As a political messaging war rages over $80 billion in new Internal Revenue Service funding, a U.S. Treasury official is pushing back on an informal estimate that the money could cause Americans earning less than $400,000 to pay as much as $20 billion more in taxes over a decade.

Republicans have seized on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, claiming Democratic President Joe Biden's recently enacted, sweeping tax, drugs and climate law would break his pledge not to increase taxes on middle-class Americans.

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday announced sanctions against Alina Kabaeva, the head of a pro-Kremlin media holding company, who has for years been rumored to be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend.

Kabaeva, whom the Treasury said in a statement Tuesday “has a close relationship” with Putin, has since 2014 led the National Media Group, a collection of pro-Kremlin print, television and radio outlets that is Russia’s largest privately held media conglomerate, according to the company.

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan did contribute to inflation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen conceded on Wednesday.

Speaking in an interview with Matt Murray, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, the former head of the Federal Reserve admitted that the White House’s enormous spending had played a role in today’s inflationary environment, adding that it was “justified” due to the various economic risks.

Continuing her long crusade to get Congress to do something, anything about the country's debt limit, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told NPR she'll be advising Congress soon as to how long "lawmakers have to raise or suspend the debt limit before the government runs out of cash," Bloomberg reports.

The Social Security trust fund most Americans rely on for their retirement will run out of money in 12 years, one year sooner than expected, according to an annual government report published Tuesday.

The outlook, aggravated by the Covid pandemic, also threatens to shrink retirement payments and increase health-care costs for older Americans.

Many of my conservative colleagues have succumbed to Biden Derangement Syndrome. It's the corollary to the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has plagued most of my progressive friends. If the report that Biden will appoint Janet Yellen as his Treasury Secretary bears out conservatives can exhale. And celebrate.

I wrote here recently in America Rises Up to Crush the Left: "Biden, suave but nobody's patsy, will domesticate his party's left by throwing a sop or two to Cerberus. Big Reveal: The left was and is an imaginary hobgoblin."

President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. government should get a "substantial portion" of the sales price of the U.S. operations of popular short-video app TikTok and warned he will ban the service in the United States on Sept. 15 without a sale.

The turnaround came after Trump on Friday said he was planning to ban the Chinese-owned video app's U.S. operations as soon as Saturday after dismissing a possible sale to Microsoft.

Reuters reported last week that some investors are valuing TikTok at about $50 billion, citing people familiar with the matter.

Donald Trump says the government should get a cut from the sale of TikTok's US unit if an American firm buys it.

The US president said he made a demand for a "substantial portion" of the purchase price in a phone call at the weekend with Microsoft's boss.

He also warned he will ban the app, which is owned by China's ByteDance, on 15 September if there is no deal.

ByteDance is under pressure to sell its US business after Mr Trump threatened a crackdown on Chinese tech companies.

The president’s interventions in company dealings based on his own instincts are a departure from the arm’s-length approach of predecessors of either party.

President Trump campaigned on a promise to run the economy like his business empire. And for almost four years, he has unabashedly wielded the power of the presidency to insert himself into corporate affairs, helping some companies and punishing others in line with his instincts and inclinations.

As the United States plunges into the worst economic downturn in decades, there is growing concern that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are being too timid and halting in their approach as they scramble to rescue the economy.