EV drivers in Texas don’t pay at the pump, but will have to start paying a significant annual fee that critics are calling “punitive.”
Driving an electric vehicle in Texas is soon to become more expensive. Governor Greg Abbott signed a law (SB 505) on May 13 instituting new fees for registering and owning EVs in the state. Under the bill, electric car owners will have to pay $400 upon registering their vehicle. Then, every subsequent year, EV drivers will have to shell out an additional $200. Both of those fees are on top of the cost of the standard annual registration renewal fees, which are $50.75 each year for most passenger cars and trucks.
The law exempts mopeds, motorcycles, and other non-car EVs, and goes into effect starting on September 1, 2023.
Really, though, this is coming everywhere. Funding our road infrastructure with a gas tax doesn’t work in an EV world.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week. Sorry about the lack of posting this week. It’s been a busy time.
Eight minutes into a routine traffic stop for a suspected drunk driver, the suspect pulled out a gun and killed St. Croix County Sheriff’s Deputy Katie Leising. The 29-year-old new mother was the fourth officer murdered while on duty this year. At only five months into the year, it is already the deadliest year for police officers in 25 years.
The circumstances of Deputy Leising’s murder were eerily similar to the other three officers who were murdered this year. The suspect she was investigating was a multiple felon. Convicted for kidnapping and criminal sexual misconduct in 2015 in Minnesota, and with a long criminal record, he served just four years in prison before being released. With a history of violence and perhaps fearing another arrest, the suspect murdered Deputy Leising.
In April, Officers Emily Breidenbach and Hunter Scheel of the Chetek and Cameron Police Departments, respectively, confronted a suspect with an open warrant in a traffic stop. The suspect had a history of domestic violence and opened fire on the officers. Both of the officers were killed.
In February, Milwaukee Police Officer Peter Jerving was working with other officers to apprehend a robbery suspect. When they caught up to the suspect after a chase on foot, the suspect opened fire and killed officer Jerving. The suspect had a history of criminal behavior. In fact, the very week he killed officer Jerving, he had been sentenced for two counts of hit-and-run. He was sentenced to a scant four months, but the sentence was suspended meaning that he did not have to serve any time unless he violated his probation.
What’s going on? The increasing violence against law enforcement officers is a symptom of two sickening societal trends being driven by the political left.
The first trend is the intentional softening of our criminal justice system. With callous disregard for the victims of crime, the left has made a concerted effort in recent years to drive soft-on-crime policies while putting in place prosecutors, judges, and police leadership who use their positions to coddle criminals at every opportunity.
The left is so proud of their pro-crime positions that they are not shy about telling people. Gov. Tony Evers has a stated policy goal of halving the state’s prison population. The only way to do that is to let some criminals out early while preventing more from going in. Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform, the euphemism liberals use for soft-on-criminal policies. Chisholm’s “bail reform” initiative, which allows violent offenders to bail out of jail for little or no money, has led to criminals committing more crimes when they should have reasonably been in jail.
In each of the three incidents that led to the deaths of four officers this year, the murderers should have been in jail. We used to know that locking up violent criminals was the surest path to reducing crime. The left wants us to forget that fact, but the evidence is clear.
The second trend is the cultural contempt for police that the left is advocating. Every time there is a police-involved shooting, leftist politicians activists leap to blame the police and attack them with accusations of racism or misconduct before the guns have even cooled.
The left pushed the defund-the-police movement using rhetoric that the police were so fundamentally corrupt that they could not be reformed. They must be defunded and disbanded instead.
When leftist rioters burn down our cities, attack people, and occupy neighborhoods, leftist politicians and activists side with the rioters and prevent the police from keeping order.
Even with our children, the left teaches that police are inherently bad and corrupt. In the wake of the BLM movement, the Milwaukee Public Schools ejected all Milwaukee police officers from their schools and are boisterously rejecting Republican calls to let them return. How are Milwaukee’s public school kids supposed to respect police officers when they are being taught that the police are violent bigots?
The overall increase in crime driven by leftist policies, prosecutors and judges coupled with the leftist anti-police rhetoric is having the intended effect. More police officers are being murdered by violent criminals who no longer respect the police and should have been in jail anyway. The story of leftist rule is being written in blue and red.
