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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Sunday the federal government will extend a moratorium on evictions as part of the next round of coronavirus relief that will also include another round or $1,200 stimulus checks. “Don't forget, there's a $1,200 check coming. That is going to be part of the new package. I would have preferred a payroll tax cut, on top of that check. But, be that as it may, politically, it doesn't work,” Kudlow said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that it is a “very well-rounded package.” “People need that money as soon as possible....

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  Insulin is a critical and life-saving medication that approximately 8 million Americans rely on to manage diabetes.  Likewise, injectable epinephrine is a life‑saving medication used to stop severe allergic reactions.The price of insulin in the United States has risen dramatically over the past decade.  The list price for a single vial of insulin today is often more than $250 and most patients use at least two vials per month.  As for injectable epinephrine, recent increased...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  Americans spend more per capita on pharmaceutical drugs than residents of any other developed country.  Americans often pay more for the exact same drugs, even when they are produced and shipped from the exact same facilities.One way to minimize international disparities in price is to increase the trade of prescription drugs between nations with lower prices and those with persistently higher ones.  Over time, reducing trade barriers and increasing the exchange of...

Pres says he is ordering Medicare to buy Rx drugs at the prices other countries pay. Says it will "end global freeloading" on the backs of American seniors.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is slamming Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for attacking “New York values" and praising GOP rival Donald Trump for defending his home state. "I'm a Democrat, but Donald Trump did a very good job defending New York," Schumer told host John Catsimatidis on "The Cats Roundtable" on New York's AM-970 on Sunday. "I'd like Ted Cruz to go talk about New York values to the firefighters who rushed to the towers on 9/11, and the police and EMTs, to the brave New York police officers who keep our streets safe," he added. Schumer also noted that...

In the first few moments of his speech at Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday, President Obama gave the game away. He said he ventured to the campus, a mere 17 miles from Washington, to "get out of the immediate environs of Washington and hear directly from voters and have a conversation with them." Voters? The election is 19 months away. The government's collision with its debt ceiling is about one month away, maybe less. How is Obama spending the first of the four weeks (if that) he has left before the government -- over which he allegedly presides --...

“The President tries to tax, to tax our way out of debt -- placing the burden on those earning more than $100,000,“ Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said on the House floor Thursday morning. “The problem, sir, is a simple one -- that if we were to tax these individuals 100 percent of their income, we still could not cover our deficit this year alone. As a matter of fact, to tax our way out of debt we would need to increase taxes across the board on every man, on every woman and every business by 60 percent. You simply cannot...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama acknowledges that the fall elections could amount to a referendum on his stewardship of the nation's affairs. [SNIP] But he also says the midterm congressional elections could come down to "a choice between the policies that got us into this mess and my policies that got us out of this mess."

On Monday President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers released a report called "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform." The report argues that Americans must curb their consumption of medical care in order to avoid soaring federal deficits, unsustainable burdens on family budgets, and damage to the economy. All of these claims are untrue. - Federal deficits. The White House report makes the argument that there must be controls on what all Americans spend on health care in order to avoid government programs running huge deficits. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius uses the same faulty logic,...

<p>In the early 1980’s, the Wall Street Journal asked liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith and conservative economist Milton Friedman to predict the macroeconomic trends over the next two years. Both agreed that inflation would rise above 10%, and both accused the other of obtaining his prediction by reading chicken entrails. Both were wrong about inflation, but both were right about the chicken entrails.</p>

Who says you can’t cut taxes, increase spending, and reduce the federal budget deficit all at the same time? That’s what the Bush administration has managed to do. Two decades after then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush characterized Ronald Reagan’s idea that tax cuts would spur revenue-generating economic growth as “voodoo economics,” the witch doctor is again at work. When President Bush pledged in 2004 to cut the deficit in half by 2009, critics guffawed. The Boston Globe headlined a story, “Bush’s plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; higher spending, lower taxes don’t mix, analysts say.” “Fanciful,” “laughable” and...

The European Union is in tatters, which admittedly is not a bad thing. Yet the particular reasons for its continuing collapse portend a dark future for the continent that once defined Western Civilization. In short, the EU represented a futile attempt to forge a multi-national consensus on almost purely economic terms, purposely devoid of past loyalties to individual nationalism or any vestige of spiritual truth. As a result, each entity within the power structure is left vying for power, or more accurately, economic dominance, with little or no consideration for those antiquated ideals of morality or principle. However, no great...

Strong consumer spending and business investment and a slightly lower than previously reported trade deficit meant the US economy grew at a 3.9 per cent rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said. The upward revision from the 3.7 per cent advance estimate was above consensus expectations and represented a rebound from 3.3 per cent growth in the second quarter. Core personal consumption expenditures inflation, excluding food and energy, the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, was unchanged at a 0.7 per cent rate in the quarter - the lowest reading since the 1960s. The report provided further support...

Remember "voodoo economics"? The phrase comes from the first President Bush. During the 1980 Republican presidential primaries, the current president's father famously denounced Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics as "voodoo economics." What seemed like exotic hocus-pocus to the elder George Bush was the idea that if you cut taxes, people might work more, and hence earn more, which would then result in higher tax revenues. I never understood why Bush thought this was akin to Haitian head-shrinking and black magic.Regardless, voodoo economics became known as "Reaganomics" once the Gipper was elected and the terrible 1980-1982 recession kicked in. Today it's difficult...

This is not going to please Jonathan Chait of The New Republic who has admitted that he hates George W. Bush. This is from an Associated Press story, "Flush with extra cash from tax cuts, America's consumers treated themselves in August and spent with gusto, which is good news for the economy's revival. Many analysts believe that the economy is growing at a rate in excess now of 5% in the current quarter…" This AP writer, Jeannine Aversa, whether she knows it or not, has now linked the Bush tax cuts to rapid economic growth, which Jonathan Chait at the...

DO TAX CUTS pay for themselves? That's been the hot debate of American political economy for the better part of three decades. But it ended last week -- with a whimper. The great argument got its start in 1974, when a White House chief of staff named Donald Rumsfeld sent his deputy, Richard Cheney, to have lunch with an ebullient young economist named Art Laffer and his journalistic sidekick, Jude Wanniski. According to local lore, Mr. Laffer sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin suggesting that a cut in income taxes could provide such a spark to the economy that...