MIKE CRAPO

A handful of red-state Democrats were instrumental in helping Republicans secure a rollback of banking regulations sought by then-President Donald Trump in 2018.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is firmly reassuring Congress and the nation that the U.S. banking system remains sound.

Democrats call it the “Inflation Reduction Act.”.

Republicans see inflation, taxes and immigration as Democratic weak spots worth attacking in the upcoming battle over an economic package the Democrats want to push through the Senate.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has acknowledged that she and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell “could have used a better word” than transitory when describing the expected run of inflation in the U.S. economy.

Last July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen celebrated it as a “historic day” when more than 100 nations agreed to a global minimum tax deal meant to reform and equalize the world’s economy.

Former U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador has won Idaho’s Republican attorney general primary, beating a longtime incumbent who'd been criticized by the far right for not taking a more activist role.

A major effort to overhaul care for people in the United States with mental health and drug problems is gaining traction in Washington.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is renewing a push to expand a U.S. compensation program for people who were exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.

Senate Democrats say they’ve reached a budget agreement envisioning spending an enormous $3.5 trillion over the coming decade.

The Democrats' sweeping attempt to rewrite U.S. election and voting law has suffered a major setback in the U.S. Senate.

Republicans in Congress are alarmed by the leak of confidential IRS data to ProPublica that has enabled the investigative news organization to reveal that famous billionaires including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg paid little in U.S. income tax at times.

Lawmakers are increasingly looking at boosting the IRS to help pay for infrastructure improvements.

After meeting at the White House, President Joe Biden and a group of Republican senators have agreed to talk again early next week as negotiations on an infrastructure plan are intensifying.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday defended the central bank’s increasing scrutiny of the impact climate change could have on banks, in the wake of criticism by Republican members of Congress that by doing so the Fed is overstepping its mandate.

Nursing homes have to publicly disclose their vaccination rates for flu and pneumonia, but theres no similar mandate for COVID-19 shots. Nursing homes have been required since last May to regularly report cases and deaths among residents and staff to the government. Nursing homes are again allowing loved ones to visit, and hugs are included. The main nursing home industry trade group, the American Health Care Association, says it supports disclosure of vaccination data. Wyden and Crapo said current government policy that encourages nursing homes to voluntarily report vaccination data to the government has only led to “limited participation by the industry.”The government should require nursing homes to break down vaccination data by race and ethnicity, given disparities in vaccine acceptance.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2020, file photo the Supreme Court is seen at sundown in Washington. Barring an improbable expansion of the Supreme Court, Biden won’t be able to do anything about the high court’s entrenched conservative majority any time soon. That’s because Republicans who controlled the Senate in the final two years of the Obama White House confirmed relatively few judges. Biden already has pledged to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court if a seat opens up. But some Republicans and conservative groups are wary about what Democrats might try to do now that they control Congress and the White House.

“Yellen is uniquely poised," said Brian Deese, director of Biden’s National Economic Council. "She has as much experience and expertise of addressing the challenges of our time as any living economic policymaker today. AdYellen juggled parenting with her work as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1980s, helping to build her son’s pinewood derby car as a colleague fed economic data into a computer. It’s an argument cultivated from years of research that fully blossomed during Yellen’s time as Fed chair. She said Yellen values differences of opinion and diversity because that helps her get a fuller sense of the economy.

Mnuchin on Friday, Nov. 20 denied that he is trying to limit the choices President-elect Joe Biden will have to promote an economic recovery by ending several emergency loan programs being run by the Federal Reserve. Mnuchin said his decision was based on the fact that the programs were not being heavily utilized. “We're not trying to hinder anything,” Mnuchin said in a CNBC interview. Private economists argued that Mnuchin's decision to end five of the emergency loan facilities represents an economic risk. In his letter to Powell, Mnuchin said that he is requesting that the Fed return to Treasury the unused funds appropriated by Congress.

Lee, who did not wear a mask at the White House event, said he had “symptoms consistent with longtime allergies." "We now have two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who have tested positive for COVID, and there may be more," tweeted Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Blackburn said she tested negative after the event. Graham was not at the White House on Saturday but sees Trump frequently. He feels healthy, hasn’t exhibited any COVID-19 symptoms, and has tested negative.

Lawmakers are pressing the central bank to deliver more aid to struggling small and mid-sized businesses. And now many lawmakers are asking the Fed to expand its lending to small and medium-sized businesses, by allowing companies to offer assets such as commercial properties as collateral. The decision is on the doorstep of Fed Chairman Jay Powell and Steven Mnuchin, the Trump administrations treasury secretary. Its risky because it can be hard for the Fed to accurately appraise assets right now, he told The Associated Press. If it makes riskier loans, the Fed may be seen as propping up teetering zombie businesses that could default on payments.

The committee's support would move Shelton's nomination to the full Senate, which would have until the end of the year to confirm or reject it. Late Monday, Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, said he would support Shelton's nomination, essentially guaranteeing that she would win the votes of all 13 GOP senators on the committee. Toomey said he would support Shelton after she had reassured him that she would not seek to lower the value of the dollar. Since Shelton's hearing in February, the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the U.S. economy into its worst downturn since the Depression. In addition to Shelton, Trump has nominated Christopher Waller, research director at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, for a second vacancy on the seven-member Fed board.

Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesWASHINGTON (CNN) - The House will vote later this month on a bipartisan bill that will allow cannabis businesses access to the federal banking system. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer intends to bring the SAFE Banking Act to the House floor for a vote this month, his office confirmed to CNN. A companion bill in the Senate, introduced by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, has yet to be voted out of the Senate Banking Committee. The committee, however, held a hearing in late July on the challenges faced by the cannabis industry in banking, and considered the SAFE Banking Act. Committee Chair Mike Crapo, who does not support the federal legalization of marijuana, told Politico he would hold a vote on cannabis banking legislation, but he left open whether he would work off the SAFE Banking Act.

Copyright 2019 CNN(CNN) - Bitcoin investors are concerned that lawmakers' pressure on Facebook's Libra could ripple throughout the cryptocurrency market. The price of Bitcoin had fallen more than 11%, to around $9,590, by the end of a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Libra Tuesday morning. Now, lawmakers in the United States are calling for increased or clarified regulations for the cryptocurrency market as a whole. "That's going to help the United States compete in the blockchain sector." Bitcoin's price may continue to falter this week as Libra faces another hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.