Accounting
Biden defends economic record, says Trump plans threaten growth
President Joe Biden warned that Republican Donald Trump’s plans to extend tax cuts and reshape global trade through tariffs risked reversing economic gains, even as dissatisfaction with his own handling of the economy contributed to last month’s stinging electoral loss.
Biden, speaking at an event Tuesday at the Brookings Institution, sought to reverse perceptions of his economic performance, arguing his policies had worked to help Americans recover from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Most economists agree the new administration is going to inherit a fairly strong economy, at least at the moment,” Biden said in an address at the think-tank in Washington. “It is my profound hope that the new administration will preserve and build on this progress.”
That’s unlikely, after Trump vowed dramatic change to economic policy on the campaign trail, helping propel his return to the White House and Republican control of both chambers of Congress. The defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered the race with just months before Election Day after Biden stepped aside, underscored dissatisfaction with his post-pandemic tenure among the electorate.
Still, the president argued that his policies have planted the seeds that will grow the economy in a way that bolsters working and middle-class families and warned that those gains could be imperiled if Trump enacts tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts entitlement program spending, rolls back investments in infrastructure and levies fresh tariffs. He also warned that a retreat from free trade policies threatened to allow adversaries to take a greater role shaping the world.
“I believe this approach is a major mistake,” Biden said.
“If we do not lead the world, who does?,” he added.
Biden jabbed at Trump over many of the Republican’s first-term policies, saying that tax cuts he implemented had benefited the wealthy and seeking to draw a contrast with his own agenda, touting measures to help expand access to health insurance and a push to expand the child tax credit.
“The previous administration, quite frankly, had no plan, real plan, to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history,” Biden said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Focus on legacy
Tuesday’s event had the tone of a valedictory address, as Biden spoke to a largely friendly audience of economists, consumer advocates and business and labor leaders. But Biden acknowledged that outside the room, many remained wary of his handling of the economy.
“I know it’s been hard for many Americans to see, and I understand it,” Biden said.
Biden cited 16 million new jobs, the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in the last 50 years, 20 million applications for new business and a stock market “at record highs” to defend his economic playbook.
“401(k)s are up, more than a trillion dollars in private sector investment in clean energy and advanced manufacturing in just two years alone. After decades of sending jobs overseas for the cheapest labor possible, companies are coming back to America, investing and building here and creating jobs here in America,” Biden said.
And he said that inflation — which fueled much of the public angst over his economic agenda — was “coming down faster than almost anywhere in the world.”
But also evident was a sense of frustration from Biden that his record had not been celebrated. At one point, Biden noted that Trump as president had sent out stimulus checks during the pandemic with his signature on them.
“I also learned something from Donald Trump. He signed checks for people,” Biden said. “And I didn’t.”
Trump plans
Trump has vowed to undo many of the hallmark policies of Biden’s tenure, including elements of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping tax and climate package, and the Chips and Science Act, which provides billions in incentives to bolster domestic chip manufacturing and reduce U.S. reliance on Asia.
Most notably, Trump has said he would scrap an electric vehicle tax credit, part of a Biden push to transition the U.S. to cleaner energy that fueled anxiety among blue-collar workers worried about its impact on jobs.
Trump has also derided the Chips Act subsidies as a bad deal that is costing the U.S. billions. Republican lawmakers, who will control both the House and Senate, may look to claw back funding from laws Biden signed.
Biden said the investments his administration backed had helped both Republican and Democratic states and predicted that GOP lawmakers would buck at efforts to undo projects in their communities.
Messaging challenge
Tuesday’s speech highlights how Biden, and Harris after she replaced him atop the Democratic ticket, struggled to translate positive economic data into support at the polls.
During his own campaign, Biden briefly embraced the term “Bidenomics” — coined by his critics to disparage his approach — and crisscrossed the country to highlight domestic manufacturing, clean energy and infrastructure investments from legislation he signed, arguing that they were bringing high-paying jobs. But those efforts failed to reverse the negative perceptions of his handling of the economy.
Harris in her campaign struggled to distance herself from Biden even as she sought to assure voters that she would be more attuned to helping middle- and working-class families deal with high costs.
Big Four firm PwC announced new agentic AI capacities, including a model that proactively identifies areas of value leakage and acts inside the tools teams already use to fix them itself.
The new solution,
The software, which is supported by PwC’s recently released
The system connects directly into ERP environments, continuously monitors key metrics, and acts inside the tools teams already use. For example, a supply chain agent might detect rising shipping costs and automatically reroute deliveries to reduce spend. Finance agents can spot and correct billing errors before they reach the customer. Clients typically see measurable efficiency gains in the first quarter, with continued improvements over time as the system learns and adapts.
