But Congress is spending $7 trillion a year, pumping out as much fiscal stimulus now as it did during the Great Recession. All of those excess dollars are spurring retailers to raise prices and the Federal Reserve to slow down interest-rate cuts. Were the economy to tank'because of, say, a war with Iran'we could end up with a toxic combination of widespread joblessness and rampant inflation. Congress is creating long-term risks too. In the coming years, a smaller share of Americans will work and a larger share will require Social Security payments, Medicare, disability-insurance coverage, and long-term care. More mandatory spending plus less revenue plus soaring interest costs on a hefty preexisting debt load add up to a big problem. Instead of doing something about it, Washington is egging on a nationwide tax revolt. Politicians from both parties are slashing rates and spinning loopholes. They're telling workers that they shouldn't have to pay for social services, and that even prosperous Americans are overtaxed. In doing so, they are imperiling the country's financial security and making it harder for future politicians to pass transformative initiatives. Uncle Sam is going to need to raise some money. And that's going to be hard to do if Americans see their tax returns not as a fair contribution to the greater good but as a punishment or an injustice....

New York City's new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, will soon confront an ordeal that might finally knock that trademark smile off his face: balancing the budget. The city is projected to have a $5 billion deficit this year and is required by law to make up for that shortfall by raising revenue, cutting spending, or both. Mamdani has proposed large tax increases paired with modest cuts to city programs. But getting to $5 billion won't be easy, in part because the biggest portion of the city's budget is considered untouchable. I refer not to the police department or the transit system, but to the department of education. It costs about $40 billion a year, making up a third of the city's gargantuan budget. New York City spends more money per pupil'north of $40,000, according to one recent estimate'than any of the other 100 largest public-school districts in the country, and more than twice as much as the median district. Meanwhile, it generates educational outcomes that are average at best. According to federal data, its per-pupil spending is nearly 50 percent higher than Los Angeles's and Chicago's (the second- and fourth-largest districts), and 150 percent higher than Miami's (the third-largest). Per pupil is the key phrase here. New York City's public-school system is the largest in the country, but that's not the problem. The problem, actually, is that the student body is small relative to the resources devoted to it, and shrinking fast'but the city and state governments won't cut education spending accordingly. As long as that's the case, the city's financial situation will grow only harder to manage....

Australia is getting serious about making Big Tech pay for news. The country's government unveiled draft legislation on Tuesday that would require companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok to pay for the journalism they aggregate or reshare, or face a levy on their local revenues. The proposed law, called the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI), would impose a 2.25% levy on the Australian revenues of the three platforms unless they strike commercial deals with local news publishers. Plus, the more deals they make with media outlets, the less they pay. If enough agreements go through, that effective rate drops to 1.5%, which could generate between A$200 million and A$250 million back into Australian journalism. 'Journalists are the lifeblood of Australia's media sector, playing a vital role in keeping communities informed about the news that matters to them,' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement. It is the country's second attempt to force Big Tech to fund journalism. The Australian government introduced the News Media Bargaining Code, which officially came into effect in 2021, requiring platforms like Google and Meta to pay news publishers. But the original version had a flaw that Big Tech companies could simply remove news from their platforms to avoid paying. Meta did that in 2024, and that move, reportedly, triggered widespread job cuts across Australian newsrooms....

The vehicle, backed by Ares Alternative Credit funds, will enable Clearwater to deploy balance sheet capital into large-scale commercial real estate projects, targeting financings across hospitality, multifamily, mixed-use, and adaptive reuse assets. C-PACE is a financing model that allows property owners to fund energy efficiency and sustainability improvements through tax-linked assessments, creating long-duration, senior-secured loans with stable return profiles. The platform is designed to target transactions of $5m or more, with typical deal sizes ranging between $40m and $50m, and will support borrowers across more than 40 US states. As traditional real estate capital markets continue to adjust, C-PACE is increasingly being used alongside senior debt, mezzanine financing, and preferred equity to optimise capital structures. 'This initial close validates the institutional demand for C-PACE loans and further positions Clearwater to capture meaningful market share in an asset class that exceeded $3bn of origination volume in 2025,' said Jonathan Seabolt, CEO of Clearwater....