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$984 billion
“The government ran a budget deficit of just under $1 trillion in the just-closed fiscal year,” the AP reports. “The $984 billion deficit tally for 2019 came in more than $200 billion more than last year’s, despite very low unemployment and continuing economic growth.”
58% to 38%
A new Washington Post-Schar School poll finds that, by a margin of 58% to 38%, Americans say the House was correct to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
800,000
“The company behind the non-partisan news site RealClearPolitics has been secretly running a Facebook page filled with far-right memes and Islamophobic smears,” the Daily Beast reports. “Called ‘Conservative Country,’ the Facebook page was founded in 2014 and now boasts nearly 800,000 followers for its mix of Donald Trump hagiography and ultra-conservative memes.”
$50,000
Lawyers for the whistleblower said “certain individuals” had offered a $50,000 “bounty” for any information on the whistleblower’s identity after the official complained to a government watchdog that President Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, Reuters reports.
23%
The 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, the New York Times reports. “That’s a sharp change from the 1950s and 1960s, when the wealthy paid vastly higher tax rates than the middle class or poor. Since then, taxes that hit the wealthiest the hardest — like the estate tax and corporate tax — have plummeted, while tax avoidance has become more common.”
“The President of the United States is in great danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen.”
— Pat Robertson told his television audience he is “appalled” by President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.
“I urge the President to exercise American leadership to keep together our multinational coalition to defeat ISIS and prevent significant conflict between our NATO ally Turkey and our local Syrian counterterrorism partners. Major new conflict between Turkey and our partners in Syria would seriously risk damaging Turkey’s ties to the United States and causing greater isolation for Turkey on the world stage.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly rebuking President Trump’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria, the Washington Post reports.
