Washington Insider

A brake plant in Mexico just south of Brownsville, Texas, is the first to face a complaint under the USMCA over harassment allegations by the AFL-CIO, challenging the labor provisions in the trade agreement.

The markets will be watching the impact of the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline over the weekend. Prices for wholesale gasoline in the financial futures market jumped as much as 4% in Sunday evening trading to their highest level since 2018.

President Joe Biden's plan proposing tax increases on the wealthy also contains potential tax changes many in U.S. agriculture are very concerned about.

The New York Times reports that the issue of debt limits is again coming to light after the 2019 action by a then-bipartisan Congress to suspend the debt limit until July 31.

The prospect of rising prices for goods that consumers purchase remains a concern as commodity prices have risen and the government either has or wants to pump trillions of dollars into a U.S. economy that has been battered by the COVID pandemic.

A federal judge ruled recently that a Trump administration rule to allow pork plants to run hog kill lines at faster speeds provided their prevent contamination and minimize bacteria. Previously, the government imposed a limit of 1,106 pigs per hour.

Advocates for increasing direct food aid from USDA argue that the $22-a-day food budget USDA currently sets for a family of four is woefully inadequate and relies on outdated, unrealistic assumptions.

Congressional Democrats want to make permanent a provision providing higher Child Tax Credits. But, citing budgetary constraints, the White House has proposed an extension of the still-fledgling program until 2025, when Republican-supported tax cuts are due to expire. That sets up a fiscal...

Called the American Families Plan, the president's third major legislative proposal combines $1 trillion in spending with $800 billion in tax cuts and credits for middle- and lower-income families.

Biden's American Families Plan, itself featuring the biggest expansion of federal support for lower-income and middle-class Americans in decades, will be offset by a series of tax increases on the wealthy, administration officials say. The president will unveil his program during the Wednesday night...

JPMorgan Asset Management and T. Rowe Price see the dollar weakening as U.S. economic exceptionalism wanes, while PineBridge Investments expects it to strengthen. Currencies from the euro to the Brazilian real have attempted rallies this month leaving the greenback sitting at a closely-watched...

The expected proposals, which largely hew to President Joe Biden's campaign promises, would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, implement a minimum corporate tax, nearly double taxes on investment gains for the wealthiest and tweak inheritance laws.

Democrats have said they plan to bring back a limited version of earmarks, which hadn't been used in a decade. Now, it appears that at least some Senate Republicans are planning to join in the process, as well.

One reason the Biden administration is starting to study whether China's development of a digital currency will make it harder for the U.S. to enforce sanctions, Bloomberg said. The digital yuan, which could see a wider roll out at the 2022 Winter Olympics is also spurring the U.S. to consider...

The world's soil may be able to sequester as much as the fossil-fuel emissions from the transport sector globally -- or nearly as much as the carbon dioxide released by the electricity industry worldwide. It's that potential that agriculture firms, big and small, are keen to tap. Buyers so far...

As the Fed has taken a more expansive view of how it could work toward full employment, stable inflation and financial stability with the loosely defined tasks Congress handed it as conservative economists and lawmakers have complained that it risks going...

Treasury reports to Congress twice yearly in an effort to hold the U.S. trading partners accountable if they try to gain an unfair advantage in international commerce through currency manipulation.

John Kerry, the president's climate envoy, has been meeting with diplomats to reestablish America as a leader on global climate action after four years of backtracking under former President Donald Trump, Bloomberg says. That means setting an ambitious 2030 emissions-reduction target and then...

There are growing, valid concerns for investors and policy makers since the trillions of dollars of government stimulus dollars could push the economy beyond its limits and create a broad-based overheating. But to be a savvy consumer of economic data, it's important to separate those...

A top GOP senator told President Biden on Monday that it would be "almost impossible" to win over Republicans if the plan envisions boosting the corporate tax rate, as it currently does. There is also widespread private skepticism among congressional Republicans that the White House is...