U.S. Chip Production, Chinese Trade Policy, and COVID Outbreaks
Tax Policy/News:
Jan 2: Trump tax returns raise alarms about the fairness of the US tax code
That's raising more urgent questions about the fairness of the U.S. tax code and tax regulations, which number in the millions of words and in the case of Trump proved effectively unenforceable.
Advocates for tax reform say that a shift in mindset is needed, that a flawed conception of taxation as punitive and economically destructive is what allows for the sort of serial tax avoidance on display in the Trump tax returns. "With the release of Donald Trump's tax returns we have learned that he did not pay any federal income taxes," Frank Clemente, director of the tax advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement to The Hill.
Trump on Friday touted his ability to use the tax code to his advantage, specifically praising his use of business losses to wipe out his own personal tax bill. "The 'Trump' tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises," Trump said in a statement.
“Where are the IRS work papers?” tax expert Steve Rosenthal said in an email to The Hill. "I thought the Ways and Means Committee was sharing Trump's tax returns to allow the public to assess the IRS audit. The Joint Tax Committee reported the IRS audit was abysmal, which seems correct. But Joint Tax used the IRS work papers to illuminate. We ought to see them also."
Democrats often criticized Trump for claiming to be a virtuosic businessman despite declaring bankruptcy four times and amassing billions of dollars in debt to finance a string of deals. They also sought Trump's tax returns to assess the true nature of his wealth and the depth of his financial connections abroad. "As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined," said Rep. Don Beyer in a Friday statement.
Economic News/Policy:
Jan 1: U.S. Pours Money Into Chips, but Even Soaring Spending Has Limits
President Biden has staked a prominent part of his economic agenda on stimulating U.S. chip production, but his reasons go beyond the economic benefits. Much of the world's cutting-edge chips today are made in Taiwan, the island to which China claims territorial rights. The new U.S. production efforts may correct some of these imbalances, industry executives said - but only up to a point.
The new chip factories would take years to build and might not be able to offer the industry's most advanced manufacturing technology when they begin operations. The bonanza of money on U.S. chip production is "Not going to try or succeed in accomplishing self-sufficiency," said Chris Miller, an associate professor of international history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the author of a recent book on the chip industry's battles.
White House officials have argued that the chip-making investments will sharply reduce the proportion of chips needed to be purchased from abroad, improving U.S. economic security. U.S. companies led chip production for decades starting in the late 1950s.
Dec 26: ‘A sea change’: Biden reverses decades of Chinese trade policy
The White House and Congress are quietly reshaping the American economic relationship with the world's second-largest economic power, enacting a strategy to limit China's technological development that breaks with decades of federal policy and represents the most aggressive American action yet to curtail Beijing's economic and military rise.
"You really have seen a sea change in the way that they're looking at the relationship with China," said Clete Willems, who helped design China's economic policy in the Trump White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.
"It's not an exaggeration to say this is a Biden doctrine of technology policy toward China," said Eric Sayers, a former staffer for the U.S. Pacific Command during the Trump administration.
Those China hawks, including some Trump administration veterans, say that Beijing's control over the Chinese economy is so complete that the only way to ensure that American commerce does not assist Chinese military development is to push for less trade between the countries, particularly in high-tech and defense-related sectors.
The China hawks used that momentum - emphasized further by China's brutal crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong - to push out a number of last-minute actions to limit China's technological development before Trump left office, like putting firms like the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company on government blacklists and blocking American investments in a handful of firms affiliated with the Chinese military.
The solution, the Biden administration thought, was to pair a new push in American industrial policy with a stepped-up campaign to not just compete with China, but contain its growth.
The new subsidies, combined with unilateral American actions on Chinese tech, "Make Europe consider the U.S. as a country of concern, not too distant from China," said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, a former EU and Swedish representative at the World Trade Organization.
