Keyword: deficit
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The trade deficit in the US widened to USD 50.5 billion in November of 2017 from an upwardly revised USD 48.9 billion in October. It is the biggest trade gap since January of 2012 as imports reached a record high on rising demand for consumer goods, cell phones, crude oil and semiconductors. Exports recovered form October's fall and touched a record value on higher sales of capital goods, aircraft and cars. Balance of Trade in the United States averaged -14032.83 USD Million from 1950 until 2017, reaching an all time high of 1946 USD Million in June of 1975 and...
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The federal government collected record individual-income-tax revenues through the first quarter of fiscal 2018 (October through December), according to the new Monthly Treasury Statement. This was the last quarter before the new tax-cut law signed by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 took effect. Despite taking in record individual-income-tax revenues, the federal government ran a deficit of approximately $225 billion during the quarter. The Treasury collected a record $390,847,000,000 in individual income taxes in October through December, according to the Treasury statement. That was $30,568,380,000 more than the $360,278,620,000 that the Treasury collected (in constant December 2017 dollars) in individual...
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he House passed a short-term spending measure Thursday to avert a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday, and quickly voted on a separate $81 billion disaster relief bill to aid victims of recent hurricanes and wildfires. The Senate is expected to vote Thursday evening on the stopgap, which passed the House 231-188 and will push back delicate decisions on spending, immigration, health care and national security until Jan. 17.
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If you're a normal person who pays attention to politics, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Washington can't decide whether deficits are bad or not. Well, I have one easy trick that will help you make sense of it all. In Washington, when you hear people complain that this or that piece of legislation will "explode" the deficit, what they are really telling you is that they don't like the legislation. It's really that simple. Good legislation, like good food, movies, novels and pretty much everything else except for dogs (they're all good), is in the eye of the beholder....
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This week, Republicans in the Senate finally passed their long-awaited tax reform plan. It lowers individual income tax rates across the board, although it does claw back some government revenue in the form of elimination of state and local tax deductions. It drops corporate tax rates as well. It is, in other words, a significant but not atypical Republican tax cut designed to boost economic growth by allowing Americans to keep more of their own money. The tax cut will almost certainly increase the deficit, however. Even with dynamic scoring -- the assumption that the economy will grow at...
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NEW YORK - The Federal Reserve bought $3.447 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities in the week from Nov. 23 to Nov. 29, compared with $5.516 billion purchased the previous week, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Thursday. In a move to help the housing market begun in October 2011, the U.S. central bank has been using funds from principal payments on the agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities, or MBS, it holds to reinvest in agency MBS.
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WASHINGTON - The federal government began its new budget year with an October deficit of $63.2 billion, up sharply from a year ago. The Treasury Department reported Monday that the October deficit was 37.9 percent higher than the $45.8 billion deficit recorded in October 2016. Both government receipts and spending were up for the month, with receipts climbing 14.3 percent to $235.3 billion, a record for the month of October. The larger spending figure was up a sizable 11.6 percent to $298.6 billion. The deficit for the 2017 budget year, which ended on Sept. 30, totaled $666 billion, up 13.7...
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China's trade surplus with the United States slipped from a record high last month, according to official data published Wednesday, but still rose past $300 billion over the first 10 months of the year just as President Donald Trump arrives for a state visit in Beijing. China's customs office said total exports from the word's second largest economy grew an annual 6.9% last month, slowing from the 8.1% pace recorded in September. Import growth, however, was impressively strong at 17.2%, although again slower than the 18.1% pace notched in the previous month. The figures also reveal a 37.8% increase in...
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Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,The projected total US debt will be $30 trillion within 10 years, using the CBO’s own numbers. But the CBO also makes the rosy assumptions that there will be no recessions and that GDP will grow at a 4% nominal rate.Now, that’s possible; I'm inclined to haircut it a bit.If you asked me to bet the “over/under†on the debt in 2027, I would bet the over at $35 trillion.After the next recession the deficit will be $30 trillion within 4–5 years and then grow from there at a rate of anywhere from $1.5...
