The Hunter Biden investigation reached a new level in recent days after lawmakers announced that millions of dollars were transferred from a Chinese energy company with much of it ending up in the hands of the Biden family and associates.

Now, critics say the Hunter Biden scandal could jeopardize the president’s reelection hopes.

“The promise of Joe Biden the candidate was a return to normal. He presented himself as the kindly older guy who had seen and heard everything and would be a transition away from the tumult of Trump,” Republican strategist and Co-founder of South & Hill Strategies Colin Reed told The Center Square. “He wasn’t going to light the world on fire, but he wasn’t going to wreck the car either. The reality of Joe Biden the president has been anything but, especially as the saga of Biden Inc. continues to unfold in real time. It’s beyond clear at this point that the questions cannot simply be dismissed as fake news or politically motivated.”

In a bombshell report last week, House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said financial records show that Biden family members Hunter Biden, James Biden, Hallie Biden, and another unknown “Biden” received $1.3 million in payments from accounts related to Rob Walker, a Biden family associate.

“Questions about the intersection of money and influence sunk the presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden would be wise to heed those lessons, particularly now that the latest shoe to drop involves purported payments from Chinese business interests,” Reed added.

The entire scandal developed another layer Friday when Hunter Biden filed a lawsuit against the computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who handed his laptop over to law enforcement after discovering questionable material on it and being unable to reach Hunter.

That lawsuit, though, confirms that the laptop did come from Hunter Biden and not from Russian disinformation efforts, as much of the media and intelligence experts asserted in 2020. Those assertions were used to clamp down on and even censor the story during the 2020 presidential election cycle, possibly affecting the outcome.

Now, the ongoing scandal has provided steady fodder for Biden’s critics, something that is all but certain to continue if the president runs for reelection.

“The only thing Hunter Biden adds to the equation was access to his father,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said after the news broke.

And lawmakers have shown little sign of slowing the investigation. Comer sent a letter Friday to call on John “Rob” Walker to appear for a transcribed interview.

Walker is an associate of the Biden family who the committee says was connected to bank accounts in the Biden network that received over $1 million. The committee said that “most of the payments to the Biden family came after Rob Walker received a $3 million wire from a Chinese energy company.”

“Rob Walker is a key witness in our investigation of President Biden’s involvement in his family’s business schemes,” the letter said. “After receiving a $3 million dollar payout from a Chinese energy company two months after Vice President Biden left office, Rob Walker then sent over a million dollars in incremental payments to Biden family accounts and a similar amount to another Biden family associate. These records reveal that the three parties likely all received a third of the money from China and it is unclear what services were provided in return. When speaking about dealings with the Biden family, Rob Walker once said that exposing him would ‘bury all of us, man.’ Why? The Oversight Committee has many questions for Rob Walker and we look forward to getting answers for the American people.”

Inflation has outpaced wages for nearly two years, recently released federal data shows.

A closer look at federal wage and pricing data shows workers are making less overall as the price for all kinds of goods and services rise faster than average hourly wages.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks “real” average hourly earnings, which are wages of Americans with rising inflation taken into account.

“From February 2022 to February 2023, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.3 percent, seasonally adjusted,” BLS said. “The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a decrease of 0.9 percent in the average workweek resulted in a 1.2-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period.”

According to the BLS inflation calculator, since Biden has taken office, the dollar has lost about 15% of its purchasing power. To put it another way, what cost Americans $100 to buy in January 2021 now costs $115.

For some goods, like groceries and energy, the picture is even worse. While workers have seen sizeable pay raises, inflation has risen faster.

Last year, hourly wages increased about 5% but inflation rose 7%.

Critics blame the Biden administration’s trillions of dollars in federal spending and the money-printing that supports it.

“My comment is that as Milton Friedman pointed out, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” Gary Wolfram, an economics professor at Hillsdale College, told The Center Square. “It is when the money supply increases faster than output. For two years, 20 and 21, the money supply, M2, grew by 40%, peaking in early 2022. Since then it has been declining. As inflation appears with a variable lag, again as Friedman noted, inflation began to be a problem. However, we are beginning to see a slowing of inflation due to the decline in the money supply and will this will continue. I am concerned that the Fed’s approach of raising interest rates in order to slow economic activity is actually slowing the reduction in inflation by reducing output.”

Supply chain issues and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have also played a role in increasing the cost as certain goods as well.

Biden’s latest budget proposed trillions in federal spending. Biden has touted the rising wages and deficit cuts, but inflation is still rising faster than wages and the national debt is expected to surpass $50 trillion within a decade.

“We must act now to stop reckless [government] spending and relieve Montanans of the crushing weight of inflation that is taking a bite out of their paychecks,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, wrote on Twitter.

Experts say this year could be another of high inflation and overall falling wages.

