Cbo Scoring Of The 2018 Budget
A budget document is a statement of goals and priorities, but requires separate legislation to achieve them. As of January 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the primary legislation passed that moved the budget closer to the priorities set by Trump.
Trump released his first budget, for FY2018, on May 23, 2017. It proposed unprecedented spending reductions across most of the federal government, totaling $4.5 trillion over ten years, including a 33% cut for the State Department, 31% for the EPA, 21% each for the Agriculture Department and Labor Department, and 18% for the Department of Health and Human Services, with single-digit increases for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Department. The Republican-controlled Congress promptly rejected the proposal. Instead, Congress pursued an alternative FY2018 budget linked to their tax reform agenda this budget was adopted in late 2017, after the 2018 fiscal year had begun. The budget agreement included a resolution specifically providing for $1.5 trillion in new budget deficits over ten years to accommodate the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that would be enacted weeks later.
The Congressional Budget Office reported its evaluation of President Trump’s FY2018 budget on July 13, 2017, including its effects over the 2018â2027 period.
Trump And The Us Economy: What Can He Take Credit For
Donald Trump promised to tear up trade deals and bring back jobs to the US Rust Belt lost to globalization. Pandemic aside, the American economy has boomed since 2016, but how much is down to the president’s policies?
In the 2016 US presidential election, large swaths of working-class Barack Obama voters switched their support to Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to “Make America Great Again.”
Vowing to drain the Washington “swamp” that he said had sold millions of US jobs overseas, the billionaire businessman and reality TV show host struck a chord with voters, who had, for years, tolerated the offshoring of high-paying jobs, stagnant or falling wages, and rising job insecurity.
Opiniontrump’s Fed Criticisms Destroyed A Political Norm That Deserved To Die
That said, rates are quite low at the moment, and only have so much room to head lower the Fed has just half as much firepower as it did going into the last recession because of where rates are today. Plus, the more Trump pounds on the Fed, the more the institutions inclination to do the opposite of what he desires in order to maintain its independence will come out . Betting on the Fed to save a sinking economy is not a good wager because its simply not powerful enough with the current tools at its disposal.
The main recession-fighting force in the U.S. is actually Congress, but the story doesnt get much better there than in the executive branch. From a purely political standpoint, the Democratic-controlled House has no incentive whatsoever to help Trump turn things around. All he has going for him electorally is that the economy has been in decent-enough shape, on the surface anyway, throughout his first term and so, if that goes away, he becomes even more beatable in 2020.
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Serving And Protecting Our Veterans
Reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve care, choice, and employee accountability.
- Signed and implemented the Forever GI Bill, allowing Veterans to use their benefits to get an education at any point in their lives.
- Eliminated every penny of Federal student loan debt owed by American veterans who are completely and permanently disabled.
- Compared to 2009, 49 percent fewer veterans experienced homelessness nationwide during 2019.
- Signed and implemented the HAVEN Act to ensure that Veterans whove declared bankruptcy dont lose their disability payments.
- Helped hundreds of thousands of military service members make the transition from the military to the civilian workforce, and developed programs to support the employment of military spouses.
- Placed nearly 40,000 homeless veterans into employment through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.
- Placed over 600,000 veterans into employment through American Job Center services.
- Enrolled over 500,000 transitioning service members in over 20,000 Department of Labor employment workshops.
- Signed an executive order to help Veterans transition seamlessly into the United States Merchant Marine.
Consequences If Aca Repealed
President Trump and Republicans in Congress tried repeatedly to repeal or replace the ACA, without success. In February 2018, 20 states, led by Texas Attorney GeneralKen Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney GeneralBrad Schimel, filed a lawsuit against the federal government alleging the ACA is now unconstitutional because the individual mandate tax which NFIB v. Sebelius rested on was repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Writing in the Washington Post in September 2020, Catherine Rampell summarized some of the adverse consequences if the ACA is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court:
- 50+ million non-elderly adults with pre-existing conditions could be declined health insurance, or be charged more by insurance companies
- 12+ million low-income persons would become ineligible for Medicaid, thereby losing insurance
- 9+ million persons receiving tax credits to reduce insurance premiums on the exchanges would either pay more or lose coverage
- Minimum essential coverage for prescription benefits and substance abuse treatment would no longer be required in insurance policies
- Children would no longer be able to stay on their parentsâ plans until age 26
- Preventive care would again involve cost-sharing
- More Americans would have healthcare plans without comprehensive protection
- Insurance companies would again be able to impose lifetime limits.
