Trump Ousts IRS Commissioner After Less Than 2 Months
Good evening. The tumult at the IRS continues, as President Trump ousted his choice to lead the agency after less than eight weeks on the job. We've got details on that and other Trumpian turmoil.
Trump Ousts His IRS Commissioner After Less Than 2 Months
President Trump is reportedly removing Billy Long from his position as head of the Internal Revenue Service after less than two months on the job, adding to months of mayhem and turnover at the top of the tax agency. Long had been the sixth person to head the IRS this year (and we're only in August).
Long's term was scheduled to run until November 2027. He reportedly is expected to be nominated by Trump to an ambassadorship. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will now serve as acting IRS commissioner until Trump names a permanent replacement for Long.
A former congressman, real estate broker and auctioneer, Long had been sworn in as IRS commissioner on June 16 after being confirmed by the Senate four days earlier in a 53-44 party-line vote. Democrats and other critics panned his qualifications for the job, pointing to his limited background in tax policy and his work promoting a pandemic-era tax break that was subject to widespread fraud. As a member of Congress representing a Missouri district for 12 years, Long also sponsored legislation to abolish the IRS.
"It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland," Long said in a White House statement cited by The Hill. "I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!"
Long's ouster, first reported by The New York Times, comes at a time when the beleaguered tax agency faces a host of challenges, including implementation of the new Republican tax law, the loss of thousands of workers as part of the administration's shrinking of the federal workforce and pressure to help enforce Trump administration policies and priorities. A recent report by the National Taxpayer Advocate said that as of June 4, the IRS had lost more than 26,000 employees - or nearly 26% of its workforce - since late January.
"The IRS is busy not only preparing for the 2026 filing season but also interpreting and gearing up for a whole bunch of new policies from the One Big Beautiful Bill," Andrew Lautz, the director of tax policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank, wrote in a post on X. "Now it won't have a Senate-confirmed leader for weeks, if not months!"
Quote of the Day
"This turns science into an instrument for partisan gain. Now we have Republican science and Democrat science. The [executive order] formalizes a system that burrows government censors into the roots of the scientific enterprise."
- Scott Delaney, a lawyer and Harvard epidemiologist who has been tracking Trump administration grant cancellations, in a STAT News article about a new Trump executive order that seeks to revamp the rules for federal grant decisions.
"Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests. This often does not happen," Trump's order says, adding that "there is a strong need to strengthen oversight and coordination of, and to streamline, agency grantmaking to address these problems, prevent them from recurring, and ensure greater accountability for use of public funds more broadly."
The order calls for presidential appointees at agencies to "use their independent judgment" in deciding on grants and says that awards should "demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities."
Experts expect the order to face legal challenges. STAT notes that the order would give political appointees unprecedented power over which projects agencies fund and that by diminishing the role of scientific experts and career civil servants, it is "likely to have massive and immediate impacts on the daily operations of American science."
Trump Wants UCLA to Pay $1 Billion to Settle Discrimination Claims
The Trump administration is seeking more than $1 billion from the University of California, Los Angeles, to settle discrimination claims and restore research funding suspended by the federal government.
Trump's Justice Department has accused UCLA of allowing pro-Palestinian protestors to violate the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students in the Spring of 2024, and under the terms of the proposed agreement, a $1 billion payment by the university would settle those claims while restoring about $584 million in frozen federal research money. Additionally, the university would pay $172 million into a fund to compensate those whose civil rights were violated.
If UCLA agrees to the settlement, it would be the largest by far in Trump's campaign to punish elite universities for a variety of alleged infractions, including antisemitism and racism. In July, Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million to settle similar claims, and the Trump administration is reportedly discussing a roughly $500 million settlement with Harvard University.
UCLA is the first major public university Trump has targeted, and University of California President James Milliken said Friday that the size of the proposed settlement could be a problem. "As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country's greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians," he said in a statement.
Perhaps not coincidentally, that state of California is led by one of Trump's leading foes, Gov. Gavin Newsom - frequently referred to as "Newscum" by the president. Before the terms of the proposed settlement were announced, Newsom said he would fight any effort to make the university defer to the Trump administration.
"We're not Brown, we're not Columbia, and I'm not going to be governor if we act like that. Period. Full stop," Newsom said, per The Los Angeles Times. "I will fight like hell to make sure that doesn't happen. There's principles. There's right and wrong, and we'll do the right thing, and what President Trump is doing is wrong, and everybody knows it."
Milliken sounded more willing to negotiate, saying the school had agreed "to engage in dialogue with the federal administration." At the same time, Milliken questioned the Trump administration's approach, saying the funding cuts "do nothing to address antisemitism," adding that "the extensive work that U.C.L.A. and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored."
