The Biden administration on Wednesday announced that it will be cancelling $500 million in student loan debt for thousands of student loan borrowers. The student loan forgiveness will be granted through the Borrower Defense to Repayment program. The program, which was established with formal regulations and procedures under the Obama administration in 2016, provides student loan forgiveness […]
Sam Goldfarb wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled “Pandemic Hangover: $11 Trillion in Corporate Debt,” The article noted how non-financial corporate debt had risen to, “according to the Federal Reserve, about half the size of the U.S. economy.” Goldfarb also noted that, in a May report, the Fed expressed concern that investors […]
Five House Democrats representing the more moderate end of the caucus threw some doubt on the future of President Joe Biden’s agenda Monday. The five lawmakers — one more than Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s margin on party-line floor votes — sent a letter to the speaker arguing to “stabilize” federal debt so that it remains roughly […]
Remember the 2012 Republican National Convention? Back then, the national debt problem was so fundamental to the GOP’s platform that the convention’s set design showcased a debt clock ticking away in real-time, edging closer to $16 trillion. Vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a conservative tax and budget expert, championed policies that slowed the debt’s alarming […]
If, as some suggest, politics runs in waves, the intervals aren’t calculable like sine waves but are more like radio waves, the frequency (wavelength) and amplitude of which vary. Political frequency is increasing. For example, in 1994, an electoral tsunami washed House Democrats out of the majority for the first time in forty years. The […]
The European Central Bank seems to be taking its cues from the Federal Reserve, so the ECB governing council’s decision last week to keep its monetary policy accommodative is a good hint about what the Federal Open Market Committee will do—or rather, not do—at its meeting this week. It doesn’t matter that U.S. inflation is 5%, against 2% in the eurozone, […]
President Biden’s proposed $6 trillion budget buttresses an economic and social agenda aimed at reshaping the nation. Even with an enormous increase in federal programs, the President’s Office of Management and Budget forecasts only tepid economic growth. Perhaps the headline of a Wall Street Journal column by Brookings Institution’s William Galston described the situation best, […]
Sens. Cruz, Scott, Braun, Blackburn Introduce Federal Debt Emergency Control Act to Fight Washington’s Spending & Debt Crisis U.S. Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and I recently introduced the Federal Debt Emergency Control Act to rein in Washington’s out-of-control spending and provide a concrete path forward to tackle the nation’s […]
The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act is a lobbyist-crafted proposal that funnels emergency spending to politically connected special interests. Before the end of the week, and possibly as soon as later today, the Senate will vote on a major industrial policy bill that spends $195 billion, with much of it funneled to high-tech manufacturing. The […]
The United States used to be the only big, rich nation to have above-replacement fertility. That stopped being true during the Great Recession, and our birthrates keep slipping. The latest data put expected lifetime fertility at about 1.6 births per woman, a record low — and this was the trend before the pandemic. Nor does this reflect a delay […]
