Update 870 – House OKs Trump OBBB:On to the Senate for Tweak or Overhaul? The House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) yesterday in a 215-214 vote after a week of seemingly fraught negotiations. The bill, which consists of trillions of dollars in tax cuts that are skewed towards the ultra-wealthy and paid …
Update 868 – Reconciliation Halted:House Budget Stops Massive Tax Bill In a somewhat surprising turn of events today, the House Budget Committee rejected the GOP reconciliation blueprint, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The Republican defectors cited concerns over the proposal’s overall deficit impact, as well as delays in implementing cost-reduction measures like Medicaid …
Update 866 – GENIUS Fails Senate Test;Reconciliation Faces Test next Tuesday Yesterday, after trying to muscle Democrats into moving forward with the first major piece of crypto legislation this Congress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune faced an embarrassing setback when the GENIUS Act failed to get cloture, falling short by a surprisingly wide margin. The …
Update 862 – Tariffs Taking a TollPoll Numbers Drop, No Deals Done Finance and trade ministers from around the world flocked to D.C. this week for the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings. Top of mind were Trump’s tariffs and his attack on the global trading system. As forecasts for global growth and inflation were revised downward, …
Update 860 – Trump Winging it on Tariffs,Moves to Dismantle Direct File, CFPB Last weekend, the Trump administration exempted some electronic products from its reciprocal tariff regime, an exception likely to be brief. Trump and his advisors have hinted at an investigation to determine an eventual duty on these products. Separately, this week, the administration …
Update 854 – February Core PCE Up 2.8%; Increase from 2.7% Gain in January Data released this morning shows that the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation remains sticky above its target of two percent. Meanwhile, GDP growth for the fourth quarter of last year was revised up slightly. The new data comes as the Trump administration’s …
Update 840 — Week of Chaos, Confusion; GDP Growth Slows in 4th Quarter 2024 The country was plunged this week into a frenzy of chaos and confusion amid the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again freeze on federal grants and loans spending. The broad and vague memo released by the OMB Monday was rescinded on Wednesday but …
Update 837 — Key Nomination Hearings,CPI Report, CTC Bill Lead Week Roundup This week, Trump’s nominees for Treasury Secretary, HUD Secretary, and OMB Director faced pointed questioning by Democratic Senators ahead of coming confirmation votes by the committees of jurisdiction and the full Senate. The three nominees addressed a broad range of economic issues with …
Update 837: Nomination Hearings Lead Week’s Roundup Read More »
Update 835 – 256K Jobs Added in Dec. Too Much of a Good Thing for the Fed? This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report that the U.S. added 256,000 jobs and unemployment ticked back down to 4.1 percent in December shows the American economy closing 2024 on a surprisingly strong note. The report — …
Update 833 — Continuing Irresolution:Speaker Still ISO Plan to Avert Shutdown Mike Tyson once remarked that boxers have a plan going into every fight — until they get punched in the mouth. Speaker Johnson had a viable, bipartisan plan A this week to keep the government funded through mid-March and avert a shutdown via a …
