Trump Administration Nixes Plan to Cover Anti-Obesity Drugs Through Medicare

President Donald Trump’s administration has decided not to cover expensive, high-demand obesity treatments under the federal government’s Medicare program.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said late Friday that it would not cover the medications under Medicare’s Part D prescription drug coverage. Medicare covers health care expenses mainly for people age 65 and older.

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Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, proposed a rule in late November after Trump won re-election that would have extended coverage of drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy. The rule was not expected to be finalized until Trump took office.

Trump returned to office in January. The Senate confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday.

CMS did not offer an explanation Friday for its decision, and federal spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been an outspoken opponent of the injectable drugs, which have exploded in popularity due to the potentially life-changing weight loss that some patients experience.

Polls show Americans favor having Medicaid and Medicare cover the costs. But many insurers, employers and other bill payers have been reluctant to pay for the drugs, which can be used by a wide swath of the population and can cost hundreds of dollars a month.

Biden’s proposal was expensive: It would have included coverage for all state- and federally funded Medicaid programs for people with low incomes, costing taxpayers as much as $35 billion over next decade.

Proponents of the coverage have argued that treating obesity can actually reduce longer-term costs by cutting down on heart attacks and other expensive health complications that can arise from the disease.

The benefits consultant Mercer has said that 44% of U.S. companies with 500 or more employees covered obesity drugs last year.

Medicare does pay for drugs like Wegovy for patients who have heart disease and need to reduce their risk of future heart attacks, strokes and other serious problems. The federal program also covers versions of the drugs that treat diabetes.

More than a dozen state Medicaid programs already cover the drugs for obesity.

—The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

source https://time.com/7275203/trump-administration-nixes-anti-obesity-drugs-medicare-coverage/

How Trump’s Latest Tariffs Could Affect Your Wallet

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump has unveiled his latest tariffs, and they could have significant implications for your wallet.

Trump’s sweeping new tariffs, on top of previous levies and retaliation worldwide, are expected to increase prices for everyday items. The trade wars have already roiled financial markets and plunged businesses into uncertainty — all while economists warn of potentially weakened economic growth and heightened inequality.

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Which impacts will be felt by consumers and workers first? And what can households do in the face of so much uncertainty? Here’s what you need to know:

What are tariffs and how will they affect me?

Tariffs are taxes on goods imported from other countries. Companies buying foreign products pay the tariffs imposed on them — and, as a result, face higher costs that are typically passed on to customers.

Trump has argued tariffs will protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition and raise money for the federal government. But since so much of what we buy today relies on a global supply chain, steeper tariffs mean you’ll likely see more expensive prices from the grocery aisle to your next car repair.

“It is going to affect everything in the economy,” said Josh Stillwagon, an associate professor of economics and chair of the Economics Division at Babson College. “There’s this immediate price increase that’s going to be passed on to consumers here, basically as soon as the retailers have to buy new product.”

Will the tariffs affect everyone equally?

No. Experts warn that these tariffs could escalate inequities. Low-income families in particular will feel the costs of key necessities, like food and energy, rise with fewer savings to draw on — significantly straining budgets.

Low-income households often “spend a larger share of their income on essential goods — whether it’s food or other basic products … (like) soap or toothpaste,” said Gustavo Flores-Macías, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University whose research focuses on economic development. Because of this, he said, “even relatively small price increases” will have disproportionate impacts.

Evidence of that disparity will only mount for big-ticket items. Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, points to now-imposed auto tariffs, explaining that projected price hikes of thousands of dollars for a new imported car will be easier for those with larger salaries to absorb.

“That tax is more severe for people who earn less money,” said Chatterjee. “So it’s a regressive tax.”

What about jobs?

Beyond more immediate price pressures, experts also warn that tariffs could contribute to unemployment or lower incomes down the road. Trump has argued that tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the U.S., but if businesses take profit hits or change their supply sources, there could be layoffs worldwide.

“It’s not just the price aspect and purchasing power decreasing,” said Flores-Macías. “As tariffs start to work their way through the economy …. low-income families’ jobs often will be the first to go. And those sectors of the population are most vulnerable.”

Economist Susan Helper, former senior adviser for industrial strategy at the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that there are some cases where tariffs could raise wages, but this doesn’t look likely to be one of them.