"There was some optimism after the release of February’s Consumer Price Index that inflation is moderating," Randall Holcombe, an economic expert at the Independent Institute, told The Center Square. "Year over year, the inflation rate was 6% in February. But looking at just the first two months of the year, the Consumer Price Index has already risen 1.36%. If that keeps up for the rest of the year, we’ll be looking at more than 8% inflation for the year. It’s too early to declare that we have inflation under control."

(The Center Square) – The record-breaking spending in Wisconsin’s race for Supreme Court is not ending.

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign on Monday released a report that shows the price tag for the race between Judge Janet Protasiewicz and former Justice Dan Kelly is now over $20 million.

“About 30 outside electioneering groups have spent $18.1 million on reported independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads in the race, more than three-and-a-half times the previous record,” the Democracy Campaign said in its report. “Groups backing Kelly or opposing Protasiewicz have doled out $9.9 million. Groups backing Protasiewicz or opposing Kelly have spent $5.7 million.”

That’s just the spending from outside groups.

The Democracy Campaign says the candidates themselves have spent millions of dollars as well.

“The most recent reports filed by the candidates showed they spent a total of $2.12 million since they entered the race last year, through Feb. 6th,,” the report noted. “Spending was led by Protasiewicz who has doled out $1.37 million, which is nearly six times the $237,719 spent by Kelly.”

The $20 million price tag for the race smashes Wisconsin’s previous most-expensive Supreme Court race ever. That was the 2020 race which cost $10 million.

The $20 million is also more than the previous most expensive judicial race in the country, which was a $15 million race in Illinois back in 2004.

And the spending isn’t done.

Election Day is two weeks away, on April 4th. The Democracy Campaign says we’ll get another spending update before then.

“The next batch of fundraising and spending reports by the candidates are due March 27th and will likely show several million dollars more in candidate spending,” the Campaign added. “Other news outlets, such as WisPolitics, have reported higher figures than the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Our numbers are based only on figures already reported to the state by candidates and independent expenditure groups or that we could estimate from so-called ‘issue advocacy’ groups.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s race for the Supreme Court is only going to get more expensive from here.

Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming and Wisconsin Democratic Party boss Ben Wikler appeared together on WisPolitics' Newsmaker program over the weekend.

Schimming said there is more money coming to help conservative Justice Dan Kelly in the final three weeks of the race.

“We’ve raised more money in this year alone than we did in all of 2021, and almost all of 2022,” Schimming said. “The fundraising is going really well. And the grassroots support has been terrific.”

Kelly is behind in the money race, almost two-to-one.

WisPolitics says he, and the groups who support him, have spent a little over $5 million in the race for Supreme Court.

Liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz, and the groups that support her, have spent over $10 million.

And Wickler said Democrats are willing to raise whatever money is necessary to finish the race.

“We’re putting out word to anyone who cares about the future of freedom and Democracy that this race is for all the marbles,” Wickler explained. “Wisconsin is the pivotal state in the country in the Electoral College. The Senate race, to re-elect Tammy Baldwin. The presidential election in 2024. There are House seats on the line. And for the future of freedom in Wisconsin, to access a safe and legal abortion. All those reasons make this race so high stakes.”

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin already gave Protasiewicz $2.5 million for her campaign, and Wickler said there will be more if necessary.

Schimming was quick to say more than 90% of Protasiewicz’s money is from out of state, but added Kelly has been busy raising cash in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s race for Supreme Court has already topped $15 million in spending, making it the most expensive Supreme Court race in U.S. history.

Voters head to the polls April 4th.

(The Center Square) – The University of Wisconsin is moving toward its first tuition increase in a decade.

UW President Jay Rothman told lawmakers on Thursday that he will ask regents to raise tuition by 5%, starting next fall.

"After more than a decade of frozen tuition rates and as costs have increased and more particularly in recent years, inflation has accelerated, it is essential that we seek this increase for the long-term financial viability of our universities and to sustain the quality of education and research and services that we provide," Rothman said in a hearing before the Assembly Committee on Colleges and universities.

Rothman also asked for nearly $2 billion for new buildings on UW campuses, as well as millions of dollars more to pay for free-tuition programs at the UW’s other campuses, and to cover the cost of inflation.

“We are requesting a 4% general purpose revenue increase in the 2023 year, and a 4% increase in the following year in support of general operating budgets for the UW System,” Rothman explained.

Wisconsin lawmakers froze tuition at the UW System back in 2013. They lifted that freeze in 2021, but warned UW managers against rising tuition too quickly or too high.

Tuition at UW schools varies by campus, and Rothman insists that even with the tuition hike, Wisconsin’s other campuses will remain affordable.

“The UW System already offers the most affordable public education system in the upper Midwest,” Rothman said. “No one compares to us.”

