Courtesy of Mish.
An old saying goes three steps forward and two back.
In a guest post by Jason Leach, he wonders Six Month Window and a Fiscal Fumble?
The graphics alone are worth the read.
The first six to nine months of a presidential term are arguably the most important thanks in large part to staggered elections put in place by our forefathers. The Bush tax cuts, Clinton’s tax hikes, and the serious groundwork for Obamacare were accomplished during this time frame. President Trump and a balkanized Republican party have taken on ACA repeal/replace during this critical six-month window, aiming to use fiscal year 2017 reconciliation (simple Senate majority but “nuclear” to cooperation) to get something passed before the Fall (the current House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate). Then, after this self-immolation, they aim to use the same reconciliation process to get something done on tax reform in fiscal year 2018 (they have a one-pager to work off as of now), and hope to tack on infrastructure and ongoing deregulation going into the 2018 midterm campaign season.
In the last four years, perhaps the least cohesive congress in history has passed the least legislation in over 200 years. After Obamacare passed (via reconciliation) and the subsequent killing of the use of earmark horse trading to corral votes (remember Nebraska?), the 2010 Tea Party insurgency became the “All Pros of No”, or the shutdown defense against anything serious getting done during Obama’s remaining years. Now, the six-month window will probably close without real structural change to healthcare, tax reform will then likely be pushed into 2018/2019 (and be “tax relief” not reform), and infrastructure could well fall prey to pre-midterm stasis (Democrats not throwing a lifeline to “Reconciliation Republicans”).
Meanwhile, with a string of solid jobs numbers (despite anemic sub 3% growth in average hourly earnings instead of hoped for 3-5% to outpace inflation), the Fed is intent on making the “fiscal hand off”, with two rate hikes in the last six months (and unless rumors of Fed nervousness about the deteriorating credit situation are true) another hike in June (market is pricing in ~70%). Remember “Three Steps and a Stumble” from Pulling Awesome Forward? And, after seven years of feeding another asset pricing cycle (stocks, real estate) instead of productive “virtuous” cap-ex cycle (outside the oil patch discussed in Crude Compression), the Fed plans to start reducing the size of the bloated $4.5 trillion balance sheet starting at the end of the year. Ben Bernanke expressed this past week that he is “calm about unwinding part of the balance sheet”, but he neglected to mention that no country has ever exited QE, so it may get rocky (if it happens at all as many view QE as a permanent part of central bank policy at this point).