“Too many transformations still rely on one-off pilots and stale data, stretching the gap from insight to impact and suffocating ROI,” said Saurabh Sarbaliya, PwC’s principal for enterprise strategy and value. “Agent Powered Performance flips the economics by distilling PwC’s industry transformation playbooks into AI agents that turn static insights into compounding gains, without rebooting each time.”
Agent Powered Performance is platform-agnostic and built on an open architecture so it can work across different LLMs based on client preferences and task-specific needs. It works with major enterprise platforms including Oracle, SAP, Workday and Guidewire.
Agent OS Model Context Protocol
PwC also
By integrating this standard, agent systems registered as MCP servers can be used by any authorized AI agent. This reduces redundant integration work and the overhead of writing custom logic for each new use case. By standardizing how agents invoke tools and handle responses, MCP also simplifies the interface between agents and enterprise systems, which will serve to reduce development time, lower testing complexity, and cut deployment risk. Finally, any interaction between an agent and an MCP server is authenticated, authorized and logged, and access policies are enforced at the protocol level, which means that compliance and control are native to the system—not layered on after the fact.
This means that agents are no longer siloed. Instead, they can operate as part of a coordinated, governed system that can grow as needs evolve, as MCP support provides the interface to external tools and systems. This enables organizations to move beyond isolated pilots toward integrated systems where agents don’t just reason, but act inside real business workflows. It marks a shift from experimentation to adoption, from isolated tools to scalable, governed intelligence.
Research Composer
Finally, a PwC spokesperson said the firm has also launched a new internal tool for its professionals called Research Composer, a patent-pending AI research agent embedded in the firm’s ChatPwC suite, designed to accelerate insight generation by combining web data with PwC-uploaded content.
Professionals will use the Research Composer to produce in-depth, citation-backed reports for either the firm or its clients. The solution is intended to enhance the quality of client work by equipping teams with research and strategic analysis capabilities.
The AI agent prompts users through a step-by-step research workflow, allowing them to shape how reports are packaged—tailoring the output to meet strategic needs. For example, a manager in advisory services might use Research Composer to evaluate white space opportunities across industries or geographies, drawing from internal reports and up-to-date market data.
Eide Bailly, a Top 25 Firm based in Fargo, North Dakota, is growing its presence in the Pacific Northwest by adding Traner Smith, based in Edmonds, Washington, effective June 2, 2025.
Traner Smith’s team includes two partners and 16 staff members and specializes in tax compliance and advisory services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Eide Bailly ranked No. 19 on
Eide Bailly already has offices in Seattle, but hopes to grow further in the Pacific Northwest. “We’re pleased to welcome the talented team at Traner Smith to Eide Bailly,” said Eide Bailly managing partner and CEO Jeremy Hauk in a statement Monday. “Their expertise with high-net-worth individuals, real estate and privately held businesses aligns well with our strengths, and their client-centric approach is a perfect cultural fit. Having an office in Edmonds, Washington, is a great complement to our existing presence in Seattle. Together, we’re poised to deliver even greater value to families and businesses in the Seattle metro area.”
“Joining Eide Bailly is a natural next step for us — it provides access to deeper technical resources in areas like state and local tax, national tax, succession planning and international tax while allowing us to continue the personalized service our clients value,” said Kevin Smith, a partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
“With this expanded support and platform, we’re excited to grow our reach, elevate what we do best, and help more clients than ever before,” said Shane Summer, another partner at Traner Smith, in a statement.
Eide Bailly has announced several other mergers in recent weeks. Earlier this month, it added
In 2023, Eide Bailly added
Top 100 firm
“We began working with Knuula in Spring 2024 to streamline our engagement letter process,” said Don Murphy, Managing Member of BMSS. “It quickly became clear that Knuula was not only a strong solution for us, but also an ideal partner in advancing industry-wide automation.”
While the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed, a spokesperson with Knuula said that, after this investment, BMSS and a collection of 21 of their partners now own 13% of the company. The investment represents not some passive revenue deal but an active collaboration between the two companies, with the spokesperson saying they will be working closely together on things like product development, new features, improvements, and networking.
The deal comes about a year after Knuula integrated with QuickFee, a receivables management platform for professional service providers, which allowed users to have engagement letters directly connecting to their QuickFee billing platform, tying the execution of the letter directly to the billing process.
“We’ve long sought to partner with a firm focused on strategic innovation in the accounting space,” said Jamie Peebles, founder of Knuula. “To develop a perfect solution for large firms, it is ideal to have a partner that is willing to work closely together and iterate quickly. This requires constant feedback between our two teams. The IT team from BMSS worked with our development team constantly and helped us iterate rapidly. We also had consistent input from partners, manager, and administrative staff to help us make valuable changes to Knuula. BMSS was a perfect partner for us.”
PwC AI agent acts proactively to preserve value
Eide Bailly merges in Traner Smith
BMSS announces investment, collaboration with Knuula
New 2023 K-1 instructions stir the CAMT pot for partnerships and corporations
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