In spring 2021, President Joe Biden struck a deal with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to remove U.S. sanctions on a Russian company building a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. While analysts suggested the move was made to protect U.S. relations with Germany, the decision was opposed by both Republicans and Democrats as well as several European countries. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, constructed by the Russian state-controlled gas company Gazprom, is projected to double natural gas exports into Europe once German regulators certify the recently completed project. The pipeline runs under the Baltic Sea and bypasses Poland and…

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers instituted a moratorium on evictions, arguing that people needed to stay in their homes regardless of their ability to pay rent to control the spread of the disease and the economic impacts of lockdowns. A Congressionally instituted eviction moratorium, however, expired in July 2020. After Congress failed to pass an extension in time the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) then issued an emergency order keeping the moratoriums in place, citing the Public Health Service Act of 1944. That order proved controversial, pitting the welfare of renters against the potential income loss…

The federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993, currently stands at 18.4 cents per gallon. Revenue from that tax funds improvements of U.S. roads, bridges and mass transit systems but has left the government short of all the money needed to keep transportation networks in a state of good repair. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Highway Trust Fund, which is largely funded by the gas tax, could be insolvent by the end of 2022. Now a bipartisan group of senators is proposing raising the federal gas tax to fund infrastructure improvements. Proposals to raise the tax…

President Joe Biden announced this spring that he plans to raise the corporate tax rate to help fund his more than $2 trillion infrastructure bill. Supporters of the plan argued that it would help support American workers and families because corporations would be putting money back into the U.S. economy. Detractors of the higher tax rate, however, said that a greater tax burden on corporations could lead to job losses and a weakened economy. Under the Trump administration, the corporate tax rate was cut from 35% to 21%. Biden has announced he would increase the rate to 28%. Biden touted…

President Joe Biden took steps toward making good on a campaign promise to tackle student loan debt this spring. The move, however, faced critics from the left, with some saying the president had not gone far enough to help debt-burdened graduates, and the right, which argued that the government should not waive student debt. In March, the Biden administration announced that it would cancel $1 billion in student loan debt for 72,000 borrowers who attended schools that closed abruptly or that used illegal or deceptive practices. The move streamlined the process for borrowers applying for assistance after a Trump-era policy…

The Biden administration moved to help middle-income families with an expanded child tax credit included in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that passed Congress in March. The American Rescue Plan increased the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,600 per child under age six and $3,000 per child between the ages of 6 and 17 for one year. The credit will also be 100% refundable for one year. Half of the credit would be paid directly to families starting in July 2021, rather than being solely a credit applied to a family’s annual tax bill. (Although the American Rescue…