Steve Bannon’s downgrade is just one of many complaints. ‘We expect him to keep his word, and right now he’s not keeping his word,’ says one campaign supporter.
.. Their complaints range from Trump’s embrace of an interventionist foreign policy to his less hawkish tone on China to, most recently, his marginalization of his nationalist chief strategist
.. a belief that Trump the candidate bears little resemblance to Trump the president.
He’s failing, in their view, to deliver on his promise of a transformative “America First” agenda driven by hard-edged populism.
.. Lee Stranahan, who, as a former writer at Breitbart News
.. “There was always the question of, ‘Did he really believe this stuff?’ Apparently, the answer is, ‘Not as much as you’d like.’”
As Bannon’s influence wanes, on the rise is a small group of Wall Street-connected advisers whose politically moderate and globalist views are anathema to the populist cause.
.. Trump voters “felt like they were voting for an anti-establishment candidate — and they’re terrified, they’re losing faith,
.. Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham, called last week’s bombing of Syria a betrayal
.. he backed away from his oft-repeated campaign line that NATO is “obsolete.”
.. Other Trump boosters worry that he’s ditching his economic agenda.
.. backed off his vow to label China a currency manipulator
.. reversal on his position to eliminate the Export-Import Bank.
.. Larry Kudlow .. expressed dismay that the president hadn’t yet released a tax plan.
.. has yet to follow through on his pledge to rescind protections for undocumented parents and children put in place under former President Barack Obama.
.. Immigration is “why we voted for Donald Trump
.. some of his loyalists are beginning to compare him to another Republican who lost the support of the party’s base: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
.. It’s like dating a girl whose father cheated on her mother. She’s always going to be suspicious,” he said. “He’s got to constantly provide wins because he’s got an emotionally damaged base that’s been abused.”
Improving Economic Opportunity in the United States
- Near-term policy solutions aimed at reducing these barriers include running tight labor markets, infrastructure investment, direct job creation, health care and other work supports, apprenticeships, and more.
.. Janet Yellen recently noted that unemployment rates “averaged 13 percent in low- and moderate-income communities from 2011 through 2015, compared with 7.3 percent in higher-income communities.”
.. Racial disparities exist in unemployment rates even controlling for education.[3] Among white people with terminal high school degrees, unemployment was about 5 percent in 2015. For black people, it is twice that.
.. Black people with at least BAs have unemployment rates of 4.1 percent, compared to the 2.4 percent for whites with at least BAs.
.. While employment levels fell about the same amount in percentage terms in both areas over the Great Recession of 2007-2009, metro employment has recovered much more quickly
.. Rising income inequality provided high-income households more resources, and parents used these resources to purchase housing in particular neighborhoods, with residential decisions structured, in part, by school district boundaries.
.. Yellen noted that close to 100 percent of children of parents with higher incomes and levels of educational attainment pursued higher education, and 60 percent earned a bachelor’s degree. But among children of parents with lower incomes and education levels, 72 percent pursued higher education and only 14 percent completed a BA. The figure below, from Chetty et al., shows that the likelihood that a child from a wealthy family will attend an Ivy-league or similarly elite school is 50 times that of a child from a low-income family.
.. children who grow up in affluent households but do not graduate from college are 2.5 times as likely to have high incomes in adulthood as children who grow up poor but do graduate from college
.. Other OECD countries spend 5 times what we spend on young children, often through pre-kindergarten education, despite the fact that solid research shows the benefit-cost ratio of such spending to be more than 8-to-1
.. In the presence of high inequality, stronger growth is necessary but not sufficient to take down mobility barriers. If most of the growth flows to the top of the scale, as has occurred in recent decades, then absent aggressive redistribution, we cannot expect to push back on the many problems just documented.
Canada Stays the Course on Budget Amid Improving Economy
Last year, Canada pledged to spend roughly 24 billion Canadian dollars ($18 billion) in infrastructure by 2020 in an effort to spur growth. It also introduced tax breaks targeted at middle-income earners and households with children
.. Deficits will remain a mainstay in Canadian public finances for the foreseeable future. Ottawa projects a deficit of C$28.5 billion next year, or 1.4% of Canada’s gross domestic product, and remain in the C$20 billion range for each year through 2022. The debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to stay slightly above 31% over the next four years.
.. the government is also benefiting from stabilizing oil prices, which is lifting fortunes in the resource-rich region of western Canada.
.. suggest Canada’s economy has moved into a higher gear, following two years of lackluster growth because of the swift fall in commodity prices.
.. The government projects growth of 1.9% this year and 2% in 2018, which is below the Bank of Canada consensus.
.. Three quarters of Canada’s exports—or the equivalent of 20% of Canadian output — go to the U.S.
Canadian Factory Sales Post Surprise Increase
Petroleum and coal, and chemical industries led gains for January
Canadian factory sales unexpectedly increased in January, as roughly three-quarters of Canada’s manufacturing sector posted gains in the month, led by the petroleum and coal, and chemical industries.