Mind Over Market

In an interview by Larry Kudlow, Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) explained why the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress are not worried about the huge run-up in the deficit and rising national debt. In his September 9 program host Larry Kudlow pointed out that the Obama Administration has increased the national debt by more than all prior Presidents from George Washington through Ronald Raegan. When Senator Gregg suggested this was going to bankrupt the nation, Larry Kudlow disagreed. “Senator, instead of going bankrupt, you know what will happen?” Kudlow said. “It's a massive tax trap. That's what's going to happen. It's going to be a gigantic humongous, massive tax trap that will doom us to subpar, stagnant, slow economic growth and high unemployment. Isn’t that really the issue?” “Larry, you're absolutely right,” Gregg responded. “This is a very important point for your viewers to understand. This spending is being done intentionally. The reason the GDP –...

At the request of Senator Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, the Congressional Budget Office has completed a report titled The Budgetary Impact and Subsidy Costs of the Federal Reserve's Actions During the Financial Crisis. See the report at this link: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11524/05-24-FederalReserve.pdf The report, written by Kim Kowalewski and Wendy Kiska of CBO's Macroeconomic Anlaysis Division, comes up with what most willl surely think is a low ball estimate of the subsidy cost of the extraordinary actions during the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. From July 2007 to the end of 2008, the Fed's balance sheet grew from $790 billion to $2.275 trillion. Of that total, loans and other types of support extended to financial institution made up $1.686 trillion. By the end of 2009, direct loans and other support had fallen to $280 billion, but the Fed held just over $1 trillion in mortgage-related securities...