“There isn’t enough certainty for businesses to invest and create new and better jobs,” she said. “It takes a few years at minimum to profit off a new facility or factory, and I don’t think people have the confidence that the tariffs will be stable enough that they will have a return on that investment.”

Which consumer goods will be affected?

The tariffs announced by Trump Wednesday, on top of other levies that are already in effect, tax imports from nearly all of America’s trading partners. And U.S. shoppers currently rely on a lot of goods made abroad.

Fruits and vegetables, your next phone purchase, a pharmacy order, new clothes, or a trip to a mechanic who uses auto parts made outside of the U.S. could all be impacted.

The timing of when prices will go up comes down to inventory, Stillwagon said. Much of that will also depend on how businesses prepare and respond to the new levies. While companies may have stocked up on goods in anticipation of these tariffs, he expects some stores to see more immediate price increases.

Prices on perishable groceries will likely increase first, because supermarket inventories need to be replenished more frequently. But a range of other items — like electronics, household appliances, clothing and footwear — could also be affected in the coming weeks and months.

“Annual losses for households at the bottom of the income distribution are estimated to be $980 under the April 2 policy alone,” according to John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecom and fraud at the National Consumers League, who cited an analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale. He said that tariffs will disproportionately affect clothing and textiles, with apparel prices predicted to rise 17%.

Consumers are also likely to feel the pinch of tariffs in home buying, Breyault said. The new taxes on building materials are estimated to increase the average costs of a new home by $9,200, according to an analysis by the National Association of Home Builders.

Rerouting supply chains to reemphasize domestic production is also very complex — and could take years. Stillwagon said there are some products, like bananas and coffee, that the U.S. simply can’t substitute to the same scale of production other countries provide. And even for goods that can be made in the U.S., there will still likely be inflation.

“A real worry here is that this won’t just be a one-time price jump,” he said.

For products like coffee, Helper predicts people will likely absorb costs, while changing their shopping choices when it comes to other products.

“I guess you could switch to Coca-Cola if all you want is the caffeine,” she said, lightly. “It will probably be good for California wines.”

Can I do anything to prepare?

Stocking up on what you know you need is a start — but with limits.

“If there are things that you’re buying on a consistent basis — week to week, month to month — I think it’s not a bad idea to try to stock up in advance,” Stillwagon said. But it’s important to avoid panic buying like that seen at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he and others added. That could cause shortages to emerge sooner and prices to go up faster.

You also don’t want to buy a bunch of items that will eventually go to waste.

“If you do plan stock up on consumables, make sure you have a plan on how to store them properly so you don’t end up having to throw out that 20-pound bag of shrimp, for example, in a few weeks,” said Breyault.

It may also be time to look for substitutes. From electronics to clothing, Flores-Macías says that there could be more affordable secondhand or refurbished options to turn to. And Chatterjee noted consumers may want to start comparing prices of name-brands versus “private,” or generic, labels in major retailers. Others may turn to at-home solutions, he said, such as growing their own vegetables.

Overall, experts say you’ll need to evaluate your budget and consumption habits for the road ahead.

“This is not a hurricane that’s going to be around for seven days and everything goes back to normal afterward. And you stock up on toilet paper (temporarily),” said Chatterjee. “For all you know, this thing could be around until a different administration comes in and changes trade policy.”

Is there anything to watch out for in the coming months?

Consumers should be on the lookout for even greater use of so-called “shrinkflation” on the grocery aisle, according to Breyault. Shrinkflation is a tactic consumer goods manufacturers use to hide cost increases by changing the design of packaging.

“Consumers can prepare for the inflation that the tariffs are likely to exacerbate by getting into the habit of checking the unit price of items on the grocery shelf,” said Breyault. “While not all states require it, where it is required, consumers can more easily compare the per unit price of one item — cereal, for example — to another item.”

—The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

source https://time.com/7275194/how-trump-tariffs-could-affect-your-wallet/

Senate GOP Approves Framework for Trump’s Tax Breaks and Spending Cuts After Late-Night Session

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans plugged away overnight and into early Saturday morning to approve their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts framework, hurtling past Democratic opposition toward what President Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” that’s central to his agenda.

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent Republicans. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment, with the economy churning after Trump’s new tariffs sent stocks plummeting and experts warning of soaring costs for consumers and threats of a potential recession. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against the measure.