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The Partially Partisan Economy
Two polls from Gallup tell the tale.
The first, comparing annual averages, shows that Democrats and Republicans have reacted very differently to Trumps ascent, with Republicans becoming more positive about the economy and Democrats less so.
That perceptions of the economy would be mediated by partisanship is perhaps to be expected. But Trumps key achievement here is that while both Democrats and Republicans have changed their minds about the economy, Republicans have responded more sharply. Theyve nearly uniformly developed positive views about the economy due to Trump, while many Democrats also hold positive views about the economy and likely simply give former President Barack Obama the credit for it.
Even more strikingly, Gallups weekly numbers show that the Republican turnaround in perceptions largely happened before Trump even took office.
It wasnt, in other words, that something changed in the economy, Republicans gave Trump credit for it and then decided to start praising the economy. The mere fact that Trump had won the election made Democrats feel somewhat worse about economic conditions and Republicans feel a lot better.
Actual economic conditions, meanwhile, really have improved but only at a modest pace that is entirely continuous with previous trends.
Trade War ‘disaster’ With China
Trade policy is where the president wields the most economic power, as Congress has over the years delegated negotiating authority to the presidents office, according to Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Chinn documented the trade war saga on his macroeconomic policy blog Econbrowser.
Trump exercised this power almost immediately during his first years in office and even went so far as to use national security as a basis for trade barriers with China — something that no president has done in recent times.
Ultimately, the tit-for-tat trade war that Trump waged with China was lost by the U.S., economists say, and data on trade deficits confirm.
Trumps dramatic trade war upended decades of policy, and kicked off with failed meetings with Chinese leaders in 2017. After the talks disintegrated, Trump initiated the trade war by imposing tariffs on all imported washing machines and solar panels in early 2018. He then announced 25% tariffs on steel imports and 10% tariffs on aluminum. China retaliated with tariffs of up to 25% on more than 100 U.S. products including soybeans and airplanes. The sporadic, retaliatory trade-off battles waged on for years, and dragged other countries that were trying to remain competitive in as well.
By the end of his term, the trade deficit will be larger in absolute terms than it was when he came to office, Chinn told ABC News.
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The Economy Remains In A Massive Hole
Seven months into the crisis, COVID-19 and the Trump Administrations failure to control it continue to constrain the recovery. While the economy, with the help of the CARES Act, has made critical progress since Spring 2020, output and employment are still extremely depressed relative to their levels before the pandemic. And with labor market gains slowing and economic hardship on the rise, a brutally uneven and needlessly slow recovery will be all but guaranteed unless more fiscal support is delivered immediately.
‘free And Fair’ Trade Deals
Trump has often stressed his “America First” trade stance including the levying of billions of dollars of tit-for-tat tariffs with China which he said had gained an unfair advantage over the US. The president insists his policies have pressured multinationals to bring jobs back home and forced other nations to open their restricted markets to US firms. The tax cuts provided further encouragement, he said.
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“Tariffs on China haven’t done much for the manufacturing sector, but have undercut farm income,” Prakken told DW, adding that there hasn’t been a notable shift in direct foreign investment coming into the US from Trump’s policies, while thousands of American farmers went out of business when Beijing restricted US agricultural imports.
In July, NAFTA 2.0 an update of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico came into force. But despite promises that it would bring 180,000 new US jobs, the trade deal has no provision to stop work being outsourced to low-cost Mexico. Car manufacturers have continued to relocate their US plants across the border.
