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Elizabeth Warren joined on Thursday joined a bipartisan group her Senate colleagues in unveiling new, comprehensive legislation to extend the National Flood Insurance Program for five years, but the legislation includes a series of sweeping reforms to address the waste, abuse and mismanagement plaguing the system that are in direct competition with a…
Read moreNearly 700 health insurance and benefits advisors from across the nation will travel to Washington to meet with members of Congress. In addition, NAHU members will hear from industry experts, members of Congress and members of the Trump administration as they look at the future for health care reform.
Congress has a lot of its plate, but financial services would like to see a retirement income security bill get passed before the end of the year.
With control of Congress divided between Democrats and Republicans, the efforts to reform health care will shift to the states over the next two years, a panel of consultants said.
The Federal Reserve’s latest nationwide survey reveals that despite growing worries about the impact of President Donald Trump’s trade battles, the overall economy remained solid. The Fed says that many of its 12 regions saw slight gains in retail sales and home sales.
Jul. 17– Following her performance in the first Democratic presidential debate, California Sen. Kamala Harris has overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a Quinnipiac University survey of California Democratic voters. “Rewind it and take a hard look at the debate: Kamala Harris went from a well-known candidate in California to a national figure,”…
President Donald Trump is vowing to “take a look” at Google after a billionaire investor said the U.S. should open an investigation to determine if the company had been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence. Congress begins two days of hearings Tuesday on the currency planned by Facebook, to be called Libra, starting with the Senate Banking Committee. Meanwhile, a House Judiciary subcommittee will extend its bipartisan investigation of the market power of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple.
The White House Office of Management and Budget says the 2019 federal deficit is projected to surpass the $1 trillion- mark– virtually the highest it’s ever been. Apart from the four years following the Great Recession, the U.S. deficit has never surpassed the $1 trillion- mark. The Office of Management and Budget said the deficit should decrease by $414 billion…
Patrick Harker, the former president of University of Delaware and head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told the Wall Street Journal that he sees no need to lower interest rates. But Harker does not sit on the committee of the Federal Reserve which votes on rate increases or decreases.
Jul. 15– Janet Kavandi remembers exactly where she was on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took those first historic steps on the surface of the moon:. A 1977 graduate of Carthage High School, she pursued her bachelor’s degree from Missouri Southern State University and then her master’s degree from the Missouri University of Science and…
The national health care law known as “Obamacare” is getting an aggressive defense from Joe Biden. The Democratic presidential candidate says he’s opposing anyone, Republican or Democrat, who wants to scrap the health care law. Instead, Biden says Obamacare should be the foundation for changes, including a government insurance plan known as the public option to existing exchanges that sell private insurance. Biden is set to discuss health care on Monday at a forum in Iowa.
WASHINGTON – President Trump is withdrawing a plan to ease the financial bite of costly medications for people on Medicare by letting them receive rebates that drugmakers now pay to insurers and middlemen, the White House said Thursday.
Pointing to a weaker global economy, rising trade tensions and chronically low inflation, Chairman Jerome Powell signaled Wednesday that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates late this month for the first time in a decade. Powell delivered the message during the central bank’s semiannual report to Congress.
Most Federal Reserve officials expressed concern at a meeting last month that the outlook for the U.S. economy was weakening and many said the Fed should soon cut rates if uncertainty continued to weigh on growth. Fed officials said some businesses, particularly in manufacturing, have pulled back on spending and hiring because of greater uncertainty about the outcome of U.S. trade disputes with China and other countries, according to minutes of the June 18-19 meeting.
U.S. stocks are marching broadly higher in early trading, sending the S&P 500 index into record territory. The head of the Federal Reserve signaled that the central bank is ready to cut interest rates for the first time in a decade. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statement kicked off two days of testimony before Congress. The remarks reassured investors who had worried a strong June jobs report might dissuade the Fed from a rate cut.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says “many” Fed officials believe a weakening global economy and rising trade tensions have strengthened the case for looser interest-rate policies. Delivering the Fed’s semi-annual monetary report to Congress, Powell sends the strongest signal yet that the central bank is ready to cut interest rates.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set Wednesday to begin two days of testimony in Congress on monetary policy and the state of the U.S. economy. The appearance comes as Powell and the Fed face harsh criticism from President Donald Trump, who last weekend called the agency “our most difficult problem.”
