Tag: U.S. economy

Falling investment revives attacks against Trump’s tax cuts

The Hill logoThe GOP tax law passed in 2017 was supposed to super charge the economy, but the lack of major impact is spurring critics to renew their attacks against the signature measure from President Trump.

Republicans said the tax law would help the economy through several avenues, including by sending business investment soaring. But just 15 months after it took effect, business investment has actually been contracting, falling 1 percent and 3 percent in the past two quarters.

Republicans who supported the tax law are blaming Trump’s trade war with China as the reason why it failed to have the intended impact.

View the complete November 10 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Data Prove Democrats Preside Over Stronger Economies

Are you worried that the economy grew by only 1.9 percent in the recent quarter? That’s a pretty weak performance. But it would seem downright dismal if you believed Donald Trump’s assertion during the 2016 campaign that 1.9 percent growth during one of Barack Obama’s quarters signaled an economy “in deep trouble.”

Economists are now forecasting 1.8 percent gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter. Things are most definitely slowing down.

Clearly, Trump will not whip the economy into the 4 percent annual growth he bragged about during the campaign. Never mind 6 percent. And despite the economy’s so-so October performance, Trump ended the month tweeting, “The Greatest Economy in American History!” But we’re used to that.

View the complete November 5 article by From a Harrop on the National Memo website here.

Experts: Trump Tax And Trade Policies Slowing Economy

Economic growth in the United States slowed to just 1.9 percent in the past three months, far slower than promised Donald Trump made during his 2016 campaign. The sluggish growth is even worse than the second-quarter numbers, when the economy grew at 2 percent, NPR reported on Wednesday.

In his annual budget to Congress, Trump predicted a more robust 3.2 percent growth.

“That’s not going to happen,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, told NPR, adding, “we won’t get a 3-plus percent growth rate for the year.”

View the complete October 31 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Economy slows, Fed hits brakes, and uncertainty clouds Washington’s next steps

Washington Post logoBusiness investment contracts for second straight quarter, as companies pull back amid concerns

A sharp contraction in business spending is slowing the U.S. economy and could cause deeper pain going forward, but political leaders and policy makers are giving almost no signals about what they plan to do next.

The Commerce Department on Wednesday said the U.S. economy grew at a 1.9 percent annualized pace from July through September, far short of the 3 percent sustained clip that the White House promised would result from the 2017 tax cut law.

Several hours after the Commerce announcement, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point to just under 1.75 percent in a bid to spur more growth. But the central bank also hinted that there might not be any more interest rate cuts on the horizon, as officials plan to monitor developments going forward, despite constant pressure from President Trump to do more.

View the complete October 30 article by Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam on The Washington Post website here.

2019 deficit nears $1 trillion, highest since 2012: Treasury

The Hill logoThe federal deficit for fiscal 2019 reached close to $1 trillion for the first time since 2012, according to final Treasury Department figures released Friday.

In the final accounting, the deficit came in at $984 billion, more than $200 billion, or 25 percent, higher than last year and the same figure the Congressional Budget Office projected earlier in the month.

The deficit, which is projected to grow in 2020, has only surpassed $1 trillion four times in the nation’s history, during the four-year stretch following the 2008 global financial crisis.

View the complete October 25 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Most Americans think of themselves as middle class. For many, the line between a stable life and a fragile one is thinning.

New York Times logoExamine the typical American family’s monthly budget, line by line, and a larger story emerges about how the middle class has evolved.

What it means to be middle class hasn’t changed much — there’s a steady job, the ability to comfortably raise a family if you choose to, a home to call your own, an annual vacation. But what it takes to achieve all that has become more challenging.

The costs of housing, health care and education are consuming ever larger shares of household budgets, and have risen faster than incomes. Today’s middle-class families are working longer, managing new kinds of stress and shouldering greater financial risks than previous generations did. They’re also making different kinds of tradeoffs.

View the complete October 3 article by Tara Siegel Bernard and Karl Russell on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s latest tariffs could mean higher food and drink prices — and not just for French wine

Washington Post logoThe list reads like something that could go under the header of “things that are delicious.” French, Spanish and German wine. Spanish olives. Parmesan. Stilton. Currant jelly.

But this isn’t a menu at a Euro-chic bistro; it’s a government document out this week spelling out the products subject to a 25 percent increase in tariffs beginning Oct. 18. The expansive array of wines, cheeses, produce, meat and seafood imported to the United States from European Union countries is caught up in a trade war that has nothing to do with Irish butter or sweet biscuits from the United Kingdom. (They’re getting a 25 percent tariff increase, too).

Their inclusion on the list, though, means that the price of that bottle of Cotes du Rhone you like to pick up at the grocery store or the cheese plate at your neighborhood bistro could go up. But price hikes on the foods covered by the new tariffs are only part of the story: Ripple effects could mean higher prices on other items at stores or in restaurants, as people up and down the food chain make up for the new costs, experts say.

View the complete October 5 article by Emily Heil on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s latest tariffs could mean higher food and drink prices — and not just for French wine

Washington Post logoThe list reads like something that could go under the header of “things that are delicious.” French, Spanish and German wine. Spanish olives. Parmesan. Stilton. Currant jelly.

But this isn’t a menu at a Euro-chic bistro; it’s a government document out this week spelling out the products subject to a 25 percent increase in tariffs beginning Oct. 18. The expansive array of wines, cheeses, produce, meat and seafood imported to the United States from European Union countries is caught up in a trade war that has nothing to do with Irish butter or sweet biscuits from the United Kingdom. (They’re getting a 25 percent tariff increase, too).

Their inclusion on the list, though, means that the price of that bottle of Cotes du Rhone you like to pick up at the grocery store or the cheese plate at your neighborhood bistro could go up. But price hikes on the foods covered by the new tariffs are only part of the story: Ripple effects could mean higher prices on other items at stores or in restaurants, as people up and down the food chain make up for the new costs, experts say.

View the complete October 5 article by Emily Heil on The Washington Post website here.

Federal government has dramatically expanded exposure to risky mortgages

Washington Post logoThe federal government has dramatically expanded its exposure to risky mortgages, as federal officials over the past four years took steps that cleared the way for companies to issue loans that many borrowers might not be able to repay.

Now, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration guarantee almost $7 trillion in mortgage-related debt, 33 percent more than before the housing crisis, according to company and government data. Because these entities are run or backstopped by the U.S. government, a large increase in loan defaults could cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

This risk is the direct result of pressure from the lending industry, consumer groups and political appointees, who clamored for the government to intervene when homeownership rates fell several years ago. Starting in the Obama administration, numerous government officials obliged, mistakenly expecting that the private market ultimately would take over.

View the complete October 2 article by Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.