EXCERPT/ revealing that President Trump has very l
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In the budget agreement, very little of what the President campaigned on was approved outside a small increase in military spending.
The funding program gives no money to Trump’s signature project of a wall on the Mexican Border but it allows $1.5 billion to fund border security.
The President asked for $30 billion to build up the military and got $15 billion for the military.
There is funding for year-round Pell grants to fund 1 million college students and the budget does fund “planned parenthood.”
Furthermore, to get funding it steers clear of controversial penalties for so called “sanctuary cities”, essentially allowing the blue-state cities to remain in open defiance of the law.
There is funding for relief from flooding, famines, wildfires, opioid reduction and substance abuse, and for the medical marijuana industry in California.
There is no funding to hire more Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents. There is no funding to alter any provisions that would undermine the Affordable Health Care Act. (The President had threatened to stop paying federal subsidies to insurance companies that offered lower-cost medical coverage to low-income Americans).
The budget dropped deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and also ended the dismantling of consumer protections created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, leaving Dodd-Frank intact.
To add to all of that, the Fed seems compelled to raise interest rates now under a Republican administration that it never saw necessary under a Democratic administration. This has been the historical pattern. It would be foolish to think the Fed is not going to raise rates further, when it has turned decidedly hawkish.
As far as the Fed’s transitory opinion of the economy, over the last several years the second quarter tends to improve from the first quarter.
Because oil prices tend to bottom in the first quarter historically and rally as the weather warms in response to increased demand, second-quarter GDPs tend to do better. Should oil prices rally in May into June 14th the Fed will feel justified in raising rates again.
The Fed may know too if Saudi Arabia plans to extend the oil production cuts at the end of May, believing that oil prices will rebound as a consequence.