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But with a nod from Trump, GOP leaders held on. Approval paves the way for Republicans in the months ahead to try to power a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress over the objections of Democrats, just as they did in Trump’s first term with unified party control in Washington.

“Let the voting begin,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday night.

Democrats were intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, with action on some two dozen amendments to the package that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s midterm elections.

Among them were proposals to ban tax breaks for the super-wealthy, end Trump’s tariffs, clip his efforts to shrink the federal government, and protect Medicaid, Social Security and other services. One, in response to the Trump national security team’s use of Signal, sought to prohibit military officials from using any commercial messaging application to transmit war plans. They all failed, though a GOP amendment to protect Medicare and Medicaid was accepted.

Democrats accused Republicans of laying the groundwork for cutting key safety net programs to help pay for more than $5 trillion tax cuts they say disproportionately benefit the rich.

“Trump’s policies are a disaster,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, as is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, he added. “Republicans could snuff it out tonight, if they wanted.”

The Republicans framed their work as preventing a tax increase for most American families, arguing that unless Congress acts, the individual and estate tax cuts that GOP lawmakers passed in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.

The Senate package pulls in other GOP priorities, including $175 billion to bolster Trump’s mass deportation effort, which is running short of cash, and an additional $175 billion for the Pentagon to build up the military, from an earlier budget effort.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 ranking Republican, said voters gave his party a mission in November, and the Senate’s budget plan delivers.

“It fulfills our promises to secure the border, to rebuild our economy and to restore peace through strength,” Barrasso said.

The framework now goes to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., could bring it up for a vote as soon as next week as he works toward a final product by Memorial Day.

The House and Senate need to resolve their differences. The House’s version has $4.5 trillion in tax breaks over 10 years and some $2 trillion in budget cuts, and pointed at changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other programs. Some House Republicans have panned the Senate’s approach.

Republican senators used their majority to swat back Democratic amendments, often in rambunctious voice votes.

Among the more than two dozen amendments offered were several to protect safety net programs. Several Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, joined Democrats in voting to preserve some of those programs, particularly regarding health care. Collins opposed the entire package in a warning against steep Medicaid cuts.

Collins said the potential reductions for that health program in the House bill “would be very detrimental to a lot of families and disabled individuals and seniors in my state.”

Paul questioned the math being used by his colleagues that he said would pile on the debt load. “Something’s fishy,” he said.

One Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, expressed his own misgivings about tax breaks adding to the federal deficits and said he has assurances that Trump officials would seek the cuts elsewhere.

“This vote isn’t taking place in a vacuum,” he said, a nod to the turmoil over Trump’s tariffs.

One crucial challenge ahead will be for the House to accept the way the Senate’s budget plan allows for extending the tax cuts under a scoring method that treats them as not adding to future deficits, something many House Republicans reject. A new estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation projects the tax breaks will add $5.5 trillion over the next decade when including interest, and $4.6 trillion not including interest.

On top of that, the senators added an additional $1.5 trillion that would allow some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as no taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime, swelling the overall the price tag to $7 trillion.

Republicans are also looking to increase the $10,000 deduction for state and local taxes, something that lawmakers from states such as New York, California and New Jersey say is necessary for their support.

The House and Senate are also at odds over increasing the debt limit to allow more borrowing. The House had boosted the debt limit by $4 trillion in its plan, but the Senate upped it to $5 trillion to push any further votes on the matter until after next year’s midterm elections.

The Senate calls for just $4 billion in spending cuts, but GOP leadership emphasizes that’s a low floor and that committees will be on the hunt for far more.

Already, the GOP leaders are confronting concerns from fiscal hawks who want trillions of dollars in spending cuts to help pay for the tax breaks. At the same time, dozens of lawmakers in swing districts and states are worried about what those cuts will mean for their constituents, and for their reelection chances.

The GOP leadership has encouraged members to just get a budget plan over the finish line, saying they have time to work out the tough questions of which tax breaks and spending cuts to include.

