At a rally on Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris pledged to eliminate taxes on tips for hospitality workers should she win the White House, echoing a campaign promise her opponent, former President Trump, made in June.

So, that means both major party candidates have endorsed tax-free tips, giving momentum to a policy that makes most economists break out in hives.

Location, location, location. It’s revealing where Harris and Trump called to end taxes on tips: at events in Las Vegas, Nevada, a tourist-dependent state with the highest concentration of tipped workers in the country (25.8 waiters per 1,000 jobs), per the AP. The two candidates want to show they’re looking out for service workers in this swing state that could play a key role in November’s election.

The current state of taxes-on-tips

Under existing tax law, tips are treated as standard income and are subject to payroll taxes and federal income tax. Neither candidate explained whether their plan would remove one of those taxes (or both), and tipped income is infamously underreported to the IRS.

Most economists and tax analysts say banning taxes on tips is a misguided policy that would have damaging secondary effects. Here are some of their main critiques:

• The majority of workers wouldn’t benefit. And that’s because they don’t make enough to pay federal taxes. Two-thirds of US restaurant workers do not meet the income threshold to pay federal income taxes, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The workers who would benefit the most would likely be servers at high-end restaurants.
• It would further deplete the US’ bank account. Exempting tipped income from taxes would reduce federal revenue by $150 billion–$250 billion, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
• It would lead to accounting chaos. In a world of no taxes on tips, think about all the Hula-Hoops employees and companies would jump through to take advantage of the new system and ensure more income was reported as tips.

Many advocates for low-wage service workers, including the group One Fair Wage, don’t even support the policy. Instead, they want to see an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers and worry that ending taxes on tips would distract from that effort.

Looking ahead…while candidates can make campaign promises, any changes to federal taxes would require an act of Congress.

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Magic Kingdom will get its biggest expansion in history. Americans may be avoiding theme parks this summer, but Disney is betting billions that it’s a short-term blip. At its D23 Expo, the company unwrapped the details for a massive expansion of its parks, including a land at Magic Kingdom focused on its villains and new attractions centered around Avatar, Coco, Cars, and Monsters, Inc. Disney will also build four new cruise ships by 2031, bringing the total to 13 from five currently. The new lands are a key part of Disney’s $60 billion investment in experiences over 10 years, and there’s a lot at stake: The company reported a surprise decline in the division’s profits this summer.

Trump and Vance want more control over the Fed. The Republican VP nominee, JD Vance, said he “absolutely” agreed with Trump’s assertion that the president should be involved in the Fed’s interest rate decisions. At a press conference last week, Trump claimed that he would have a “better instinct” than Fed officials in determining monetary policy and should at least be consulted, alarming investors and economists for whom the Fed’s independence from political considerations is sacrosanct. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said she couldn’t “disagree more strongly” with Trump, adding, “I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes.”

Women’s basketball team helps US tie China for most golds. A day after Team USA men’s basketball narrowly defeated France for the gold medal, the women did the same for their eighth straight Olympic gold medal and 61st straight win in Olympic competition. It was a huge victory in the medal race, too, because it meant the US tied China for the most gold medals won throughout the tournament with 40 (the US earned the most total medals by far). Meanwhile, American Jordan Chiles has to return her bronze medal in the floor exercise due to a scoring error, prompting US Olympic officials to say they’ll appeal on Chiles’s behalf.

Following the Covid-marred Tokyo Olympics in 2021, NBC execs wondered if their premier sports property was going the way of the Academy Awards with declining cultural cachet and plummeting viewership.

But after the Paris Olympics wrapped up yesterday, the mood at 30 Rock couldn’t have been more ebullient. Ratings rebounded in a big way, while NBC’s innovative coverage of the Games earned widespread praise.

• Through 13 days of the Olympics, viewership of Paris was up 76% over Tokyo.
• If the Summer Olympics were an original streaming series, it would rank second behind only Bridgerton in total viewing time this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Some of the rebound from Tokyo can be chalked up to a more accessible time zone in Paris for American viewers and the absence of Covid (minus Noah Lyles).

But NBC also made savvy bets that kept people glued to their screens, including its whip-around program Gold Zone, making all of the events available live on its streaming service Peacock, and ensuring Olympics-pilled celebs like Snoop Dogg were front and center. Plus, relaxed rules around athletes posting on social media sent their unvarnished reactions to the top of your feed.

Looking ahead…NBC will hope to perfect the magic potion it conjured up in Paris to further juice interest in the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

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Burning Man is losing its aura.

Two weeks before the start of the art festival in remote Nevada, “demand has dipped significantly,” according to Bloomberg, a sweeping change from the past 13 years when tickets sold out almost instantly. On internet forums, sellers offering tickets well below face value aren’t finding any buyers, and the nonprofit behind the festival is pushing last-minute tickets on demand, something it’s never had to do before.

One longtime Burner told Bloomberg that the event, which has increasingly become a tweetup for Silicon Valley techies, “has gone a little past its peak cultural relevance” and that “the pseudo-mainstreaming of it is making it less cool.”

US consumers in the spotlight: How much have you been shopping? We’ll find out this week when crucial July retail sales data is released on Thursday, and Walmart and Home Depot report earnings. The resilience of the US consumer is at the heart of recent concerns over a potential downturn since consumer spending drives 70% of the US economy. So far this earnings season, companies have given more mixed signals than a menu offering jumbo shrimp.

A pivotal week for cease-fire talks: US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators have set Thursday for a final round of negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire in Gaza, though Hamas yesterday said it rejected the countries’ invitation for several reasons, including Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. On Saturday, Israel drew international condemnation for a strike on a school that killed at least 80 people. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas “command and control center” and that 19 militants had been killed in the strike.

Everything else…

• VP Kamala Harris said she’ll reveal her official economic policy platform this week.
• The Premier League returns for a new season on Friday. Can anyone stop Manchester City? They’ve won four straight titles.
• Post Malone goes country with his latest album, F-1 Trillion, dropping on Friday.