Democratic presidential front-runner Joseph R. Biden on Tuesday released his federal tax returns from the past three years, showing a multimillion-dollar income from a book deal after leaving the White House. Mr. Biden’s income soared from $396,456 during his last year as vice president in 2016 to more than $11 million in 2017 and more than $4.5 million in…
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden said he opposes anyone who wants to dismantle Obamacare, saying that starting over on the issue of health care would be a “sin.” “It cannot, and that’s why I’m opposed to any Republican who wants to dismantle it or any Democrat who wants to dismantle it,” Mr. Biden said in an interview that aired Monday evening on CNN. “
Jul. 9– U.S. Labor Secretary and former South Florida U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta is facing new calls for his ouster after prosecutors in New York indicted politically connected financier Jeffrey Epstein on charges he operated a sex trafficking ring of underage girls in Manhattan and Palm Beach in the mid 2000 s– allegations similar to those Acosta declined…
Despite the public scrutiny of surveys and pollsters following President Donald Trump’s victory and the recommendations for altering approaches to polling that emerged in the election’s wake, national reports show that most haven’t changed their operations or aren’t planning to this time around. Trump’s support was under-estimated in the Upper…
“Martin Luther King said that you have people that shake the trees and you have people that pick up the apples and make applesauce,” Mr. Sharpton told The Washington Times. Mr. Booker, he said, is “an applesauce guy. Even as other candidates compete for the combative fringe, Mr. Booker hasn’t wavered from the tone he set early on when, at his campaign launch, he told…
The U.S. economy added 224,000 positions last month, far surpassing the 162,000 projected. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, told The Washington Post, “Recession concerns are overblown. There’s no indication the labor market is in trouble or the broader U.S. economy. “
The United States added 224,000 jobs during the month of June, beating analysts’ expectations by about 60,000, the Labor Department said in its monthly workforce report Friday. “Today’s jobs report shows the U.S. economy continues to create jobs at a strong pace even as we enter the longest period of economic expansion on record,” Citizens Bank analyst Tony…
The Federal Reserve repeats its pledge to “act as appropriate” to sustain the current economic expansion, while noting that most Fed officials have lowered their expectations for the future course of interest rates. The Fed’s statement on interest rates came in the central bank’s semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress.
The longest economic expansion in U.S. history is showing signs of cooling, and while the economy is still good, some polls show a challenge for President Trump’s reelection. The superlative-loving president tweeted Wednesday that the U.S. has “the greatest economy anywhere in the world.” The president points to the lowest unemployment rate in more than a…
President Donald Trump says on Twitter he will nominate economists Christopher Waller and Judy Shelton to fill two vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Waller is currently the executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where he has worked since June 2009. Shelton is the U.S. executive director for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.
The S&P 500 hit fresh highs on Monday as traders found new optimism about the trade deal between the United States and China that is supposedly in the works. Despite the gains on Wall street and the overall surge of stock prices in recent months, a recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that cited by MarketWatch showed that…
Trump, who was at the Korea meeting with his counterpart, Kim Jong Un, also highlighted that he’s unhappy with the Federal Reserve latest policy decisions saying that the Fed “has not been of help to us at all” in the trade war with China. “We’re collecting 25 percent on $250 billion, and China is paying for it, as you know, because, as you notice, our inflation hasn’t gone up,”…
U.S. President Donald Trump talked trade, military and Iran with world leaders Friday all with a smile and a joke or two during the first day of the two-day G20 summit in Japan. Following a meeting on the sidelines of the summit in Osaka between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, reporters asked the U.S. president if he would issue the Russian leader a…
Round two of the Democratic presidential primary debates offered one of the toughest tests to date for front-runner Joe Biden, who was on the defensive at multiple points, especially over his comments and record on race.
The first of two 10-candidate debates probably produced no clear winner or definite losers, but it did establish Elizabeth Warren as a front-runner to be reckoned with. She got the first question, and gave the last closing statement. She defended her call for Medicare for All proposal against rivals who want to create a public option for health care.