Extending the the 2017 breaks would cut taxes for about three-quarters of households but raise them for about 10%. In 2027, about 45% of the benefit of all the tax cuts would go to those making roughly $450,000 or more, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which analyzes tax issues.

source https://time.com/7275183/senate-gop-approves-framework-for-trumps-tax-breaks-and-spending-cuts/

How Newspapers Struggled to Cover Martin Luther King Jr. and Segregation in the North

Harry Belafonte was angry at Martin Luther King’s funeral. He lost his cool with a New York Times reporter, telling him “this grievous moment was in part the result of a climate of hate and distortion that the New York Times and other papers had helped create.” It wasn’t just Southerners who had laid the ground for King’s death—Northern newspapers and political leaders had distorted and demonized the civil rights leader for years as well, argued Belafonte.

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Today, in popular narratives of the civil rights movement, journalists are remembered as heroes who braved the South’s violent parochialism to shine a light on those confronting Jim Crow segregation. Some reporters did journey south to cover the “real struggle” between 1955 and 1965, showing great personal courage and publishing ground-breaking reporting on racial oppression and the valiant movement to confront it from Nashville to Selma. However, my study, which looked at hundreds of articles in the mainstream news media across the 1960s, shows that many of the same newspapers that rigorously covered the civil rights struggle in the South often failed to do so around similar struggles in the North and West.

Media outlets questioned the statements of Southern officials but generally accepted, or even amplified, the positions of officials who denied similar problems in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. And outlets that cast Southern activists’ direct action as valiant often portrayed civil rights activism outside of the South as unreasonable, disruptive, and potentially dangerous. They covered Dr. King differently in his support of Southern movements—Birmingham in 1963 and St. Augustine in 1964—than his support of movements against housing segregation, school segregation and police brutality in NYC, L.A., and Chicago in these same years. “As the nation, Negro and white, trembled with outrage at police brutality in the South,” King observed, “police misconduct in the North was rationalized, tolerated, and usually denied.” He noted that journalists and other white officials investigated and praised the movement “as long as I was safe from [them] down in the South.”

Too often, national newspapers would criticize civil rights activism that impacted their own cities. For instance, after the Sept. 15, 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Church in Birmingham killed four Black girls, Dr. King joined the call for Black people and their white allies to engage in a nationwide shopping boycott during the Christmas season that year to highlight that it was not just individuals in Alabama, but a national racial climate that set the stage for the church bombing. The New York Times editorial board, in a piece titled “Strike Against Santa Claus,” called King a “respected leader” but determined that the boycott was a “dangerous,” “self-defeating” and “singularly inappropriate device for promoting civil rights.”

Read More: 10 Surprising Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

While the New York Times did occasionally cover New York’s myriad civil rights protests, the paper typically did so without acknowledging a systemic problem. Ten years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision, the segregated schools that Black and Puerto Rican students attended in New York City were underfunded, drastically overcrowded, and crumbling. After a decade of community activism had produced little change, Black parents and community activists called for a city-wide school boycott on February 3, 1964. The New York Times editorial board lambasted the protest as a “violent, illegal approach of adult-encouraged truancy.” They dismissed the demand for a comprehensive desegregation plan as “unreasonable and unjustified.” The New York Times claimed that “few things could be more destructive to the welfare of all of the city’s children” than the boycott, not the segregation of the city’s schools.

In treating Northern so-called “de facto” segregation as distinct from Southern de jure segregation under Jim Crow, newspapers obscured the range of state policies including school zoning, busing, teacher placement, disparities in school resources, decrepit school buildings, and double session days that all worked to maintain school segregation in schools across the Northeast, Midwest, and West (or what King and most Black activists at the time called “the North”). As Black lawyer Paul Zuber observed, “The word de facto segregation was never heard until the historic Supreme Court decision of 1954.” While the Black press repeatedly quoted King calling de facto segregation “a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties,” mainstream news outlets ignored him.

In 1963, King went to Chicago repeatedly to support the growing movement challenging the city’s school and housing segregation, calling the city “as segregated” as Birmingham. In one article, the Tribune editorial board labeled King “arrogant” and an “outsider.” The paper claimed that “in Chicago, there was little to no segregation” and suggested that King was not welcome in the city anymore. “We don’t need any agitators from the South” they wrote.

Just five years earlier, when King’s work seemed contained in the South, an editorial published by The Tribune titled “Portrait of a Christian” praised King as “an influential champion of both egalitarian ends and nonviolent means.” But when Dr. King’s call for change was trained on Chicago itself, the Tribune’s editorial board took a much different stance.