MADISON – State transportation officials who want to expand Amtrak rail to Wisconsin’s population centers of Madison, Green Bay, Waukesha County and other communities project the move could attract about 250,000 new passengers to the trains within a decade and an additional 1.6 million by 2050.
The state Department of Transportation this week released a long-term plan for Wisconsin’s rail lines that includes the department’s vision for rail service in Wisconsin over the next three decades, including proposals to extend passenger rail to 11 new communities in Wisconsin that would connect the state’s capital and Milwaukee.
The first assumption that they don’t even bother to explain is that increasing rail passengers is a good thing. Is it? At best, it’s neutral, isn’t it? So some people who might prefer to take a train from Green Bay to Madison can do so instead of driving. So?
And what will that cost? Look at California… it ain’t cheap. So let’s say it will cost $20 Billion (probably low) to expand the passenger rail service so that someone can take a train from Wausau to Madison in 4 hours instead of driving it in 2. So we should spend $80,000 per ride to build that out?
Can we just accept that we like our cars and want to use our government resources to be used to make the roads better and stop making cars more expensive?
The first trend is the intentional softening of our criminal justice system. With callous disregard for the victims of crime, the left has made a concerted effort in recent years to drive soft-on-crime policies while putting in place prosecutors, judges, and police leadership who use their positions to coddle criminals at every opportunity.
The left is so proud of their pro-crime positions that they are not shy about telling people. Gov. Tony Evers has a stated policy goal of halving the state’s prison population. The only way to do that is to let some criminals out early while preventing more from going in. Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform, the euphemism liberals use for soft-on-criminal policies. Chisholm’s “bail reform” initiative, which allows violent offenders to bail out of jail for little or no money, has led to criminals committing more crimes when they should have reasonably been in jail.
In each of the three incidents that led to the deaths of four officers this year, the murderers should have been in jail. We used to know that locking up violent criminals was the surest path to reducing crime. The left wants us to forget that fact, but the evidence is clear.
The second trend is the cultural contempt for police that the left is advocating. Every time there is a policeinvolved shooting, leftist politicians activists leap to blame the police and attack them with accusations of racism or misconduct before the guns have even cooled.
The left pushed the defund-the-police movement using rhetoric that the police were so fundamentally corrupt that they could not be reformed. They must be defunded and disbanded instead.
When leftist rioters burn down our cities, attack people, and occupy neighborhoods, leftist politicians and activists side with the rioters and prevent the police from keeping order.
Even with our children, the left teaches that police are inherently bad and corrupt. In the wake of the BLM movement, the Milwaukee Public Schools ejected all Milwaukee police officers from their schools and are boisterously rejecting Republican calls to let them return. How are Milwaukee’s public school kids supposed to respect police officers when they are being taught that the police are violent bigots?
The overall increase in crime driven by leftist policies, prosecutors and judges coupled with the leftist anti-police rhetoric is having the intended effect. More police officers are being murdered by violent criminals who no longer respect the police and should have been in jail anyway. The story of leftist rule is being written in blue and red.
“With additional information now available, I am writing to note that we still estimate that Treasury will likely no longer be able to satisfy all of the government’s obligations if Congress has not acted to raise or suspend the debt limit by early June, and potentially as early as June 1,” she wrote.
Total consumer debt hit a fresh new high in the first quarter of 2023, pushing past $17 trillion even amid a sharp pullback in home borrowing.
The total for borrowing across all categories hit $17.05 trillion, an increase of nearly $150 billion, or 0.9% during the January-to-March period, the New York Federal Reserve reported Monday. That took total indebtedness up about $2.9 trillion from the pre-Covid period ended in 2019.
That increase came even though new mortgage originations, including refinancings, totaled just $323.5 billion, the lowest level since the second quarter of 2014. The total was 35% lower than in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 62% below the same period a year ago.
A Californian state senator has urged black residents of his state to be ‘realistic’ about reparations, a week after the task force – set up to look into the issue – approved its final proposals.
The task force has not announced how much they think should be given to eligible residents.
Economists studying the issue have argued the state is responsible for more than $500 billion, due to decades of over-policing, mass incarceration and redlining that kept black families from receiving loans and living in certain neighborhoods.
Their plan must be approved by the governor, Gavin Newsom, who has already said he does not support the distribution of checks, arguing that there are better ways to deal with the legacy of racist policies.