While some Jewish groups have applauded Trump's crackdown on what they see as a problem of ongoing discrimination and growing antisemitism at American universities, others have questioned the administration's approach. The American Jewish Committee, a century-old advocacy group, recently warned against suspending research funding as a way to fight discrimination, saying it could "imperil science and innovation, and ultimately detract from the necessary fight against antisemitism while threatening the global pre-eminence of America's research universities."
Other Jewish groups have warned that the Trump administration's aggressive moves against universities in the name of combating antisemitism - moves that include arresting foreign students accused of criticizing Israel and American foreign policy as well as freezing federal research funds - are counterproductive.
"In recent weeks, escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding," a coalition of 10 Jewish groups said in April. "Universities have an obligation to protect Jewish students, and the federal government has an important role to play in that effort; however, sweeping draconian funding cuts will weaken the free academic inquiry that strengthens democracy and society, rather than productively counter antisemitism on campus. These actions do not make Jews-or any community-safer. Rather, they only make us less safe."
FAA Plans to Hire 8,900 Air Traffic Controllers
The Federal Aviation Administration announced this week that it plans to add 8,900 air traffic controllers to its staff by the end of fiscal year 2028, a major ramp-up in hiring that will still leave the agency short of what it needs to fully meet the nation's transportation needs.
An FAA plan released Thursday laid out steps to "supercharge" the hiring of air traffic controllers over the next three-plus years. Those steps include simplifying the application process, increasing recruitment and raising starting salaries by nearly 30%.
The FAA is currently 3,000 air traffic controllers short of its desired staffing level, and even if it can reach its aggressive hiring target, the agency will have grown by just 1,000 by the end of 2028 due to staffing losses over that time. According to FAA projections, the agency will lose nearly 6,900 controllers and trainees over the next three years due to resignations, washouts and retirements.
Fiscal News Roundup
- Trump Is Replacing Billy Long as I.R.S. Commissioner – New York Times
- Trump Wants U.C.L.A. to Pay $1 Billion to Restore Its Research Funding – New York Times
- Trump's Team Expands Search for Fed Chair, Adding New Names to List – Wall Street Journal
- Japan Says Trump to Correct 'Extremely Regrettable' Error in Tariff Order – New York Times
- Canada Courts Mexico as Trump Escalates Tariff Fight – Politico
- 'He Is Completely Upset': Why Trump Scrapped an India Trade Deal – Politico
- Trump's Redistricting Fight Mushrooms With Vance in Indiana and Florida Joining the Fray – Associated Press
- Claiming to Fight Waste, Trump Administration Slashes Potentially Cost-Saving Research – STAT
- F.A.A. Plans to Hire 8,900 Air Traffic Controllers but Still Expects Shortages – New York Times
- Trump's Oval Office 'Session' on the Economy? Charts About Biden – Washington Post
- Prediction Markets Have a New Favorite for the Next Fed Chair - Christopher Waller – CNBC
- With New Tariffs in Effect, Economists See Profit Dips and Price Hikes Up Ahead – CBS News
- Gold Hit by Surprise US Tariffs, Unleashing New Turmoil – Bloomberg
- Veterans' Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals – ProPublica
- "We Want to Save This Investment": Advocates Race to Secure Maternal Health Funding Before It Runs Out – ProPublica
Views and Analysis
- 'A Loyalist Inside the Building': Trump's Temporary Fed Pick Could Have a Lasting Effect – Colby Smith, New York Times
- The Trade War Isn't Over. It's Just Beginning – Ben Berkowitz, Axios
- Cars, Coffee and Clothing Are Poised to Get Pricier With New Tariffs – Abha Bhattarai and Jaclyn Peiser, Washington Post
- The Cost to Taxpayers from Trump's Tariffs Is Bigger Than the Savings from His Income Tax Cuts – Bill Scher, Washington Monthly
- Trump's Tariffs Could Raise Prices on Many Consumer Goods – Kailyn Rhone, New York Times
- Trump's Biggest Economic Threat Is Inflation – Joseph C. Sternberg, Wall Street Journal
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Trump-Era Labor Statistics – Jon Allsop, New Yorker
- The Fed Needs Economists Who Aren't Politicians – Robert Burgess, Bloomberg
- The BLS Can't Be Replaced by the Private Sector – Claudia Sahm, Bloomberg
- The Price Increases That Should Cause Americans More Alarm – Elisabeth Rosenthal, Washington Post
- Don't Believe the MAGA Doomers on Trade – Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post
- What if You Can't Believe the Official Numbers? – Jeff Sommer, New York Times
- Trump Is Undermining Trust in Official Economic Statistics. China Shows Where That Path Can Lead – Louise Matsakis, Wired
- Could AI Help America Out of Its Debt Hole? – Gillian Tett, Financial Times
- Five Ways to Stop the Onrushing Debt Disaster. All Long Shots, Alas – George F. Will, Washington Post
- Even in States That Fought Obamacare, Trump's New Law Poses Health Consequences – Daniel Chang and Sam Whitehead, KFF Health News