In-state tuition at UW-Madison, the state’s largest campus, is currently just under $11,000 a year. A five percent increase would push that total just over $11,000.

Out-of-state tuition is much higher, at nearly $40,000 a-year.

Rothman told lawmakers he plans to ask UW Regents to approve the tuition hike at their meeting later this month.

President Joe Biden pledged in a speech late Wednesday to ban “assault weapons,” but critics were quick to push back.

Biden made the statement during his remarks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference.

“I know I make some of you uncomfortable, but that little state above me, in Delaware, is one of the — has the highest rate — one of the highest rates of gun ownership,” Biden said. "But guess what? We’re going to ban assault weapons again come hell or high water.”

Biden also called out “high-capacity magazines.” Those comments sparked pushback from critics who pointed to their Second Amendment protections.

“The loss of life is a tragedy whenever it occurs,” U.SS. Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., told The Center Square in response to Biden’s comments. “At the same time, the Second Amendment is not subject to interpretation by bureaucrats in Washington and cannot be taken away by Congress. Rather than confiscating firearms from law-abiding Americans, our priorities should be to protect and equip our police and crack down on violent crime."

Biden has taken a series of executive actions pushing the boundaries of his Constitutional authority, such as the eviction moratorium and COVID mandates, leading to legal challenges and rulings pushing back on Biden’s agenda.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently bolstered gun rights. Last summer, the high court struck down a New York gun law that required residents to prove they had “proper cause” to receive a permit to carry a firearm outside the home.

As The Center Square previously reported, the court ruled 6-3 with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the opinion. Roberts wrote that the court “recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense.”

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in January introduced the “Assault Weapons Ban,” which would “ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices.”

“It’s time we stand up to the gun lobby and remove these weapons of war from our streets, or at the very least keep them out of the hands of young people,” Feinstein said in a statement.

A companion bill has support from more than 200 Democrats but has not passed either Chamber this Congress.

“President Biden didn’t have the votes in Congress to get this ineffective and patently unconstitutional measure passed even when Democrats controlled the House,” Amy Swearer, Heritage senior legal fellow, told The Center Square. “He certainly doesn’t have the votes now, when the most recent polls show support for this type of law is lower now than it was in previous years. Unless the president plans on stripping Americans’ Second Amendment rights via executive fiat (a real ‘come hell, high water, or constitutional crisis’ scenario), then it’s difficult to see this as anything more than the President once again blowing smoke on behalf of Gun Control, Inc.”

The FBI has confirmed initial reports that the Biden administration is now saying the most likely source of COVID-19 is the virology lab in Wuhan, China.

The news comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Energy gave classified briefings to key lawmakers and the White House saying the most likely origin of the virus was the lab in China.

“[FBI] Director Wray confirmed that the Bureau has assessed that the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic likely originated from a lab incident in Wuhan, China,” the agency said in a statement.

House Republicans have vowed to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and whether American taxpayer dollars may have played a role since the lab has received federal funding.

Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said they are widening their investigation into the matter.

“Uncovering the truth about the origins of COVID-19 is vital to U.S. national security, critical to the prevention of future pandemics, and will bring some semblance of closure to the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Biden administration, requesting documents, communications, records and more.

The Biden administration’s admission comes after Republicans were roundly mocked by other lawmakers and the media during the pandemic for making the same assertion, as The Center Square previously reported.

In 2020, the Associated Press called the idea a “myth.” The same year, The New York Times called it a “conspiracy theory,” and The Washington Post called it a “fringe theory.”

In 2021, social media companies like Facebook were taking down posts that claimed COVID-19 was man-made.

“FBI Director Wray confirmed on national TV that the FBI has thought COVID came from the Wuhan lab for a long time,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “Republicans were right all along. But got called conspiracy theorists. Will the media and Big Tech be apologizing to us?”

Republican lawmakers blasted those tech companies and the media for “covering up” for China.

“The media originally labeled anyone who questioned China’s official COVID narrative as xenophobic, a conspiracy theorist, and more,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who was among the first to push the lab-leak theory. “They never did apologize for covering up for China. Worse, they’re still doing it.”

(The Center Square) – Republican lawmakers at the Wisconsin Capitol want to make sure dangerous felons who carry illegal guns go to prison.

The Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice on Tuesday held a hearing on Assembly Bill 58, a plan that would require five years in prison for any felon caught with a gun.

“We have numerous situations where judges have ignored or chosen not to address the fact that the convicted felons who they are sentencing were in possession of firearms,” Rep. Tom Michalski, R-Elm Grove, told lawmakers. “In Milwaukee County alone, over 3,500 gun possession cases were sent to the D.A.’s office between 2011 and 2015. Thirty seven percent of these never had charges filed.”

Michalski is the chief sponsor of the legislation. Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona, will lead the effort in the Senate.