On Friday, Newsom said the state’s budget deficit is expected to soar to almost $32 billion, nearly $10 billion more than he had projected in January.
A state senator who sits on the nine-member task force said people should not get their hopes up.
Yeah, reparations are stupid, but the sooner the back of California is broken for their idiocy, perhaps it will bring them back to sanity. One can hope…
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week:
After lengthy, private discussions with legislative Democrats and local leaders, including the Democratic leaders of Milwaukee, the Republican leaders of the Legislature have released a comprehensive and intricate plan to reshape the state’s shared revenue program for decades to come. While the reasons for the effort are laudable, it perpetuates a political arrangement in which everybody wins except the taxpayers. It is a bill with fundamental flaws that should be rejected.
Shared revenue is a rather ridiculous Wisconsin state scheme where the state collects a bunch of sales and income taxes and then distributes much of it back to local governments with an archaic formula that nobody likes. This column has long advocated the abolishment of shared revenue in exchange for something far simpler, but there is too much power wrapped up in the distribution of shared revenue for its abolishment to be considered. This bill is a good example of that power being wielded.
The primary objectives of the Republicans’ bill, Assembly Bill 245, are threefold. First, it would provide the largest increase in shared revenue in decades in exchange for municipalities spending that money on law enforcement and first responders.
Second, it would allow the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to ask the voters to raise the sales tax to pay for their unfunded pension liabilities in exchange for making all future employees join the well-managed state retirement system. Third, it would provide a huge incentive program for local governments who innovate by consolidating or combining services.
There are some other things in the bill that are good, like barring local health officials from closing businesses for more than 14 days without approval by elected governments, and allowing local governments a say when the state Stewardship Program decides to buy a slew of land and remove it from the tax rolls, but the grand bargain is more money if local governments do what elected state leaders want them to do.
The first bargain is that local government can get more money if they spend that money on law enforcement and first responders.
The problem with that bargain is that not every community needs more law enforcement. Some communities are declining in population or have overstaffed law enforcement agencies. The goal of this provision is to push back on the defund-the-police movement that has infected our liberal communities, but the solution in this bill would just have state taxpayers pumping money into local communities to pay for services that they have rejected.
The second bargain would allow Milwaukee city and County to ask the taxpayers to jack up sales taxes to pay for their unfunded pension liabilities. The problem the state legislators are trying to fix is that the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County have grossly mismanaged their pension obligations to the point that they are underfunded by $1.14 billion and $331 million, respectively. These pension obligations are malignant and starving the rest of their budgets of funding for vital services. The bargain would force these governments to stop making the problem worse by having new employees join the Wisconsin Retirement System and raise sales taxes to pay for the pensions.
The problem is that it is already within these local officials’ power to fix the problem by having new employees join the WRS. They have chosen not to do so. The proposed solution would result in a huge tax increase on city and county residents with absolutely no increased benefit to them. Once again, the taxpayers would bear the burden of decades of political mismanagement.
The third bargain would create a $300 million slush fund for local governments to do what they should already be doing — looking for ways to consolidate and economize services for the benefit of their citizens. Some local governments have already been progressive in this regard, but the additional money would only go to the laggards. Furthermore, if consolidating and economizing a government service results in efficiencies, why would the taxpayers pay more money for it?
Republican legislators are attempting to force local government leaders to do the things that they should already be doing by incentivizing them with more money to spend. This is a government solution, for government, by government. Experience tells us that the restrictions and covenants will eventually be eroded or circumvented, but the spending will remain forevermore. There is nothing so eternal as a government spending program.
Necessity is the mother of invention. As long as the state taxpayers keep bailing out the bad decisions of local government leaders, they will continue to make bad decisions.
‘His plan is obviously intentionally to just allow everybody into this country and try to track down that many millions of people years down the road.
‘It’s a false narrative that this administration is pushing to the American people.’
On Thursday morning, the extent of the surge was evident in Yuma even before the sun came up. More than 300 people waited in line to register with Border Patrol officers as buses pulled up and departed filled with migrants.
Many were from Peru. But the arrivals included people from China, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and the African nation of Mauritania.
