Everybody leaves Washington with everything still hanging fire, but markets still assume President will sign coronavirus bill
Congress dispersed for Christmas. President Donald Trump headed to Florida.. And there’s still no telling whether President Trump will, as he’s suggested via Twitter, whether he will veto the huge coronavirus relief/government spending bill. Today...
Stocks unfazed by President Trump’s veto threat
On Tuesday President Donald Trump tweeted a video heavily criticizing the recently passed coronavirus stimulus/relief bill–and a huge funding bill to keep the government running–and implying that he could veto the bill. Today, Wednesday, December 23,...
Surprise? Maybe Congress will pass a new coronavirus stimulus/relief package this week
Knock me over with a feather. Leaders of both parties in Congress look to be near a deal on a $900 billion coronavirus stimulus/relief package with passage possible by the end of the week, the Washington Post is reporting this morning. The deal includes another round...
Government shutdown again comes down to the wire
The government runs out of money–again–at midnight on December 11. The House of Representative plans to vote on Wednesday, today, on a continuing resolution that would extend spending for seven days at current levels. The Senate will take up that bill...
That’s the spirit,Congress! House to vote tomorrow on a one-week spending extension to prevent a government shutdown on Saturday
House majority leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, confirmed in a tweet that the House will vote on a one-week spending extension Wednesday to avert a government shutdown on Saturday.  “The House will vote on Wednesday on a one-week CR [continuing resolution] to...
Odds of another stop-gap bill to fund the government after December 11 just went up–thanks to a Trump tweet
Now he tells us. In a pair of late-night tweets yesterday, President Donald Trump threatened to veto the annual defense bill authorizing nearly $1 trillion in military spending unless Congress opens the door for Facebook, Twitter and other social-media sites to be...
Hey, don’t forget the November jobs report on Friday
Will the jobs report on Friday, December 4, be worrying enough to blast Washington out of what increasing looks like another stalemate over funding the government and another coronavirus stimulus bill? Economists generally expect that the jobs report will show that...
Do you believe McConnell on a stimulus package? It’s likely markets will
Today, while the race for President still hung in the balance but while it seemed likely that Republicans would hold their majority in the Senate in the new Congress in 2021, current Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at a press conference in...
Partisan battle over Supreme Court seat puts end to slim chance of new coronavirus rescue package–and threatens government shutdown bill
Last week, before the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there was a slight–ooh so slight–chance that with a nod from the White House in favor of adding more money to the proposal from Senate Republicans Congress might pass a new...
President Trump to sign spending bill to avoid shutdown but will declare national emergency to secure funding for The Wall
At 3:26 p.m. Washington time Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell interrupted a speech by Iowa Senate Chuck Grassley on biofuels to announce that President Donald Trump would sign the deal worked out by the House and Senate to fund nine departments of the federal...
Trump administration economists double estimates of shutdown costs
Yesterday, President Donald Trump’ economic advisers more than doubled their estimate of the damage to the U.S. economy by the shutdown of parts of the U.S. government affecting some 800,000 federal workers. The Council of Economic Advisers now calculates the...
How will the President Trump wild card play out in the stock market this week?
Maybe that should be “wild cards.” First, there’s President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down about 25% of the government on December 22 if Congress doesn’t include $5 billion for his border wall in its bill to fund such government units...
The financial markets are in shock at Washington’s debt plans
Notice that the signing of a bill early this morning to keep the government open and to fund operations for two years hasn’t resulted in a serious rally in either stocks or bonds. As of 11:30 a.m. New York time the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 0.18%, or...
Forget about stability–bond fears driving stocks lower again
Here we go again. After a pause that raised hopes that the slide in U.S. stocks was over, today the sell off has resumed. As of 3:30 p.m. New York time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower by 2.53%, or 629 points, to 24,264. The S&P 500 stock index was...
Price tag for keeping the government open: $500 billion added to deficit
The Senate is set to vote later today on a deal that would fund the government for two years and add $500 billion in new spending to a deficit already pegged at north of $1 trillion. The deal is extremely likely to pass the Senate–it’s got something for...
Congress successfully punts on a government shut down–but creates an impossible January
Yesterday Congress did indeed find a way to pass a bill that extends government funding from today’s December 22 deadline until January 19. Congress achieved this goal by punting on just about everything. The legislation included a waiver so that the automatic...
House Republicans hope end of year exhaustion is enough to pass stop-gap bill to fund government through January 19
Can Congress pass a bill, any bill, to keep the government funded past December 22? Maybe. If members of the House and Senate are so exhausted by the endless wrangling over Obamacare and tax cuts that they’ll pass just about anything to get out of town without...
It’s a new month but the same old Congress–as a debt-ceiling deal descends into usual chaos
Please extend the greeting of your choice to the U.S. Congress, back in “action” today after a long August recess. This morning Democrats said they would vote for a disaster relief package for victims of Hurricane Harvey if Republicans attached the measure...
The bond market gets nervous about the debt ceiling and other DC shenanigans
You wouldn’t know that there was anything to worry about from the U.S. stock market. So what that the President of the United States has threatened to shut down the government unless Congress funds The Wall. So what that the promised tax cuts so near and dear to...
Trump’s threat to shut down the government if Congress doesn’t vote funding to build The Wall unnerves Wall Street today
We all know, somewhere inside our heads and hearts, that getting Congress to pass a debt ceiling increase by the September 29 deadline set by the Treasury Secretary, and also to pass a budget or at least a continuing resolution to fund operations of the government...
Can Congress keep its eyes on the prize this week?
Really, this ought to be a no-drama, no-brainer. On Friday Congress passed a one-week extension so that it could write a clean extension of the government’s spending authorization to take Washington through the end of the fiscal year in September. The agreement...
One week deal to extend the spending deadline looks in place as of 11 p.m. Thursday night
The deal would only extend government spending authority for a week beyond the April 28 deadline, the Washington Post is reporting, but even that would be a major achievement given all the last minute monkey wrenches thrown into the negotiations. A week’s...
The White House is making it harder to put together a deal to keep the government’s doors open after April 28
The April 28 deadline gets a day closer every day. And Congress doesn’t even resume meeting until Monday, April 24. Time you’d think would be of the essence. Yet the Trump administration continues to throw obstacles in the way of reaching a deal that would...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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