By 1965, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made the decision to help escalate their plans for the Chicago Freedom Movement by joining forces with the city’s local movement. During this time, the paper’s coverage of King shifted. In one article, the editorial board called King’s allegations of police brutality in Chicago “absurd.”

In one article by the Tribune editorial board about King’s predictions that riots in Los Angeles might spread to cities such as New York, Detroit, and Chicago unless the civil rights of Black citizens were better protected, the paper framed King’s forecast as a threat. “What good is done by encouraging a mood of lawlessness among Negroes?” they asked.

When the open housing marches in the summer of 1966 drew massive violence from white supremacist organizations such as the KKK and the American Nazi Party in Chicago, the Tribune cast the Black marchers as the problem for inciting trouble. On Aug. 22, 1966 they editorialized against seven “outside” leaders causing “disorder” in the city.

On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times also did not cover King and his fight for racial justice consistently. For instance, the paper would rarely frame housing and school segregation or police brutality as systematic problems in the city, although King and Black Angelenos had been naming and protesting these problems for years. In 1963, years of work across the state to challenge widespread discrimination in housing succeeded in getting a modest state Fair Housing Act passed that would mostly apply to apartments. Yet white Californians, real estate interests, and homeowner associations mobilized to secure a ballot proposition in 1964, Proposition 14, to protect the right of Californians to discriminate in the sale and rental of property, and the Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsed Proposition 14. While praising the “principle of anti-discrimination” they called the state’s Fair Housing Act an “artificial law” that infringed on a person’s right to private property.

King flew back and forth between Atlanta and Los Angeles repeatedly in 1964 to join the multiracial campaign to defeat Proposition 14. While he called the effort to pass it “one of the most shameful tragedies of the 20th century,”at a California rally, the Los Angeles Times doubled down on its support. Ultimately, Proposition 14 passed overwhelmingly, with three of four white Californians supporting it.

Read More: Why Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Message Still Matters in the Second Trump Era

King in the Saturday Review termed Proposition 14 a “vote for ghettos”—and blamed Proposition 14’s passage as kindling for the uprising that erupted in Watts nine months later. Sparked by the arrest and assault of 21-year-old Black resident Marquette Frye, after years of Black protest around police brutality, the 1965 Watts uprising seemed to shock the Los Angeles Times—which didn’t have a single Black writer on staff. White Los Angeles Times writer Theodore White extolled the “open and easy tolerance,” of the city where Black people had made “spectacular progress.” This corresponded to Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown’s assertion that “California was a state without racial discrimination” and praised the police for “doing their job and doing it well.” Calling for “an increase in the size of the police force” the Los Angeles Times editorial board dismissed Black concerns which they suggested “hinge more around their resentment of alleged police attitudes and procedure, than outright brutality.”

Much of the work of the civil rights movement was unpopular in its own time. Even newspapers that recognized and reported on Southern segregation as an obvious wrong had trouble naming segregation when it happened in their own cities. Many northern journalists and editorial boards cast civil rights protests in their own cities as dangerous and extreme, even when it was called out in the eloquent tones of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. After the successes of the civil rights movement, many people and institutions have sanitized this reality. The truth is more complex and less comforting.

Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College and the author of the award-winning The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and the new King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

source https://time.com/7271258/newspapers-struggled-to-cover-segregation-north/

How Crypto Legislation Could Hand Big Tech the Keys to Banking

On Wednesday, a stablecoin bill called the STABLE Act advanced through the House Financial Services Committee, increasing the likelihood that Congress will pass a law this year cementing stablecoins’ as a global financial tool. Proponents argue that stablecoins help the U.S. preserve the global centrality of the dollar, while allowing people worldwide to transact more freely, cheaply and securely.

But while stablecoin legislation has received bipartisan support, it has also faced targeted pushback, particularly from Democrats concerned about systemic risks and conflict of interest—especially since the Trump family’s crypto company announced the creation of its own stablecoin. Critics also warn of another potentially significant side effect: that such legislation could open the door for Big Tech players like Meta, X, and Amazon to create their own privatized forms of money, further consolidating corporate power. 

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“This is being framed as a crypto bill, and in some ways it is. But it has not reached most people’s radar that its biggest beneficiary is likely to be large tech platforms,” says Hilary Allen, a professor at American University Washington College of Law and a vocal crypto skeptic in D.C. 

Read More: What are Stablecoins?

