Cost of Trump’s Military Parade Rising Fast
It looks like President Trump’s military parade is going to cost a lot more than the initial estimate suggested – about $80 million more.
The Department of Defense pegged the cost of the parade at roughly $12 million back in July, but CNBC reported Thursday that Pentagon officials have increased their estimate to $92 million. The total consists of $50 million from the Defense Department and $42 million from other agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.
The parade, which President Trump requested after attending a Bastille Day military parade in Paris last year, is scheduled for November 10 and will reportedly include aircraft, armored vehicles and soldiers in period uniforms. Abrams tanks, which weigh roughly 70 tons apiece, will also be included, CNBC said, despite concerns about heavy military equipment ripping up the streets of Washington. A Pentagon analysis apparently found that the armored vehicle’s treads would not cause any damage.
The parade is expected to begin at the Capitol, continue past the White House and end at the National Mall, according to earlier reports from NBC News.
Special Tax Break Zones Defined for All 50 States
The U.S. Treasury has approved the final group of opportunity zones, which offer tax incentives for investments made in low-income areas. The zones were created by the tax law signed in December.
Bill Lucia of Route Fifty has some details: “Treasury says that nearly 35 million people live in the designated zones and that census tracts in the zones have an average poverty rate of about 32 percent based on figures from 2011 to 2015, compared to a rate of 17 percent for the average U.S. census tract.”
Click here to explore the dynamic map of the zones on the U.S. Treasury website.
Map of the Day: Affordable Care Act Premiums Since 2014
Axios breaks down how monthly premiums on benchmark Affordable Care Act policies have risen state by state since 2014. The average increase: $481.
Obamacare Repeal Would Lead to 17.1 Million More Uninsured in 2019: Study
A new analysis by the Urban Institute finds that if the Affordable Care Act were eliminated entirely, the number of uninsured would rise by 17.1 million — or 50 percent — in 2019. The study also found that federal spending would be reduced by almost $147 billion next year if the ACA were fully repealed.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Mick Mulvaney has been running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since last November, and by all accounts the South Carolina conservative is none too happy with the agency charged with protecting citizens from fraud in the financial industry. The Hill recently wrote up “five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency,” and they include dropping cases against payday lenders, dismissing three advisory boards and an effort to rebrand the operation as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — a move critics say is intended to deemphasize the consumer part of the agency’s mission.
Mulvaney recently scored a small victory on the last point, changing the sign in the agency’s building to the new initials. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does not exist,” Mulvaney told Congress in April, and now he’s proven the point, at least when it comes to the sign in his lobby (h/t to Vox and thanks to Alan Zibel of Public Citizen for the photo, via Twitter).