I admit. I was skeptical, but Wow. Always follow the money. This is specific, damning evidence that the Biden family has been engaged in a long-term extortion scheme to sell policy to foreign interests – including some of our most ardent foes. This is treasonous. I don’t use that word lightly. This is not about a policy dispute. This is old-fashioned corruption of selling public policy to foreign interests for personal enrichment.
Republicans are digging in on over $10 million received by Biden family members from foreign actors, including previously undisclosed $1 million in Romanian-linked payments, and a ‘web’ of 20 companies created while President Joe Biden was vice president and pushing anti-corruption efforts abroad.
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Republicans led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., released a ‘Second Records Memorandum’ that expands on information it received from subpoena returns as the committee continues its investigation into the Biden family’s business practices.
The memo specifically outlines the Biden family’s ties to Romanian ‘influence peddling’ and a web of LLCs created while Biden was vice president. It also accuses President Biden for a ‘lack of transparency’ regarding his family’s receipt of funds from China, which he has said are ‘not true.’
[…]
The Romanian transactions outlined in the bank records released by the committee were from Cypriot – a company controlled by Gabriel Popoviciu, who was at the time under investigation for criminal corruption in Romania and later convicted for bribery-related offenses.
Between 2015 and 2017, Robinson Walker, LLC received $3 million from Bladon Enterprises Limited – Popoviciu’s Cypriot company – which was then paid out to Biden family members in a total sum of over $1 million.
The first payments were received by the LLC just weeks after then-Vice President Biden hosted Romanian President Klaus Iohannis to the White House and they discussed anti-corruption policies.
Biden family accounts gained $1.038 million from Robinson Walker, LLC in a series of 17 deposits, 16 of which were made while Biden was still in the White House. The payments went to associate James Gilliar, Hunter Biden, Hallie Biden, Owasco LLC and an ‘unknown Biden bank account.’
‘It appears from bank records the Bidens were using Robinson Walker, LLC to conceal that the source of these payments was Popovici,’ the memo says.
According to emails from Hunter’s laptop obtained by DailyMail.com, Popoviciu hired the president’s son in 2016 as part of an influence campaign to persuade anti-corruption prosecutors to cut a deal or drop the case – all while his father was sitting vice president.
Late on Monday night, U.S. Customs and Border Protection together with the Department for Homeland Security announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be conducting a targeted enforcement operation in El Paso, Texas.
The operation would see officers with the federal authorities look to track down migrants who came across the U.S. border illegally and who escaped any sort of processing by immigration authorities.
But the union representing the Border Patrol agents stated the ‘entire operation is a sad joke’ and ‘another pandering PR stunt.’
[…]
‘Nothing like publicly announcing that dangerous people will be arrested, while warning them ahead of time exactly where to run and hide to avoid arrest. This entire operation is a sad joke – another pandering PR stunt. Serious law enforcement leaders don’t behave this way,’ the Border Patrol Union – NBPC tweeted on Monday night.
Strategically speaking, the announcing of such information makes little sense with those seeking to evade capture by the authorities now given advance warning.
After lengthy, private discussions with legislative Democrats and local leaders, including the Democratic leaders of Milwaukee, the Republican leaders of the Legislature have released a comprehensive and intricate plan to reshape the state’s shared revenue program for decades to come. While the reasons for the effort are laudable, it perpetuates a political arrangement in which everybody wins except the taxpayers. It is a bill with fundamental flaws that should be rejected.
Shared revenue is a rather ridiculous Wisconsin state scheme where the state collects a bunch of sales and income taxes and then distributes much of it back to local governments with an archaic formula that nobody likes. This column has long advocated the abolishment of shared revenue in exchange for something far simpler, but there is too much power wrapped up in the distribution of shared revenue for its abolishment to be considered. This bill is a good example of that power being wielded.
The primary objectives of the Republicans’ bill, Assembly Bill 245, are threefold. First, it would provide the largest increase in shared revenue in decades in exchange for municipalities spending that money on law enforcement and first responders.
Second, it would allow the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to ask the voters to raise the sales tax to pay for their unfunded pension liabilities in exchange for making all future employees join the well-managed state retirement system. Third, it would provide a huge incentive program for local governments who innovate by consolidating or combining services.
There are some other things in the bill that are good, like barring local health officials from closing businesses for more than 14 days without approval by elected governments, and allowing local governments a say when the state Stewardship Program decides to buy a slew of land and remove it from the tax rolls, but the grand bargain is more money if local governments do what elected state leaders want them to do.
