Wall Street Nightmare At 30,000 Feet

This is Lever Weekly, a recap of our work from the past week. If you only read one email from us all week, this should be it.

✈️ Wall Street Wants To Fix Your Airplane. The airline-repair business has been beset by corporate outsourcing and spotty oversight. Venture capitalists want a piece of the action.

Trump Lets “Good” Banks Hide Their Bad Fees. Last year, credit unions were forced to disclose the billions they made charging their members unnecessary junk fees. Now Trump is once again hiding their grift.

The Trump Crash Is Here. “Liberation Day” tariffs have tanked the market and thrown MAGA-land into chaos.

DOGE Weaponizes AI To Surveil Federal Workers. Elon Musk is reportedly using artificial intelligence to monitor the communications of government employees.

Vampire Capitalists Cash In Amid Stock Market Crash. While the markets spin out of control, private equity firms are accelerating their looting of shareholders and businesses.

Thanks To Trump’s Tax Scam, Death Isn’t The End For GOP Lawmakers’ Riches. A new report finds Republican lawmakers stand to massively financially benefit from Trump’s renewed push to end the “death tax.”

UAW’s Shawn Fain On Trump’s Tariff-pocalypse. The leader of one of America’s largest unions says that inflation concerns are legitimate but argues it’s time to end the era of free trade.

Are You Ready For The Tax Revolt? As Trump’s new tax bill advances, The Lever is releasing a four-part miniseries revealing how the anti-tax movement came to dominate Washington.

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Not yet reading Lever Daily? You’re missing out on news like this:

📚 Whoops, there goes your tuition. A study into universities’ venture into the world of private equity found that college endowment funds invested in these alternative investment firms don’t perform any better than traditional endowment funds — and they incur much more risk. Since the “Yale model” of alternative endowment investments first took off, universities have sunk billions of dollars into notoriously risky and opaque private equity funds.

❤️‍🩹 Big Health’s big payday. Health insurance companies saw their stocks take off after President Donald Trump finalized a 5 percent increase in funding for privatized Medicare plans on Monday. Companies including UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, and Humana already collect over $450 billion annually from the federal government for Medicare Advantage plans, which cover half of all senior citizens. Dr. Mehmet Oz — Trump’s pick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — owns millions in stock in the health care industry, including insurers that offer Medicare Advantage.

💸 GOP lawmakers may cash in on tax breaks. A staggering 70 percent of congressional Republicans could financially benefit from Trump’s billionaire-friendly tax plan that they’ve helped ram through Congress. A new project from watchdog group Accountable.US shows how nearly every Republican in Congress stands to personally gain from the new tax plan, which will also deliver unprecedented cuts to social services for working-class Americans. Cometh the death tax. While less than 1 percent of American descendants are subject to the estate tax, which imposes a tax on major family inheritances, 18 percent of House Republicans and 28 percent of Senate Republicans are wealthy enough that they qualify for what they’ve deemed the “death tax.” These lawmakers could benefit from a full repeal of the estate tax in the new tax bill.

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Every week, our paid subscribers receive a newsletter full of policy wins, environmental victories, social initiatives improving your life, and more. 

A taste of this week’s good news:

• A pharma company can’t hide behind bankruptcy.
• Public educators stand their ground.
• Louisiana’s bayous see justice.
• Award-winning journalism is safe in the courts.

Lever Leaders provide us with our highest level of support and score additional perks in return, including a yearly gift subscription for friends and family, access to an exclusive Lever staff meeting for a sneak peek at our future plans, and an annual gift of limited-edition Lever merchandise. 

Current Lever Leaders recently received a special vinyl printing of original music from The Lever’s hit podcast Master Plan, including artwork from the animated trailer and liner notes from the composer. And we have big ideas for our next Lever Leader gift!

System Update — David Sirota joined journalist Glenn Greenwald’s podcast to discuss how President Donald Trump’s tariffs pose a threat to neoliberalism. 

The Mark Thompson Show — David Sirota joined journalist Mark Thompson to make sense of Trump’s tariff-pocalypse.

Accountable.US — The nonprofit government watchdog group highlighted our coverage of lawmakers’ efforts to bury the death tax.