ICYMI:
Jan 3: McCarthy blocked from Speakership as House moves to second ballot
A group of 19 hardline House Republicans blocked GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy from securing the gavel on the first vote to elect a Speaker on Tuesday, sending the House to a second ballot for the first time in a century. No members voted "Present" or were absent, which would have lowered the threshold that McCarthy must meet to get majority support.
A second vote for Speaker began immediately, and the House will continue through possibly multiple ballots until a Speaker is elected. In a House GOP Conference meeting Tuesday morning, an impassioned McCarthy vowed to wage a long battle for the Speakership.
Over the weekend, McCarthy offered some late concessions to those withholding support for him including allowing a move to "Vacate the chair" - a move to force a vote on ousting the Speaker - with the approval of five Republican members, rather than a threshold of at least half of the House GOP Conference.
The vote marks the first time since 1923 that the House Speaker election has gone to multiple ballots.
Dec 28: US to impose new restrictions on travelers from China amid COVID outbreaks
The Biden administration is planning new coronavirus precautions on travelers arriving from China due to a surge in COVID-19 cases and concerns about the lack of transparent reporting data from the country, federal health officials said Wednesday. Beginning Jan. 5, all air passengers at least 2 years old originating from China will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test no more than two days before their departure from China, Hong Kong, or Macau.
Passengers who tested positive more than 10 days before the flight can provide documentation of recovery from COVID-19 in lieu of a negative test result.
Passengers flying through Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Toronto Pearson International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport on their way to the United States will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test no more than two days before their departure to the United States if they've been in China in the last two days, officials said.
The move aims to decrease the number of infected passengers boarding airplanes and could give public health authorities time to identify and understand any potential new variants that may emerge.
The new policy reflects the Biden administration's concern over the situation in China, which is rapidly ending its strict "Zero COVID" policy in the face of protests. The Chinese government has virtually stopped reporting any outbreak data, and Biden administration health officials said they were concerned about potential new variants circulating without their knowledge.
For Fun:
Jan 1: 2023 Space And Astronomy News: What To Expect
New Rockets: NASA got its giant Space Launch System off the ground for the first time in 2022, lighting up the night in Florida with an incredible stream of flame as it carried the Artemis I mission toward the moon. That shifted attention to SpaceX, which is building a next-generation rocket, Starship, that is also central to NASA’s crewed Artemis III moon landing attempt.
New Lunar Landings: We’re guaranteed at least one lunar landing attempt in 2023. A Japanese company, Ispace, launched its M1 mission on a SpaceX rocket in December. It’s taking a slow, fuel-efficient route to the moon and is set to arrive in April, when it will try to deploy a rover built by the United Arab Emirates, a robot built by Japan’s space agency, JAXA, as well as other payloads.
New Space Telescopes: The Webb telescope wowed space enthusiasts and scientists with its views of the cosmos, but we may get new vantages from a variety of orbital observatories. The most significant may be Xuntian, a Chinese mission setting off later in the year that will be like a more sophisticated version of the Hubble Space Telescope. The spacecraft will survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths in an orbit around Earth close to the country's Tiangong space station.
New Planetary Missions: A new spacecraft will head toward Jupiter this year, aiming to become the first to ever orbit another planet's moon. The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, or JUICE, will launch from an Ariane 5 rocket as early as April 5 to set off to the Jovian system, arriving in 2031.
A Total Eclipse and a Not-So-Total One
There will be two solar eclipses in 2023:A total eclipse on April 20 will be more of a Southern Hemisphere event, and the moon will only blot out the sun in remote parts of Australia and Indonesia. (Perhaps not a bad time to be on a boat in parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, too.)
But Americans may get a good show on Oct. 14, when North America will be visited by an annular eclipse. Eclipses of this type are sometimes called “ring of fire” eclipses because the moon is too far from Earth to fully block the sun but creates a ring-like effect when it reaches totality. The eclipse’s path runs through parts of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas before dipping into Central and South America. Where the weather cooperates, it should be a great solar show and a nice lead-up for the April 8, 2024, total eclipse that will cross the United States from southwest to northeast.