[…]
Republican legislators are attempting to force local government leaders to do the things that they should already be doing by incentivizing them with more money to spend. This is a government solution, for government, by government. Experience tells us that the restrictions and covenants will eventually be eroded or circumvented, but the spending will remain forevermore. There is nothing so eternal as a government spending program.
US President Joe Biden says he wants to implement new compensation rules for airline passengers impacted by flight delays or cancellations.
The rules would require airlines to pay impacted passengers beyond a ticket refund if the carrier is responsible for the disruption.
This may involve covering meals and hotels in the event that travellers are stranded, officials said.
[…]
“This rule would, for the first time in US history, propose to require airlines to compensate passengers and cover expenses such as meals, hotels, and rebooking in cases where the airline has caused a cancellation or significant delay,” Mr Buttigieg said in a statement.
The rules would also aim at defining what falls under a “controllable cancellation or delay” that is the fault of the carrier.
According to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, delays caused by airlines could include issues related to maintenance or crew problems, aircraft cleaning, baggage loading or fuelling.
Section Four of the amendment, adopted after the 1861-1865 Civil War, states that the “validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.” But the clause has been largely unaddressed by the courts.
Some experts have suggested that Biden could invoke this amendment to raise the debt ceiling on his own if Congress does not act. That would almost certainly lead to prolonged legal wrangling, which could unsettle financial markets
White House and other administration officials have examined the possibility but many have dismissed it as a last ditch solution unlikely to survive a court challenge, according to a person briefed on those discussions.
The story conveniently puts an ellipse in the part of the Amendment that says “authorized by law.” The full text of that clause is:
Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
While I expect these options to be popular with some, I doubt it will stem the exodus. I don’t think most are leaving (or not joining) because of the way shifts are structured.
The flexible schedule comes amid a mass exodus of veteran officers retiring or taking jobs at other departments for better pay and benefits. The department is experiencing high overtime costs as the rest of the force picks up the slack with extra hours.
[…]
Under the 12-hour shift option, officers work three days on and three days off within the NYPD’s scheduling framework.
In the 10-hour option, officers would work 10-hour shifts for four days, followed by two days off.
Officers based in the Bronx — in the 45th and 47th precincts and in Transit District 11 and Public Service Area 8, which serves city housing projects in the 43rd, 45th and 47th precincts — are participating in the pilot program. If the program works, the city hopes to expand it.
I part ways with the Republicans on this one. The data is clear that more money will not result in better educational outcomes – especially in MPS. Don’t give them any more money. The leftist educrats will drop or circumvent the requirements as soon as they can, but the increased spending is eternal. Starve the beast.
Furthermore, whether or not a district uses police, private security, arms staff, or other security measures seems to me to be a strictly local concern.
The district had cut its last contracts with Milwaukee police in summer 2020, as racial justice protests landed outside MPS offices. School board members have stood by that decision, but lawmakers could go over their heads.
While previous attempts by lawmakers to require school districts to hire police officers have been subject to veto by the governor, this one could be harder for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to block if he wants to pass the whole bundle of proposals in the same bill. Evers’ spokesperson has not replied to questions from the Journal Sentinel about the plan.
Evers would not be allowed to use his partial-veto power on this bill if it lands on his desk, according to Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau Director Richard Champagne. On bills that spend public funds, Evers is allowed to use a partial veto, crossing out only certain parts of it. But Champagne said this bill does not qualify as an appropriations bill, and Evers would only be allowed to veto it in full.
The bill, released by state Assembly leaders Tuesday, could still change as it moves through the Legislature. It includes a range of other measures, including allowing the city of Milwaukee to levy a sales tax if approved by referendum.
[…]
MPS stopped using school resource officers in its buildings in 2016 in response to complaints about police unnecessarily citing and arresting students for incidents that could have been handled as disciplinary matters by the district. In 2020, it also ended contracts with police to patrol outside buildings and events.
Ron DeSantis now has at his disposal $12 million to fly migrants to Democratic enclaves after the Florida legislature passed on Tuesday a new measure that helps fund the controversial program.
In September, the Florida governor flew four dozen migrants from Texas to the swanky Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. The stunt caused an uproar from immigration advocates and Democrats after the migrants had to find ways off the island.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has accepted an invitation from President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit on May 9 in an attempt to end the on-going standoff, according to a report citing a source familiar to the matter.