Traders and analysts have recently gotten excited at the prospect of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in the coming months, with some expecting the move as quickly as next month. But comments from Federal Reserve policymakers on Tuesday indicated that the central bank would not be pressured by either President Trump or the markets, both of which are…
The opening debates by Democrats running for president will feature 60-second answers, a prime-time television audience in the millions, and a chance for little-known candidates to introduce themselves to voters. Tuesday night’s session and a second night of debates Wednesday are expected to be exercises in competitive sound bites.
The federal government is headed for deep fiscal pain, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. Just how much depends on what Congress does. If, as lawmakers are likely to attempt, Congress extends the Trump tax cuts, deletes Obamacare taxes and erases automatic spending cuts written into the law, the situation gets worse.
For instance, Colorado was among one of the first regions to completely legalize cannabis for both medical and recreational use and in fiscal 2016 to 2017, the state collected more than USD 210 Million in taxes and fees solely from cannabis sales. Typically, cannabis tax revenues are used to contribute to communities in Colorado. However, the cannabis tax…
California Sen. Kamala Harris is looking for the missing ingredient for her 2020 presidential campaign: a clear rationale. Harris is trying to combat that criticism by giving voters a clearer sense of what has motivated her public life and her decision to run for president. During an event in South Carolina last weekend, Harris _ who is black _ spoke about memories of racial discrimination during her childhood.
WASHINGTON– Millions of Americans– poor, middle class and rich– would see all college debt wiped out under a proposal Monday by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Sanders, a Democratic candidate for president and Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, propose clearing some 45 million Americans of a cumulative $1.6 trillion in unpaid college loans.
It noted that “Two candidates in the top tier of polls, Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have railed against the financial industry and opted against the kind of fancy fund-raisers with catering and $2,800 admission prices that lubricate the donor industry. Democratic voters who are satisfied with the Democratic Party of Barack…
The rules that have so far prevented the Democratic Party’s presidential contest from devolving into all-out civil war are about to be tested with the contest’s first debates. Candidates are weighing one key question as they enter the most consequential week of the young 2020 campaign season: Should they attack each other more aggressively or focus on President Donald Trump? There are no easy answers for candidates desperate for a break-out moment as everyone chases front-runner Joe Biden.
Trump approved counter strikes after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a U.S. drone off Iran’s southern coast. The Washington Post, ABC News and CBS News reported Trump went back on his decision to retaliate against the advice of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton. Tehran said it entered Iranian airspace…
The U.S. Federal Reserve may not have cut interest rates at its June policy meeting, but it signaled the possibility for interest rate cuts sometime this year, and that was all traders needed to get excited. All three major U.S. benchmarks closed higher on Wednesday, and the sentiment spread into Thursday’s trading session.
President Trump on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Freedom to Arthur B. Laffer, the supply-side economist whose theories shaped GOP tax-cutting efforts— including the 2017 overhaul that helped Mr. Trump regain his footing after failing to replace Obamacare. Mr. Trump presented the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Mr. Laffer in the White House’s Oval…
The Federal Reserve left benchmark interest rates unchanged Wednesday despite recent pressure from President Donald Trump to cut rates. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee chose to keep the federal funds rate between 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent after their two-day policy meeting.
The Federal Reserve seems poised to pivot from keeping interest rates steady to holding out the option of cutting rates if it were to decide that the economic expansion needs support. When it ends its latest policy meeting Wednesday, the central bank is expected to at least signal an inclination to ease credit sometime within the next several months.
—President Donald Trump officially opened his 2020 campaign Tuesday with a speech exaggerating what he’s done for the economy and against illegal immigration. Some claims from his rally in Orlando, Florida:. While the economy has shown strength, it grew 2.9% in 2018— the same pace it reached in 2015 under President Barack Obama— and simply hasn’t hit historically…
The report, which estimates potential inaccuracies in census counts for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, was published by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.- based think tank. And recently unearthed documents from the computer hard drive of a deceased Republican strategist spell out plainly how a citizenship question could help…
The Federal Reserve is expected to wrap up Wednesday’s meeting by leaving interest rates alone. But will the governors signal a coming rate cut? Behind the Fed’s thinking is concern about possible economic harm resulting from the Trump administration’s trade war with China and signs that the global economy is weakening.