Both the House and Senate have passed stablecoin bills—the STABLE and GENIUS Acts, respectively—out of committee. The bills lay out guidelines for how stablecoins will be regulated, and the amount and types of reserves stablecoin issuers must have on hand. The House and Senate will now have the opportunity to reconcile the two bills in the hopes of getting a unified bill onto President Trump’s desk by the summer. Several banks, including Bank of America, have expressed interest in launching their own stablecoin, should a law pass.

But under the current language of the two bills, non-financial companies would also be able to create their own stablecoins via subsidiaries. While previously proposed stablecoin bills prohibited non-banking companies from doing so, neither the STABLE nor the GENIUS Act contain such a provision. In fact, the STABLE Act says that any nonbank can issue a stablecoin as long as they acquire approval from a federal regulator.

Allen says that this would open the door for Big Tech moguls like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to create their own stablecoins. Both have long been interested in the payments sector—Musk’s X has acquired money transmitter licenses in many states, while Facebook tried to launch its own cryptocurrency, Libra, in 2019 before facing stiff criticism and regulatory scrutiny.

“These big tech platforms have been very interested in doing payments because they’re in the data collection and monetization business—and payments data is particularly valuable because it shows what you’re actually buying,” Allen says. “The more people’s transactions migrate onto these big tech platforms, that will really beef up what are already incredibly systemically important actors in our society, and put them at the center of our financial system.” 

Allen lays out a hypothetical scenario in which Amazon issues stablecoins. They could then conceivably scale its usage among Amazon employees and users, Whole Foods shoppers, and Washington Post subscribers, to the point that many people start relying on stablecoins as opposed to bank accounts. “That’s really bad news, because banks take the money deposited with them and loan them out into the economy, while stablecoin reserves just sit there,” Allen says. “So money that had been used productively in our economy is now just sitting with Amazon.” 

Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, made a similar point at the STABLE bill’s markup on Wednesday, warning his colleagues that stablecoins would “compete with bank deposits and undermine the ability of banks to make loans to consumers and main street businesses.”

In October 2023, Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Biden, warned that if Big Tech firms assumed control of banking operations, they would “have a strong incentive to surveil all aspects of a consumer’s transactions.” He added that they could also develop personalized pricing algorithms. 

Arthur Wilmarth, a professor emeritus at George Washington University Law School, tells TIME that people paying for goods with stablecoins would lack fraud protection. He also points to China as a cautionary tale, where Tencent and Alibaba became dominant payments players and gained undue influence over regulators—which then led Beijing to tighten its grip and gain sway over those businesses’ decisionmaking. 

At the markup on Wednesday, Rep. Maxine Waters pushed for an amendment that would maintain the separation of commerce and banking, claiming that the bill as written could enable Elon Musk, Walmart, and others to create their own currencies. Wisconsin Republican Bryan Steil, a co-writer of the bill, responded that the amendment would lead to a “stifling of innovation.” Co-writer French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas and the House Financial Services Committee Chair, said that he hoped Congress could work out a “thoughtful solution” to Waters’ concerns while considering a larger crypto market structure bill. The amendment was then rejected.

“I view this stablecoin legislation as presenting a very dangerous opening for big tech to get into banking in a big way,” Wilmarth says. “Once that happens, I think it will be almost impossible to ever close the door again.”

source https://time.com/7274507/stablecoin-legislation-genius-act-musk/

What Are Stablecoins?

During the 2024 elections, the crypto industry spent an unprecedented amount of money on campaign donations in the hopes of encouraging Congress to pass pro-crypto legislation. Those efforts seem to have largely succeeded, with pro-crypto legislators filling the halls of Congress. The first crypto-related area they’ve decided to tackle? Stablecoin regulation. 

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to hold the value of a U.S. dollar. Proponents argue that stablecoins help the U.S. preserve the global importance of the dollar, while allowing people worldwide to transact more freely, cheaply, and securely. Stablecoin usage is growing enormously: its total market cap is around $235 billion, up from $152 billion just a year ago.

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In March, President Trump said that he hoped to sign stablecoin legislation by August. Congress has responded accordingly: In the past month, both the House and Senate have advanced stablecoin bills out of committee. 

Here’s a brief overview of stablecoins, the proposed legislation, and potential risks. 

What are stablecoins and who supports them? 

