Those $1,400 stimulus checks sent by the feds brought people some smiles. The checks accounted for about $410 billion of the entire $1.9 trillion stimulus, according to the Wall Street Journal. After all this federal largesse, our national debt sits at around $28 trillion. A lot of political agendas are pushed with exaggerations to drive […]
Deficit for May at $132 billion, down from year-earlier period Biden budget sees $3.7 trillion gap this year with programs The U.S. budget gap surpassed $2 trillion in the first eight months of fiscal 2021 as government stimulus flowed into the economy to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The shortfall in the year through May was […]
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) confirmed to reporters Thursday that Senate Democrats are discussing a $6 trillion budget reconciliation proposal that would also expand Medicare and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Sanders on Thursday said the proposal builds on President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan. “Yeah, absolutely,” Sanders said when asked […]
Andrew Mellon, who was considered the best Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, served in the presidential administrations of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Prior to his service as Secretary of the Treasury, Mellon was a successful financier and businessman. Mellon understood sound fiscal policy and he helped to advance policies […]
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, […]
