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President Biden’s inaugural annual budget request, which encompasses only discretionary spending (about a third of the federal budget), is a $1.52 trillion proposed investment in the federal government. The rest of the request, to be released later this spring, will include tax reforms and mandatory spending (which includes programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) and provide a fuller picture of the administration’s priorities.

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has spent his time at the agency favoring the ultra-wealthy, penalizing the poor, and blocking the release of Trump’s tax returns. President Biden should make clear that Trump cronies have no place in his administration and fire Rettig immediately.

With so many competing priorities, it’s justifiable that Yellen has not given her full attention to every single crisis under her purview. But she can no longer dodge her other big duty: financial policy and Wall Street regulation.

Lawmakers who wish to make use of the CRA to strike Trump’s rules have until April 4 to introduce their resolutions of disapproval, after which point they’ll have five to seven weeks more in which to consider and vote on them. Eleanor Eagan explains why Congress must invoke the CRA now before it’s too late.

The latest batch of White House financial disclosures revealed close ties between top Biden Administration officials and corporate titans in Big Tech, Big Oil, and Big Pharma. Eleanor Eagan and Elias Alsbergas explain why these disclosures reveal the need for the Biden White House to adopt stronger ethics disclosures and mandate total divestment from potential conflicts of interest.

The nominations that President Biden has made thus far serve as a guidebook to the years ahead. By analyzing those picks, we see a vivid picture of where we can expect strong executive actions to take on the corporate monopolies and polluters choking the American economy—and where we can anticipate division between the progressive base and corporatist establishment actors.

With Haaland at its head, the DOI will have a real chance to reverse its role in exacerbating climate change and environmental racism. Yet, in order to fully realize this potential, the agency will need more funding, increased lower-level staff and much more diversity.

We have every reason to believe Kerry genuinely wants to save the Earth from climate devastation. His problem is that there is no neoliberal path to doing so.

From Vivek Murthy’s lucrative consulting work with Netflix and Carnival Cruise Lines to Brian Deese’s “greenwashing” of fossil fuel investments at BlackRock, the revolving door between corporate industry and government continues to undermine public trust in the Biden Administration, writes our Elias Alsbergas.

Lael Brainard and Janet Yellen have been talking the talk about climate risk, but not translating that into meaningful action. Our Dorothy Slater takes a closer look at what strong climate action from financial regulators would look like.

De-Trumpifying all levels of the Department of Justice (DOJ) remains a critical factor in Joe Biden’s success. He needs an energized and progressive pool of U.S. attorneys committed to criminal justice reform, prosecuting white-collar crime, and protecting the environment to do that.

Little attention is paid to acting officials, who hold jobs temporarily while permanent appointees go through lengthy confirmation processes. President Biden should choose personnel for these acting positions wisely.

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a foreign policy think tank with at least 16 alumni in the Biden administration, has repeatedly published reports that directly promote the interests of its donors — including defense contractors, fossil fuel companies, and foreign governments — without disclosing their support. These conflicts of interest raise larger questions about what CNAS’ core philosophy of “extending American power” truly means.

In the Reconstruction era following the Civil War, the Department of Justice was created in part to deliver and oversee equal rights to formerly enslaved Black men and women. This corrective institution was a major step toward building a federal government that protects the civil rights of all its citizens. In the wrong hands, however, the department can be weaponized. Whether through inaction or outright hostility on issues ranging from white-collar crime to mass incarceration, the values animating the nation’s top law enforcement agency matter.

Throughout several decades in the Senate, Joe Biden earned a reputation as an institutionalist. Extraordinary circumstances, however, are pushing the new president to cast aside many of his beloved norms when they fail to account for these exceptional times. In just a few short weeks, Biden has removed officials whose predecessors had never before been fired. And faced with predictable Republican obstruction on his signature pandemic response bill, he’s eschewed endless waiting for compromise in favor of budget reconciliation.