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The largest threat to our prosperity is government spending that far exceeds the authority enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Federal spending in 2017 will top $4 trillion. Social Security, at $1 trillion, will take up most of it. Medicare ($582 billion) and Medicaid ($404 billion) are the next-largest expenditures. Other federal social spending includes food stamps, unemployment compensation, child nutrition, child tax credits, supplemental security income and student loans, all of which total roughly $550 billion. Social spending by Congress consumes about two-thirds of the federal budget. Where do you think Congress gets the resources for...
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The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in June as exports hit the highest level in 2 ? years. The Commerce Department says the trade gap slid 5.9 percent in June to $43.6 billion. Exports of goods and services rose 1.2 percent to $194.4 billion, the highest amount since December 2014. Services exports reached a record $65.4 billion. Overall imports slipped 0.2 percent to $238 billion. So far this year, the trade deficit is up 10.7 percent to $276.6 billion. A shrinking trade gap adds to U.S. economic output. President Donald Trump has vowed to bring down America's trade deficits, saying they...
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“We're in this room today to deliver on our promise to the American people to repeal Obamacare and to ensure that they have the health care that they need,” President Trump told Republican senators at a White House luncheon on Wednesday. “We have no choice. We have to repeal and replace Obamacare.” Trump said Republicans are “so close” to getting the job done, even without a single vote from Democrats: "The way I looked at it, we have no Democrat help. They're obstructionists. That's all they're good at is obstruction. They have no ideas. They've gone so far left, they're...
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President Donald Trump's proposed budget for 2018 would reduce the deficit over the next decade by $160 billion and increase GDP at the same time, according to an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. Trump's budget proposes a cut back in mandatory and discretionary spending that would not only reduce the deficit, but the debt as well. Relative to the size of the economy, federal budget deficits are projected to decline by 2.6 percent to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product over the next 10 years. This would mean that the deficit would be roughly one-third smaller than it was...
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The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier. Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts. Spending on major government programs such as Social Security and Medicare causes the amount of borrowing to increase....
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Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Repairing the nation's crumbling roads and bridges was supposed to be an area ripe for bipartisan compromise between congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump. Instead, Democrats are panning Trump's proposed $1 trillion overhaul and even Republicans are balking at some aspects of the emerging plan. The White House's self-proclaimed "Infrastructure Week" began with Trump appearing Monday with aviation officials and some prominent GOP lawmakers to announce plans to privatize the nation's air traffic control system and separate operations from the Federal Aviation Administration.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s grand plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years on highways and other infrastructure improvements faces a formidable roadblock in Congress and state legislatures. There’s agreement the investment is badly needed to improve the nation’s sagging infrastructure but how to cover the huge expense is the point of tension. Trump would use $200 billion in public funds to generate $800 billion in private money under a partnership program that would finance government bonds and also return a profit to private companies through interstate tolls and other user fees. To do that, Congress would...
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The administration of Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who has been in office since 2011, projects a budget deficit of more than $5 billion over the next two years, thanks to generous pension benefits and the burden of servicing its big debt, plus falling tax revenue due to the exodus of large employers and residents reaching retirement age. Its budget woes, as well as concerns that they will be repeated year after year, helped lead General Electric in 2015 to consider moving its headquarters out of the state. Last year, it did exactly that. The state’s population is falling: Its...
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The federal government once again hit the debt ceiling. The ceiling limits the amount of money the federal government can borrow — a number that was set at $20.1 trillion. Although the issue should have been dealt with in 2015, then-Speaker John Boehner capitulated to President Obama and postponed the debt limit until March 16, 2017. Since then, the federal debt has grown by $1,414,397,000,000 — more than one trillion in less than two years. President Trump promised during his campaign to bring back American prosperity and make Washington work for everyone — not just for the small group of...
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WASHINGTON — As President Trump’s top economic advisers faced a barrage of questions on Wednesday about the tax plan they had just unfurled, there was one that they struggled most to answer: how to keep the “massive tax cuts” they proposed from ballooning the federal deficit. The White House insists that economic growth will cover the cost, which could be as high as $7 trillion over a decade. But the question will dog Republicans and could fracture their party as they face the prospect of endorsing a plan that many economists and budget analysts warn will increase the deficit. After...
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