Washington Wire

The Biden administration needs to ensure that Florida and other states are not haphazardly removing the neediest from this vital health insurance. Congress passed a coronavirus relief package in 2020 that offered states additional federal funding in exchange for guaranteeing that recipients of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for low-income…

Martin O’ Malley toward commissioner of the Social Security Administration, nudging President Biden’ s pick to a confirmation vote before the full Senate. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in advancing Mr. The Social Security Administration processes and doles out retirement, disability,…

WASHINGTON— A key Federal Reserve official raised the possibility Tuesday that the Fed could decide to cut its benchmark interest rate as early as spring if inflation keeps declining steadily. Christopher Waller, a member of the Fed's Board of Governors, cautioned that inflation is still too high and that it's not yet certain if a recent slowdown in price…

President Joe Biden certainly hopes so, since the marks he's getting from the American people for his handling of the economy are some of the lowest on record. Look at a recent Financial Times/ University of Michigan poll that showed just 14% of voters said that financially, they were in a better position now. Heritage Foundation economist Richard Stern…

The clawbacks have ballooned from about $9 million in 2010 to $12.6 billion in 2021, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an agency created to advise Congress on the program for people who are 65 and older or have disabilities. Pharmacist groups supported the Medicare rule change, but they didn't anticipate the PBMs' response, which has been…

—Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, suggested Monday that the economy appears to be on what he calls the“ golden path,” another term for what economists call a“ soft landing,” in which the Fed would curb inflation without causing a deep recession. “Any time we’ ve had a serious cut to the inflation rate, it’ s come with a major recession, "…

Jason Bleak runs Battle Mountain General Hospital, a small facility in a remote Nevada gold mining town that he described as“ out here in the middle of nowhere.”. When several representatives from private health insurance companies called on him a few years ago to offer Medicare Advantage plan contracts so their enrollees could use his hospital, Bleak sent them…

In case you missed it, our federal government is now estimated to pay more than $1 trillion a year to service just the interest on our national debt- about $200 billion more than we spend on our military or Medicare. In 2020 President Trump signed off on about $3 trillion in covid relief spending and a year later President Biden signed on for a few trillion more.

—The Federal Reserve is likely to make significant cuts to interest rates next year beginning as early as March, according to a new estimate from UBS Investment Bank. Slowing inflation could enable a 2.75 percent decrease in the interest rate over the course of the year, nearly halving the current rate of nearly 5.5 percent, UBS said. UBS Chief Strategist Bhanu…

WASHINGTON— Inflation in the United States slowed last month in a sign that the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes are continuing to cool the consumer price spikes that bedeviled consumers for the past two years. Tuesday's report from the Labor Department showed prices either fell or rose more slowly across a broad range of goods and services, including…

—Inflation in the United States likely remained high last month, a trend that if sustained could raise concerns at the Federal Reserve, which is considering whether to raise interest rates again. Tuesday's report from the Labor Department is expected to show that overall consumer prices ticked up just 0.1% from September to October, much lower than the 0.4% and…

As the government shutdown deadline approaches, Congress is exploring ways to kick the can down the road. With a week to go until the government shutdown deadline on Nov. 17, the House has passed seven appropriations bills, while the Senate has passed three. House Republicans hold the chamber by a narrow five-vote margin.

Less than two months since the US federal government narrowly avoided running out of funding, the deeply divided Congress once again faces a tight deadline to approve a new budget– just one week. McCarthy's unprecedented removal left the lower chamber paralyzed for almost three weeks while Republicans struggled to find a new leader, even as global events such…

The US Federal Reserve is prepared, if needed, to hike interest rates further in order to bring inflation down to its long-term two percent target, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. "We know that ongoing progress toward our two percent goal is not assured: Inflation has given us a few head fakes," Powell told a conference in Washington. The Fed chair's comments…

Every Federal Reserve Board meeting is second-guessed by the markets— and the latest is no exception. The laws of supply and demand will eventually set the market price on Treasury borrowings. The Fed can distort the markets, but not forever.

McDonald's Corp. calls them "strategic menu price increases," and their impact is visible on menu boards across the chain, where a Big Mac, medium fries and soft drink now sells for as much as $18. So it goes across much of the economy, which has shown surprising strength despite the U.S. Federal Reserve's historic effort to tamp it down. The Fed has succeeded in sending…

Over two months ago, as supporters of President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act celebrated the one-year anniversary of the passage of the historic legislation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, along with drugmakers filed multiple lawsuits to block the IRA's drug price negotiation provisions.

Last week, the Federal Reserve did the right thing by leaving well enough alone, keeping the benchmark interest rate at about 5.4%. With the acute pressure that the board and Chair Jay Powell in particular have faced in the past several months, we're glad they've had the wisdom to know when to step back. These critics pointed to the 1970 s and the reign of Paul Volcker.

The governor did not mention that the rebate mechanism was not his idea, but instead was the alternative the Democratic-controlled Senate advocated to $1 billion in ongoing tax cuts for corporations and high earners that it said would have prevented larger investments in public education, health care and other priorities. They trust Virginia Republicans…

—The Federal Reserve is poised to leave its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday at a time when the Fed faces an economy that has proved resilient but is nevertheless under pressure from surging interest rates, overseas turmoil and anxious investors. U.S. economic growth surged in the July-September quarter on the back of robust consumer spending, and…