They raised the alarm during speeches to the National Association of Counties, which was holding a conference in Washington.

Biden said many local governments have recovered from the pandemic, but some in Congress are putting that progress at risk by threatening to have America default on its debt, which would be catastrophic for counties and the country. Even coming close to default would raise borrowing costs, making it harder to finance key projects in your communities.

The concern over the debt ceiling is the result of a political showdown between House Republicans, who are demanding spending cuts, and the Democratic president, who insists on raising the limit without conditions.

Yellen similarly warned of a catastrophe in her own speech.

In the longer term, a default would raise the cost of borrowing into perpetuity. Future investments, including public investments, would become substantially more costly, she said.

Household payments on mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards would rise, and American businesses would see credit markets deteriorate, she said. On top of that, it is unlikely that the federal government would be able to issue payments to millions of Americans, including our military families and seniors who rely on Social Security.

Yellen notified Congress last month that the U.S. Treasury Department has resorted to extraordinary measures to avoid default on the nations $31.4 trillion borrowing authority. But the extraordinary measures would likely run out and put the U.S. at risk of default sometime around early June.

In a Jan. 13 letter to House and Senate leaders, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise or suspend the limit, but she said its critical that Congress act in a timely manner.

Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met at the White House this month to discuss the issue. McCarthy told the president he would not raise the debt ceiling without concessions from Democrats.

No agreement, no promises except we will continue this conversation, McCarthy told reporters outside the White House after the meeting.

During his State of the Union address last week, Biden chided Republicans over the debt ceiling suggesting that Republicans want to slash Medicare and Social Security.

Yellens comments come ahead of the Congressional Budget Offices projections to be released Wednesday, which updates the offices expectation about when Treasury will no longer be able to pay its obligations fully if the debt limit is not raised.

Lets not wait until the last minute, Yellen said. I believe it is a basic responsibility of our nations leaders to get this done.

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The so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, created by Congress in the landmark climate law approved last year, will invest in clean energy projects nationwide, with a focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency expects to award $20 billion in competitive grants to as many 15 nonprofit groups that will work with local banks and other financial institutions to invest in projects that reduce pollution and lower energy costs for families.

Another $7 billion will be awarded to states, tribes and municipalities to deploy a range of solar energy projects, including residential rooftop solar, community solar and solar storage.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the green bank modeled after similar banks established in states such as Connecticut, New York and California will unlock billions of dollars in private investment to enable neighborhoods and communities that have never participated in the clean-energy economy to participate in full force in creating green jobs.

Low-income and disadvantaged communities who pay the largest percent of their income toward energy bills have been left out of the investment game (and) have not seen the infusion of private capital to help them realize opportunities for lots of reasons, said Regan, the first Black man to head the EPA.

What we are focused on here is ensuring that this $27 billion opportunity is thought-out in a way that allows for that community, that population, to be along for the ride, he added. Obviously, if this had been done before, there would be no reason for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. We are charged with bringing private capital off the sideline.

The program expects to begin making grant awards this summer and has already received nearly 400 responses to preliminary inquiries, said Jahi Wise, the programs acting director.

Even before the grants are awarded, Republicans in Congress have taken aim at the green bank, calling it a taxpayer-funded slush fund ripe for abuse.

Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., said he will sponsor a bill to repeal the fund, which he said will benefit Wall Street firms but doesnt help the American people with their utility bills.

Will this $27 billion slush fund lower the cost of heating for these American families? Palmer asked.

Sean Kelly, a spokesman for House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said the fund allocates an incredible amount of authority and resources to the EPA, yet lacks measures to ensure accountability or transparency in how the resources are used.

In other words, this provision creates a taxpayer-funded slush fund for Wall Street and heightens the risk for overspending, fraud and abuse, Kelly said in a statement. That is not a responsible way to allocate these resources.

Democrats were much more optimistic, calling the fund a historic opportunity to cut greenhouse gas emissions, protect public health and create economic opportunity in disadvantaged and under-resourced communities.

For years, weve fought to take the idea of a national climate bank from a vision to a reality. With todays action from the EPA, were one step closer, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who pushed for the green bank along with Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and other Democrats.

Markey and Van Hollen said in a statement that they will work with EPA to ensure the new fund is national in scope, has a substantial multiplier effect with private investment and includes diverse stakeholders, including communities that have been historically underserved by banks and other financial institutions.

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The Conversation U.S. asked David Campbell, Elizabeth Dale and Michael Moody, three scholars of philanthropy, to assess the significance of these gifts and to consider what this data indicates about the state of charitable giving in the United States.

What trends stand out overall?

Elizabeth Dale: After two years of giving that was close to record levels, the nations biggest donors seem to have resumed giving at pre-pandemic levels, with support largely directed to the causes they have historically favored: higher education, hospitals and medical research. They also put a lot of money into foundations, for the most part those bearing the names of these extremely wealthy donors or their relatives.

I believe that the decline in giving likely had something to do with last years stock market volatility major indices lost as much as 33% of their value in 2022 and the onset of high inflation. Both financial markets and inflation can influence charitable giving.