Stablecoins are somewhat like bank deposits. Typically, a consumer who wants a stablecoin gives a dollar to an issuing company, who mints a stablecoin on a blockchain. The user can then send that stablecoin around the world as a form of payment to anyone who accepts it.

Read More: How Crypto Bills Could Hand Big Tech the Keys to Banking

Crypto traders like stablecoins because they do not fluctuate in price nearly as much as assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum, making trading more predictable. And many non-traders across the world appreciate stablecoins because they hold their value better than currencies in countries with high inflation, like Argentina and Turkey. 

In the U.S., stablecoin supporters come from across the political spectrum. On the right, political leaders like House Majority Whip Tom Emmer argue that stablecoins help maintain the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. A massive number of Eurodollars—unsecured, unofficial dollars that are issued by foreign banks as opposed to the Federal Reserve—remain in circulation across the world. Stablecoins could fill this significant demand—and offer a safer, more transactable alternative. And because stablecoin issuers often secure their stablecoins by buying U.S. Treasuries, an increase in stablecoin demand could help ease the burden of the U.S.’s ballooning debt, proponents argue. 

On the left, some Democrats believe that stablecoins provide paths to financial inclusion and toward dismantling biased banking systems. New York Representative Ritchie Torres told TIME in September that he believed stablecoins could help constituents in his heavily-immigrant district send money home to the Caribbean and Latin America quickly, while avoiding check-cashing fees or predatory loan sharks. “The ability to move a tokenized dollar at the speed of the blockchain has the potential to create a better, cheaper, and faster payment system for the lowest-income communities,” he said. Torres was one of six Democrats who voted in favor of the STABLE Act, which passed out of the House Financial Services Committee on April 2. 

What are the main stablecoins, and how is Trump now involved? 

The stablecoin market is currently dominated by two players: USDT (issued by Tether) and USDC (issued by Circle). Tether is extremely popular outside the U.S. but has been accused by regulators of making misleading statements about its reserves. Howard Lutnick, Trump’s new Commerce Secretary, previously had financial ties to the company.

The bills being considered by Congress would open the door for many other types of companies to issue their own stablecoins. Notably, the Trump family’s crypto company World Liberty Financial recently announced its own stablecoin. This is just the latest of Trump’s crypto ventures, which have included a federal Bitcoin reserve and a meme coin. 

Read More: Why Trump’s Crypto Reserve Plan Has Experts Worried

World Liberty’s stablecoin announcement drew swift criticism over concerns that Trump would yet again have a direct financial stake in an industry he is supposed to regulate. California Democrat Maxine Waters, who has been working on stablecoin legislation for years, now says she staunchly opposes any bill that would allow Trump to own a stablecoin. French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas and the House Financial Services Committee Chair, said this week that Trump’s crypto initiatives made drafting legislation “more complicated.” 

What kind of legislation is being considered? 

Both the House and Senate have passed stablecoin bills—The STABLE and GENIUS Acts, respectively—out of their respective committees. The bills lay out guidelines for how stablecoins will be regulated, and the amount and types of reserves stablecoin issuers must have on hand. The House and Senate will now have the opportunity to reconcile the two bills in the hopes of getting a unified bill onto President Trump’s desk by the summer. 

If legislation passes, many financial institutions would likely seek to create their own stablecoin. Bank of America, for instance, said it would launch a stablecoin once lawmakers make it legal to do so. PayPal and Stripe have also announced stablecoin initiatives.

What are the main critiques of stablecoin legislation?

The appetite in Washington for a stablecoin bill is high among legislators on both sides of the aisle. But some lawmakers have raised concerns. Elizabeth Warren, one of the most vocal crypto skeptics in Congress, has argued that the legitimization of stablecoins comes with systemic risks, especially because they could be susceptible to bank runs. In 2022, the stablecoin UST caused a massive crypto crash when it lost its dollar peg and hurtled to zero. UST, however, was an algorithmic stablecoin, a type of currency that the STABLE Act bans from getting federal approval for two years.

“The bill lacks basic safeguards necessary to ensure that stablecoins don’t blow up our entire financial system,” Warren said at a hearing for the GENIUS Act in March. “Under this bill, stablecoin issuers can invest in risky assets, including the very assets that were bailed out in 2008.”

