Bessent says the American dream is not about 'access to cheap goods'
The nation's top public health agency says about 180 employees who were laid off two weeks ago can come back to work.
Emails went out Tuesday to some Centers for Disease Control and Prevention probationary employees who got termination notices last month, according to current and former CDC employees.
CDC tells about 180 fired employees to come back to work | AP News
President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet in person on Thursday to deliver a message: You're in charge of your departments, not Elon Musk.
According to two administration officials, Trump told top members of his administration that Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy. Musk was also in the room.
Trump puts new limits on Elon Musk - POLITICO
A majority of young Americans disapprove of the work done by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) so far, a survey found.
The survey, released by Axios and Generation Lab, found that 53 percent of adults under 35 say they strongly disapprove of DOGE’s actions to reshape the federal government.
7 in 10 young Americans disapprove of DOGE work: Survey
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