David Campbell: Despite giving from these very rich Americans being so much lower than in 2021 and 2020, the total for 2022 was still higher than more than half of the years since 2000. Nonetheless, nearly half of the total came from two donors, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former New York City mayor and financial media entrepreneur Mike Bloomberg, both of whom have led this list three of the past four years. Some $8 billion more than half of these gifts went to foundations in 2022, with $5 billion injected into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone.

This means that the benefit of these donations will not be experienced immediately but rather over many years. U.S. foundations are required to spend only 5% of their assets annually, and most foundations try to preserve their holdings so that they may continue operating well into the future.

Michael Moody: The gifts from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both point to how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been evolving in the past couple years, following the founders divorce in 2021.

Bill Gates contribution to the foundation came from him alone, and Buffetts big gifts last year went to foundations led by his relatives rather than to the Gates Foundation, an institution that he announced years ago would receive the bulk of his fortune. While Buffett has said he still fully supports the Gates foundation, he did step off its board in 2021. That board has since gained new members who arent related to Bill Gates or Melinda French Gates.

What surprises you about the biggest donors?

Campbell: One thing that stands out to me is not only that some donors appear on this list year after year but also that they have a clear vision for their philanthropy and consistently use it to focus on a few core passions: John and Laura Arnold on a specific set of public policy concerns, including reproductive rights and civil rights; Gates on global health; and Bloomberg on higher education access, public health and gun safety.

Dale: Id like to point out that only 19 of this years top 50 donors are on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. Its worth paying attention to who isnt giving on a big scale, especially in an era of such extreme wealth inequality and an effective 8.2% tax rate on the wealthiest Americans. It can be easier to pay a lot of attention to the perennial donors on this list like Bill Gates, Bloomberg, the Arnolds, Sergey Brin and a few others who have consistently been among the countrys top charitable donors for years.

I also find it interesting that three big donors all re-upped their commitments to the Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation Diagnostics Accelerator. Leonard Lauder an heir to the Estée Lauder Cos. cosmetics fortune Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates each made $11.25 million gifts to this venture, which they helped launch in 2018 to research ways to make earlier diagnoses Alzheimers disease.

Moody: I find it noteworthy that none of the top 50 donors in 2022 was under 40 and that only five of them were under 50. That the top donors skew older should not be too surprising given that Baby Boomers have nine times as much wealth as millennials. But some members of Generation X and millennials are starting to enter the echelon of the worlds wealthiest, so Id expected to see more of them crack this list.

What concerns do you have?

Moody: I think a lot of Americans would say that one of our biggest problems as a country right now is our divisiveness and our apparent inability to overcome it. Yet with the notable exception of Pierre and Pam Omidyar, who support efforts to ensure free and fair elections as well as what they term constructive politics through their Democracy Fund, few of the biggest donors are focused on overcoming this polarization.

Dale: Im struck by how little money in 2022 was clearly identified as being directed to the environment and climate change, especially given the climate-related disasters of Hurricane Ian in Florida, heat waves in Europe and flooding in Pakistan and India.

While several of these top donors did announce that they had made gifts totaling $186.8 million to environmental-related causes, only $27.6 million was directly given to an environmental organization and $50 million to address climate change. Other large gifts went to the Schmidt Ocean Institute and the ocean program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Campbell: I think it is important to note that giving by MacKenzie Scott is not included on this list because she did not respond to the Chronicle of Philanthropys survey. She has given at least $14 billion to some 1,600 nonprofits since 2019.

Scotts approach to philanthropy stands out because of its unusual scale, as well as her focus on equity and marginalized groups and her no-strings-attached grants. Her gifts to organizations to use for their immediate needs provide a stark contrast to other top givers who place their donations in foundations, where much of the public benefit is deferred.

What do you expect to see in 2023 and beyond?

Campbell: I have more questions than answers.

How will the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria affect giving? Will the scale of the disaster, which had left 36,000 people dead by mid-February 2023, be a motivator, considering that many of the largest U.S. donors focus their giving on causes operating in the United States? Will declining inflation spur more giving by the wealthiest Americans next year and a return to the levels seen in recent years?

I imagine we will see Melinda French Gates on this list next year. Will her giving look more like Scotts, making donations to organizations that address equity issues a priority? Or will it look more traditional and long-term, emphasize foundation giving and be shaped by the input of in-house experts?

Dale: While the composition of the data obscures much about the end recipients of this elite giving, I believe its clear that more philanthropy, in addition to large-scale public funding, is needed to address major diseases, climate change and social and racial inequality. Id like to see more of these donors make efforts to work together and a speedier disbursement of grants from foundations.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for The Conversation U.S. and provides funding for The Conversation internationally. Arnold Ventures provides funding for The Conversation U.S.

David Campbell is Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York; Elizabeth J. Dale is Associate Professor of Nonprofit Leadership, Seattle University, and Michael Moody is Chair for Family Philanthropy, Grand Valley State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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