It appears Mr. Trump is picking at least three members of the Republican Congressional Delegation to serve in his administration, and potentially a fourth and a fifth, which means for at least 30 to 120 days the Republicans will be down several votes, and depending on the final count that could mean that they would only have two or three votes to spare during this period. Given the proclivities of the Republican Freedom Caucus, that could create tremendous issues for the passage of bills desired by Mr. Trump. It seems like a peculiar strategy and one that could do significant damage to the first 100 days. We’ve seen this show before.
It appears that as fed rates are falling, mortgage rates are not. This raises something of a conundrum both in terms of policy and practicality since the housing market is generally impacted by higher mortgage rates. There has been some decline in house prices, but it has not been widespread and it is somewhat limited geographically. Many believed that we would see a housing bust after the steep rise during COVID, but that has not happened and does not appear to be in the offing subject to any other dramatic economic impacts, for instance, higher tariffs.
Mr. Trump’s list of persons he wants to appoint to his cabinet and other important offices included probably the most befuddling, and that, of course, is Matt Gaetz. He has been investigated federally by the House Ethics Committee and DOJ for human trafficking and other sex related offenses. He hardly seems to be the type of character (excuse the pun) who should hold such a high office with regard to the Administration of Justice. Many of his other picks are also surprises in ways but not in others, as Mr. Trump is always looking for loyalists, not necessarily the brightest or the most experienced.
The next move of agriculture is to de-extinct animals, in particular a type of cattle known as an aurochs who seem to have some substantial benefits and could help many underdeveloped countries. These kinds of scientific advances always interest me.
There have been numerous reports about why Vice President Harris lost, and concerning the operation of her campaign. One that caught my eye was “Clashes, Confusion and Secrecy Consume the House Campaign”. Who cares. The fact is, Mr. Trump got more votes than she did, that is why she lost. There may be issues related to groups that thought she anticipated being part of her voting block which did not perform, and that is certainly worth exploring as to the reasons why, but that is more an internal operation of the Democratic Party. In truth, what needs to be addressed is the Democrats coming to understand what it is the majority of Americans want solutions to, and we know clearly that that focused on the southern border and inflation. In addition, Americans are still concerned about jobs and housing, and those are the things that need to be addressed. A very simple example of where Democrats stepped out of the box was on the issue of education debt. If you do the math, you find that people owing education debt represented 13% of our population, which means 87% did not benefit from the forgiveness of that debt, and didn’t get anything else in exchange that those who received forgiveness did. There is a problem there, a practicable one and one of perception.
Franklin Templeton Fund has experienced a customer exodus in the range of $55 billion, and the Justice Department is investigating another fund by the name of WEMCO and its star fund manager. What is up with this?
Chinese exports to the US have shrunk dramatically from approximately 45% to about 20%, which is a significant shift while simultaneously exports to other countries have increased during the same period, but only slightly. That means the Chinese have a net decline in exports.
I read an interesting article that provided some insight into liberal democracy which the author says “liberals offer constraints without problem solving, and allow rules, but not a lot of change”, while populism offers “problem solving without moral constraints”. It looks like we are moving into the populism side of the equation and what we really need is a balance between the two, but neither side seems inclined to want to go in that direction.
It seems states will now have some options relative to the response to Mr. Trump’s plan from mass deportations. Will governors like Kathy Hochul choose to fight, or not? How they respond could have dramatic, both political and economic consequences which may be actually the inverse of one another.
The tasks given to Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy is going to pose a difficult scenario and mirror somewhat Ronald Reagan’s appointment to J. P. DeGrace with regard to government waste and mismanagement. If we look at how money is spent at the federal level, we see 13.1% is for debt service; defense – 12.9%; and Mr. Trump wants to increase this; entitlements, principally Social Security and Medicare are at 34.6%, which Mr. Trump wants to protect, at least for now. This means Mr. Musk and his partner will have to cut 30% from what remains of the budget which is 30%.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
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