The ESR Group had previously forecast growth of 2.3 percent in 2019 and 1.8 percent in 2020. The ESR Group now projects that the Federal Reserve will cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points at the September meeting of its Federal Open Market Committee to fend off greater deceleration in domestic growth.
Small business owners, their eye on the economy, are playing it safe when it comes to hiring. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce-MetLife survey released last week found 28% of small businesses plan to increase staffing in the next year, down from 29% in the first quarter. The survey found hiring was likely to be weaker in some industries.
Suddenly you couldn’t swing a cat in Brooklyn without sending it through a chapter meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America or tweet a joke about Karl Marx without getting a very serious lecture about the labor theory of value. They never had nightmares about getting nuked by the commies, and neither had they taken the package tours to the Soviet Union…
Asian shares are trading mixed amid a wait-and-see attitude about the direction of interest rates and the trade dispute between the U.S. and China. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite are rising, while shares in Australia and South Korea are falling. On Wall Street, stocks ended a choppy week of trading with modest losses as investors look forward to getting more clues about the direction of interest rates from the Fed.
Over 600 American companies and business associations warned President Donald Trump that a trade war with China will hurt the United States, urging him to return to the negotiating table with its largest trading partner. In a letter sent Thursday to the White House, its 661 signatories, including Walmart, PetSmart, and the American Association of Exporters and…
The Trump administration is expanding options for employers to use special accounts to help workers buy their own health insurance, upgrade job-based coverage, or choose low-cost plans with limited benefits, officials said.
Bernard Sanders says in regard to his quest for the White House and his zeal for democratic socialism. The Vermont independent now cites the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While the Bill of Rights protects us from the tyranny of an oppressive government, many in the establishment would like the American people to submit to the tyranny of oligarchs,…
John Hickenlooper said if Democrats don’t actively reject the socialist label, Republicans will use it to paint the party as far-left, “helping to reelect the worst president in this country’s history.” “The word is so freighted, has so much baggage with it in this country that if we don’t clearly say that we’re not and demonstrate that we have pragmatic solutions, I…
Four of the five sitting Fed board governors were Trump picks, including Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell, who was first appointed to the board by President Barack Obama and then elevated to chairman by Trump.
Bernie Sanders on Wednesday mounted a strong defense of democratic socialism, the economic philosophy that has guided his political career, even as Republicans and some of his Democratic presidential opponents have seized on it to brand him as too radical. During Wednesday’s speech at George Washington University, Sanders said Trump “believes in corporate…
Colorado joined eight states and the District of Columbia in filing the lawsuit. T-Mobile and Sprint have about 1.5 million customers in Colorado, according to March 2019 data from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, about a quarter of the state population. “To protect Colorado consumers, and the benefits that come from competition, the court should…
Patty Murray, D- Washington, ranking Democratic member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, issued the following news release:. Patty Murray, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Sherrod Brown, and U.S. Representatives Bobby Scott and Mark Takano today reintroduced legislation to make…
Republicans know this, and so do Democrats, who have found success in the state just out of reach for most of the last decade. So, as Trump prepares next week to hold a campaign re-launch in Orlando, Democrats are rolling out their own plan to change their fortune by spiking voter registration and rebuilding their ground game. In interviews this weekend and in…
With his threated Mexican tariffs now on the backburner, President Donald Trump was looking to claim victory even as some of his Democratic challengers for the White House criticized him for overselling a deal that only ramps up existing efforts. Trump defended the agreement to head off the 5% tax on all Mexican goods that Trump had threatened to impose Monday as he tried to pressure the country to do more to stem the flow of Central American migrants across the U.S. southern border.
U.S. hiring slowed in May as employers added just 75,000 jobs. It’s a sign that businesses may have become more cautious in the face of slowing global growth, trade fights and the fading stimulus from tax cuts and greater government spending. The Labor Department says the modest increase follows a healthier gain of 224,000 in April. The unemployment rate remained at a nearly 50-year low of 3.6%.