On Tuesday, James hinted that the lack of punishment for felons who continue to carry guns is one of the reasons why Milwaukee has seen a spike in violent crime.

“Public safety has been on everyone’s mind lately. And the concern over crimes involving firearms is not new,” James said. “Illegally possessing a firearm as a previously convicted felon is an issue that has been overlooked in our state. From 2011 to 2015 three out of every four felons arrested for illegal possession of a gun in Milwaukee County didn’t go to prison. Over half weren’t even convicted.”

The new proposal would require judges to sentence felons to five years in jail if charged with having a gun. Wisconsin law has a five-year maximum for felony possession of a weapon, but no mandatory minimum.

Democratic Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, worried that a mandatory minimum would either encourage prosecutors to offer plea deals to felony weapon suspects, or snare a lot of nondangerous felons.

“Under the law, a person who is convicted of, let's say manufacturing and distributing heroin, if they possess a firearm [it’s] five years,” McGuire said. “The same as someone with, let’s say felony OWI and has a hunting rifle in their truck. They both get five years automatically.”

Under the proposed law, prosecutors could drop felony weapons possession charges, but judges could not drop the mandatory minimum.

Wisconsin's Chiefs of Police Association and the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police support the legislation. Gov. Tony Evers has not committed for or against the measure.

The cost of interest payments on the national debt will continue to grow as a financial burden for the U.S. over the next decade, even surpassing what the nation spends on national defense within a few years, a newly released budget analysis shows.

The national debt hit $31 trillion last fall and is well on its way to $32 trillion this year. As that debt grows, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government will shell out over $10 trillion in the next decade on interest payments alone.

“To put this $10.5 trillion total in perspective, this means that spending on net interest will exceed all defense spending over the next decade,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in its analysis of CBO's data. “In addition, we estimate the net interest spending will surpass all federal spending on children this year, meaning that we will be paying more to service our debts of the past than to invest in future generations.

“For every dollar that the U.S. government will borrow over the next decade, 50 cents will be just to pay interest on our national debt,” the group added.

CBO also projects that the debt as a percentage of GDP will hit record levels in that time and average $2 trillion deficits.

The latest debt projections are based on current spending obligations. That means new spending from Congress without offsetting tax increases or spending cuts will accelerate that growth of the debt beyond those projections.

“After jumping from $352 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 to $475 billion in 2022, annual net interest outlays will triple, reaching $1.4 trillion by 2033,” the CRFB said. “As a share of the economy, net interest will rise from 1.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in FY 2022 to exceed its record as a share of GDP – 3.2 percent set in 1991 – by 2030 before reaching a high of 3.6 percent of GDP by 2033."

CRFB said the cost of interest on the national debt will soon surpass entitlement spending if nothing changes.

“Unfortunately, the decades to follow 2033 are projected to be in even worse fiscal shape. With deficits continuing to grow unsustainably over time, interest on debt will eventually become the largest part of the federal budget,” the group said. “Net interest will surpass defense spending by 2028, Medicare spending by 2044, and Social Security spending by 2050, becoming the largest single line item in the budget. By 2053, net interest will consume approximately 7.2 percent of GDP – nearly 40 percent of federal revenues.”

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

Biden announced in August of last year that his administration would “forgive” $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 per year or $250,000 for married couples. Debtors who borrowed money before July 1 can qualify.

For Pell Grant recipients, the debt reduction would total $20,000. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated that the plan would cost taxpayers roughly $400 billion.

The Biden administration argued that the administration has the legal authority to cancel the debt. Justices poked back at that claim, asking whether Congress’ HEROES ACT, which allowed the federal government to delay debt collection because of national emergencies, really grants power to cancel that debt.

Justices point out that the law does not explicitly allow for the waiving of student debt in this way, but the Biden administration argued that forgiving the student debt was still in line with the purpose of the bill.

Justices also raised concerns that using a questionable legal argument to allow such a large release of federal funds may go beyond the power of the legislation. The Biden administration, though, argued that the legal challengers did not have a real injury because of the policy that would give them legal standing to challenge the plan in the first place.

The Biden administration has paused student loan repayment until the Supreme Court rules on this case, expected by June and no later than July.

“Today, my Administration argues our case for student debt relief in the Supreme Court,” Biden said in a statement. “This relief is critical to over 40 million Americans as they recover from the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. We're confident it's legal. And we're fighting for it in court.”

A poll from August 2022 found Americans are concerned that forgiving the student loan debt will hike inflation.

A CNBC/Momentive survey found that 59% of those surveyed said they are concerned forgiving the debt will make inflation worse.

“Republicans are especially concerned: 81% of Republicans say student loan forgiveness will make inflation worse, nearly double the number of Democrats who say the same (41%),” Momentive said.