Some critics also worry that the stablecoin bills, as they are currently written, allow for Big Tech companies like Meta and X to issue their own currencies, further consolidating corporate power. “If people think there’s a Big Tech surveillance state now, imagine what there would be when they have access to every piece of financial information about you,” says Arthur Wilmarth, a professor emeritus at George Washington University Law School. “There’s very little, if anything, in the bills that would give you protection.”

source https://time.com/7274685/what-are-best-stablecoins-crypto/

Social Media Platforms Shouldn’t Own Your Identity

Access to online services is as fundamental to modern life as electricity or water. And just as we expect our electricity to be reliable and our water to be clean, we should have high expectations for the internet. Today, our data represents our personhood; it encompasses our relationships, our thoughts, our interests, and the memories we create each day. That information should be controlled by us—not by Big Tech. Utah’s groundbreaking new Digital Choice Act will help make that goal possible by finally giving people agency over their data on social media platforms.

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When the law takes effect on July 1, 2026, it will mark a bold step toward giving people—not social media platforms—control of their personal information. Under the Digital Choice Act, individuals will be able to use open-source protocols to seamlessly move their content and relationships to new apps if they are unhappy with the experience on a social media site. This portability and interoperability will give people the freedom to manage their digital lives without losing years of personal history. The law also gives people the power to delete all of their data when they decide to leave a platform.

For years, it has been common wisdom that social media is not the product—we are. Indeed, users do not pay for access to social media platforms, social media platforms sell our attention to advertisers. The Digital Choice Act flips that relationship around to put users back in control.

Today’s social media giants use addictive algorithms to hook users, harvest data, and manipulate behavior for profit. Research has exposed how these practices harm society, especially young people. Americans are demanding action.

Laws like the Digital Choice Act put people first. They lower barriers to competition and open the door for new social media platforms. History shows that interoperability works: the Telecommunications Act of 1996 spurred innovation in mobile services and broadband, driving over $2 trillion in private investment into the telecom sector. The UK’s open banking reforms of 2018 unlocked a wave of fintech startups.

As it stands today, people’s livelihoods and digital personhood are continually at risk because companies control their data. We see this lesson playing out far too often. On January 19, when TikTok temporarily shut down, millions of Americans lost access to the relationships and content they had created over many years. The Digital Choice Act would have allowed users to take their data, content, and communities from TikTok and move these valuable assets to the alternative platform of their choice.

Many others fall victim to arbitrary decisions by platforms that have no meaningful oversight and provide little recourse, appeal, or ability to leave. Laws like the Digital Choice Act allow creators and everyday people on social media to migrate their content and communities to other platforms that are better positioned to meet their needs. The law also enables people to share posts across other platforms in real time in order to reach their friends and communities wherever they are.  

The underlying problem of platforms effectively holding our data captive—and using it against us—is emerging as a defining challenge of our time. It is at the root of a business model that is harming our children, polarizing our neighborhoods, and undermining our national security. The Digital Choice Act starts by addressing these issues with social media where the harms are arguably most acute. However, the recent bankruptcy of 23andme, which put the DNA of the company’s 15 million customers at risk, is a reminder that these questions have far broader implications. The consequences will only become more extreme as artificial intelligence drives larger portions of the economy and the internet. It is urgent that we fix this before it’s too late.

Utah has long been a leader in digital privacy. In 2024, Utah passed two laws (S.B. 194 and H.B. 464) to safeguard minors, enhance parental controls, and hold social media companies accountable for mental health harms. As policymakers and parents, we have a duty to go further.

We urge other states, other countries, and the federal government to follow Utah’s lead. Data rights are human rights. They should be protected by law.  

If people have the power to move their information across platforms, it will permanently change a broken system that is hurting our kids, communities, and country. Data interoperability is possible: social media platforms already have access to open-source protocols that make our information portable. Millions of people are set to benefit as better laws and better tech facilitate data portability and app interoperability.

We can no longer accept a status quo where corporations hold the keys to our online lives. It’s time to build a future where individuals own and control their digital identities. Shouldn’t you own you?

Spencer Cox is the Governor of Utah and outgoing chair of the National Governors Association.

Frank H. McCourt Jr. is the executive chairman of McCourt Global, founder of Project Liberty, and author of “Our Biggest Fight.”

source https://time.com/7274854/social-media-platforms-own-your-identity/