Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering economic policy and the intersection of financial issues and the nation's capital. He has covered Washington for over 20 years as a reporter and video producer, working previously at The New York Times and CNN.
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Biden makes a Wisconsin stop to tout AI — and troll Trump's Foxconn flop
President Biden made a trip to the swing state of Wisconsin on Wednesday with two goals: tout an AI investment from Microsoft and highlight a past failure from Donald Trump.
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Wall Street is focused on the national debt. Presidential candidates less so.
The US national debt is set to surpass $35 trillion in the coming months, but weeks can go by on the presidential campaign trail without the topic coming up.
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Trump wants to levy his new tariff regime 'quickly.' Here's how long it might take.
Donald Trump and his allies have made new tariffs a centerpiece of his potential second-term economic agenda. They are openly exploring legally untested options for making them a reality.
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Social Security just passed Medicare as the government's most pressing insolvency risk
An annual government report offered a glimmer of good news for Social Security and a jolt of good news for Medicare even as both programs continue to be on pace to run dry next decade.
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How the Fed weighs 'political risk' behind closed doors
Jay Powell says pending elections don't get discussed at Federal Reserve meetings. Here's what Yahoo Finance found after reviewing years of transcripts.
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Trump's 2025 policies could spur inflation. The debate is by how much.
Donald Trump's agenda includes a range of policies that could create new inflation pressures in the years ahead. The emerging debate among economists is exactly what those price effects would be.
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Powell says November election won’t affect Fed: 'We just don’t go down that road'
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered a strong defense Wednesday of central bank independence as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
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Could Jerome Powell be fired? It's an open legal question Trump could test.
The president of the United States would probably have a hard time firing a Federal Reserve chair over interest rates. But nobody is totally sure what would happen if he tried.
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Biden has a favorite stop when he hits the road: Chipmaking plants
Visiting chipmakers has become one of President Biden's most common reasons for getting on the road. He will do so again Thursday as he travels to Syracuse to award Micron $6 billion in federal money.
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Biden is sending $61 billion to Ukraine. Much of it will pass through the US economy first.
Washington is spending another $61 billion to help Ukraine. But most of the money will flow through the US economy first.
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A new law could ban TikTok in 2025. Here's what happens next.
President Biden signed a landmark bill Wednesday morning that gives China's ByteDance up to one year to divest TikTok or face a US ban on the app.
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The bipartisan worry that is uniting Washington: Cheap Chinese goods
For all the differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they share a worry about China flooding global markets with cheap goods.
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The tweak that made the forced divestment of TikTok much more likely
House Speaker Mike Johnson is making another run at freeing TikTok from Chinese government influence. He made a tweak that appears to have made it more likely the measure reaches President Biden’s desk.
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Biden uses new speech to argue Trump's tax plans are a political liability
Donald Trump’s tax plans have already proven a hit with billionaires. Joe Biden is hoping that those same plans will be politically toxic in the swing states that will decide the election this fall.
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Where Biden's billions in chipmaking money have gone — and what could be next
President Joe Biden has spent $23 billion of the $39 billion he has to spur chipmaking in the US, spreading it to companies that plan new activities in several states.
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What Trump is signaling with his possible Treasury and Fed picks
Donald Trump is floating ideas for his economic team much earlier than in elections past. But he is once again embracing loyalists and well-known figures from the worlds of Wall Street and Washington.
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Jay Powell is trying to avoid the fate of a 1970s predecessor. Biden and Trump are making that harder.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell faces a new round of ominous comparisons to the mid-1970s as inflation concerns heat back up and political pressures intensify.
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Larry Fink lashes out at BlackRock's political critics: They 'continuously lie'
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said political critics 'continuously lie' as the giant money manager faces heat in Washington and states like Texas.
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TSMC gets $6.6 billion in chipmaking cash from Biden while pledging to build a third Arizona plant
The Biden administration said Monday it plans to send $6.6 billion in grants to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, while the chipmaking giant said it would expand its footprint in Arizona.
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Jay Powell really wants Americans to know he is not thinking about politics
The Fed chairman went out of his way to make it clear this week that the Fed is free from personal or political bias as he continues to navigate a red-hot political year.