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…
Washington Wire
Biden On Defense; Harris Hits On Race
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.
Warren Talks Health Care, Inslee Climate Change In First Debate
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.
Near-Term Fed Rate Cut Called Into Question
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…
Taxes, Health Care And ‘Speed Dating?’ How To Watch The Debates
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.
Governments Reap The Benefits Of Expanding Cannabis Industry
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…
Markets React Strong to Federal Reserve Comments
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…
Federal Reserve Leaves Interest Rates Unchanged
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.
Fed Could Signal A Policy Shift Toward Future Rate Cuts
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…
U.S. Economic Growth Estimates Downgraded As Businesses Uncertain
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.
Survey: Businesses, Watch Economy, Play It Safe With Hiring
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…
White House Expands Health Accounts Aimed At Small Firms
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.
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…
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,…
Opinion: President Trump Makes Federal Reserve A Scapegoat
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%.
With worries rising about trade wars and slower global growth, Friday’s jobs figures for May could serve as a reminder that the U.S. economy is still mostly in good shape. Or, an unexpectedly weak employment report could intensify concerns that after a healthy first quarter, the U.S. economy is actually stumbling. Economists have forecast that the government will report that employers added 185,000 jobs, a solid figure.
Happy 10th Birthday, U.S. Economy — How Long Will You Live?
The Great Recession officially ended – and the current recovery officially began – exactly a decade ago, in June 2009. That means we’ve now tied the record for the longest economic expansion on record, matching the 10-year business cycle upswing that ended in March 2001. Now what?
President Donald Trump is locked in too-close-to-call races with any one of seven top Democratic challengers in the 2020 presidential race in Texas, where former Vice President Joseph Biden has 48 percent to President Trump with 44 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. *President Trump at 46 percent to Massachusetts Sen.
Chinese ambassador to Namibia, Zhang Yiming has expressed concern the tit-for-tat trade war between China and the US could result in a global economic crisis. “China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of such one and would fight for it if necessary. This week, some of the world’s biggest footwear firms urged US President to end the US trade war with China,…
Asian shares are wobbling after U.S. and Chinese officials traded jibes in their widening clash over trade and technology. China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.5% after surveys showed a deteriorating manufacturing outlook. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1.3% by midday.
Democrats in Washington are increasingly antsy to begin impeachment of President Trump— but voters back home seemed to have plenty of other things on their minds over the last week. In New Jersey, Democrat Josh Gottheimer held a press conference to call on other members of Congress to start working on a bipartisan solution to infrastructure, after President…
Major U.S. Markets Fall Amid Concern For Trump Plan To Tax Mexico
The surprise announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose new tariffs on Mexico– an effort to stem illegal migration– shook world financial markets Friday, as all three major Wall Street indexes posted significant losses. Trump said Thursday the United States will impose a 5 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico.
WASHINGTON- Enjoy it while it lasts. The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.1% annual rate in the January-March quarter- a pace that will likely prove to be the high-water mark for the year before growth weakens in the coming months. That’s the assessment widely shared by economists in light of the rising threats facing the U.S. economy, from a raging trade war to more…
Top Democratic presidential candidates are one-upping each other with ever-more-ambitious plans on global warming, gun violence, health care and abortion. But largely left out of the policy parade are the thousands of immigrants flooding the U.S. border to seek asylum _ and the fight over border wall funding that recently shutdown the government. That trend has held even as President Donald Trump largely continuing to champion immigration crackdowns, seeing it as a winner ahead of 2020.
WASHINGTON- The Senate majority leader says if there’s a vacancy on the Supreme Court during next year’s election cycle, the Republican-controlled Senate would likely confirm a nominee selected by President Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., told a questioner that if a Supreme Court justice died next year, creating a vacancy on the nine-member court, “Oh, we’d…
The reading was the highest since November 2018. Their optimism reflects the strength of the US labor market, where the unemployment rate in the United States fell to 3.6%, near its lowest level in 50 years.Consumer sentiment remained high, although the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 3% this month due to fears of a US-China trade war.
May 26– May 26– Joe Kunkel, a student and teacher of American politics, has watched a lot of history unfold. “Some of the Democrats are just trying to appeal to the base and mobilize them. “I think the Democrats taking the real hard positions are doing the same as Trump did just appealing to his base.
Court Will Hear ACA Appeal Arguments July 9
A court has scheduled a July 9 hearing on a Texas-based judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
She’s calling for a presidential “intervention.” He’s calling her “crazy.” The enmity between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi devolved Thursday into questions about the fitness of the nation’s two top elected officials after a dramatic blow-up at the White House. Still, both left open the prospect of working together despite pressure on Pelosi to launch impeachment proceedings against the president.
President Donald Trump is stepping up his effort to investigate the investigators. He wants the U.S. intelligence community to “quickly and fully cooperate” with Attorney General William Barr’s investigation of the origins of the multi-year probe into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Trump is continuing to try to undermine the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe amid mounting Democratic calls to bring impeachment proceedings.
Senate Could Vote Friday On Bill Expanding Annuity Options In Plans
Under a unanimous consent maneuver, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act could be voted on quickly. That means that the Senate could pass the bill Friday, as long as no senator objects The bill would expand access for annuities inside plans, and allow small employers to band together to offer plans.
Bill Expanding Annuity Options In Retirement Plans Passes The House
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act is designed to expand access to workplace retirement plans, particularly for small businesses, and will improve the ability for employers to extend greater access to lifetime income options in those plans.
China has an array of options for retaliating for Washington’s latest tariff hike in the two countries’ escalating trade battle. Beijing could limit exports of rare earths or disrupt operations of American companies in China. But those steps all carry economic and political costs. And there is no guarantee they would work.
The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute issued the following news release:. The nation’s economy is “excellent,” 22 percent of American voters say in a Quinnipiac University National Poll today, the highest “excellent” rating for the economy. But American voters give President Donald Trump a negative 38- 57 percent approval rating, compared to a negative 41-…
Chris Van Hollen, D- Maryland, issued the following news release:. U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen joined Senators Chris Murphy, Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Ed Markey this week to introduce the Green Bank Act of 2019. “I was proud to lead this effort in the House of Representatives and to continue the fight in the Senate.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell Sees ‘Moderate’ Risk From Corporate Debt
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says a sharp rise in corporate debt is being closely monitored but currently the Fed does not see the types of threats that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. Powell says views about riskier corporate debt _ known as leveraged lending _ range from “this is a rerun of the subprime mortgage crisis” to “nothing to worry about here.”
Optimism among small business owners continued its steady climb in April, with the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increasing 1.7 points to 103.5. April’ s Index is further evidence that when certainty and stability increase, so do optimism and action,” said NFIB President and CEO Juanita D. Duggan.“ The continued economic boom is thanks, in a major way, to strong…