The invitation came after the Treasury Department warned American is set to run out of money by June 1 and default on its debts – earlier than expected – ratcheting up the hear on lawmakers to avert an economic crisis.
Only halfway through his first term, President Biden has rent our great republic to the point that it will take generations to reverse the damage – if it can be reversed. Our national debt now far exceeds our country’s full annual economic output. Inflation is crushing dreams and robbing the middle class of their spending power. Our borders are wide open with terrorists and criminals intermingling with the world’s indigent. All of them are stretching and breaking our social fabric. Crime is eating out the core of our once great cities. America’s power on the international stage is at its lowest ebb since World War 1. All of this is being overseen by the increasingly senile head of what is proving to be one of the most prolific criminal family organizations our nation has ever seen, according to the investigation of the U.S. House Oversight Committee and IRS whistleblower.
Despite all of that destruction, if the Republicans choose Donald Trump as their nominee, it is more than probable that Biden will win reelection.
Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was lightning in a bottle. He managed to speak to the large, disaffected segment of the populace who were fed up with Washington ignoring them. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party nominated a uniquely disliked political figure in Hillary Clinton after a fractious primary where the party’s schism with the socialists, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, failed to heal before the general election.
Trump’s term in office was terrific in many ways. He pushed back the regulatory state to allow the American economic engine to flourish. The Trump-Ryan tax cuts unleashed American capital and drove up real wages faster than in decades. Trump’s “America first” foreign policy was clear and sensible. Trump’s excellent choice in federal judges and fortuitous opportunity to appoint three Supreme Court justices has proven to be the only bulwark against Biden’s rapacious rule.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Trump accelerated the decadent spending of his predecessor and built the foundation from which Biden launched generational inflation. While Trump did well with Operation Warp Speed and the initial response to the pandemic, he was lethargic in letting America get back to normal and perpetuated the Rule of Fauci. Despite all of the bluster about “draining the swamp,” the swamp won.
Even with the full power of incumbency, Trump failed to win reelection. Irrespective of your thoughts on the integrity of the electoral process in 2020, Trump in 2020 was simply less popular than Trump in 2016. After all, he lost to a candidate who ran an anemic campaign from the comfort of his basement.
Trump in 2023 is in even worse shape than Trump in 2020. There is a noticeable difference in Trump’s message and priorities. Instead of talking about Making America Great Again, Trump is just a rhetorical blowtorch to anything and anyone who threatens him. Trump’s message in 2016 was about us. His message in 2023 is about him.
This is why Trump cannot win the general election. Despite what you may think of him, he has irreparably damaged his relationship with half the conservatives, three-fourths of the independents, and he never had the liberals. No matter how you work the electoral math, he cannot win a national general election again. He has let the lightning out of the bottle.
by Owen | 2103, 1 May 2323 | Politics | 3 Comments
Whatever. He’s lost his power. And isn’t it telling how nobody even pretends anymore that the “Inflation Reduction Act” actually had anything to do with reducing inflation?
Sen. Joe Manchin is losing patience with his fellow Democrats over their signature climate law — and the feeling is mutual.
The West Virginia Democrat has spent weeks escalating his attacks on President Joe Biden’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping bill that Manchin helped write in a deal that stunned Washington last summer. Last week, he threatened to join Republicans in voting to repeal the law, as the House GOP is demanding in its legislation for raising the nation’s debt limit.
Manchin’s comment caught his caucus colleagues off guard, even if such a repeal would be a long shot in Congress. It came just as Biden was launching a reelection campaign that rests heavily on that legislation’s climate and health care provisions.
“That surprises me that he wants to repeal it. I think it’s one of his greatest accomplishments,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a close colleague of Manchin’s on the Energy Committee, in an interview.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will end most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House said Monday.
Vaccine requirements for federal workers and federal contractors, as well as foreign air travelers to the U.S., will end May 11. The government is also beginning the process of lifting shot requirements for Head Start educators, healthcare workers, and noncitizens at U.S. land borders.
The requirements are among the last vestiges of some of the more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccination as the deadly virus raged, and their end marks the latest display of how President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to treat COVID-19 as a routine, endemic illness.