Election research shows that economic development just before the election can be decisive, says Prakken. “Most models of the economy’s impact on US presidential elections stress the role of unemployment and income growth 6-9 months before the election.”
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Achieving A Secure Border
Secured the Southern Border of the United States.
- Built over 400 miles of the worlds most robust and advanced border wall.
- Illegal crossings have plummeted over 87 percent where the wall has been constructed.
- Deployed nearly 5,000 troops to the Southern border. In addition, Mexico deployed tens of thousands of their own soldiers and national guardsmen to secure their side of the US-Mexico border.
- Ended the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release, which means that instead of aliens getting released into the United States pending future hearings never to be seen again, they are detained pending removal, and then ultimately returned to their home countries.
- Entered into three historic asylum cooperation agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to stop asylum fraud and resettle illegal migrants in third-party nations pending their asylum applications.
- Entered into a historic partnership with Mexico, referred to as the Migrant Protection Protocols, to safely return asylum-seekers to Mexico while awaiting hearings in the United States.
Fully enforced the immigration laws of the United States.
Ended asylum fraud, shut down human smuggling traffickers, and solved the humanitarian crisis across the Western Hemisphere.
Secured our Nations immigration system against criminals and terrorists.
Protected American workers and taxpayers.
Investing In Americas Workers And Families
Affordable and high-quality Child Care for American workers and their families.
- Doubled the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and expanded the eligibility for receiving the credit.
- Nearly 40 million families benefitted from the child tax credit , receiving an average benefit of $2,200 totaling credits of approximately $88 billion.
- Signed the largest-ever increase in Child Care and Development Block Grants expanding access to quality, affordable child care for more than 800,000 low-income families.
- Secured an additional $3.5 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to help families and first responders with child care needs.
- Signed into law 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers.
- Signed into law a provision that enables new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child.
Advanced apprenticeship career pathways to good-paying jobs.
- Expanded apprenticeships to more than 850,000 and established the new Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship programs in new and emerging fields.
- Established the National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board.
- Over 460 companies have signed the Pledge to Americas Workers, committing to provide more than 16 million job and training opportunities.
- Signed an executive order that directs the Federal government to replace outdated degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring.
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Obama Is To Thank For Growth
President Trump has ushered in a new era of economic success with his pro-business policies, asserts Stephen Moore of The Washington Times. By cutting Obama-era regulations, particularly in the energy industry, Trump has unleashed American companies and created much-need growth. The economy is already doing better under him, seven months into his presidency. Particularly coal, an industry deemed dead by the left, has upped its production by 12% and created new jobs in mining, trucking, steel and manufacturing. Obamas policies were hampering the U.S. economy, which Trump has realized and changed.
The idea that President Trump has improved the economy is erroneous, given that he hasnt had the time to introduce legislation that would significantly affect it, holds Doug Mataconis of Outside The Beltway. The recovery from the recession is still ongoing, thanks to deep-set improvements under Obama. Any current economic growth is thanks to these policies. Trump, who currently touts statistics about economic growth, criticized them when they didnt go in his favor in the past. Additionally, his claim to having improved the economy falls short so far he has brought in 186,000 fewer jobs than Obama did in his last seven months.
Wages Remain Relatively Flat
Despite other positive economic indicators, US wage levels have flattened since Mr Trump took office.
Wage growth has stayed between 2.5% and 2.9% without showing any meaningful rise in the last 12 months.
Economists are, in fact, struggling to understand why low unemployment hasn’t led to an increase in wages.
However, the general forecast for 2018 is that wages will rise if unemployment continues to fall.
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Economic Hardship Is Elevated Across The Country
Amid this wobbly recovery, millions of Americans are still struggling to meet their basic needs. The CARES Acts core supports notably the weekly $600 unemployment insurance supplement and the one-time Economic Impact Payments cushioned consumer spending and enabled jobless workers to stow away a small amount of savings. But after Republicans allowed the UI supplement to expire in July, and continue to block new relief, these reserves are largely depleted. Consequently:
