TRUMP.
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Elizabeth
- Level 34 Illuminated
- Posts: 11796
- Location: East Coast Australia
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Joel
- Level 34 Illuminated
- Posts: 7043
Re: TRUMP.
Annual deficit hits $1.9 trillion in just eight months
The deficit in the first eight months of the 2020 fiscal year hit a record $1.9 trillion, surpassing the largest annual deficit on record, $1.4 trillion in 2009.
Treasury Department data released Wednesday found that the deficit for May hit $399 billion, the second highest monthly level after April's record-shattering $738 billion figure.
The huge rise in borrowing in recent months has come in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted Congress to approve some $3.6 trillion in emergency aid, relief, stimulus and public health funding. The House has passed another $3 trillion bill, but the Senate is likely to settle on a significantly smaller version, closer to $1 trillion, in July.
Economists say that borrowing money to prevent economic collapse is a good investment, and if done right can lead to both better economic outcomes and lower debt levels than austerity measures in a crisis. For example, nearly a fifth of the spending in the 2020 fiscal year, which began in October, went toward income security.
But budget hawks have also been quick to note that aid should be targeted and that once that crisis is over, the government will face serious challenges in managing its debt burden.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that based on bills currently signed into law, the deficit for the year is likely to approach $4 trillion, several times the previous record.
The overall level of debt the government owes is set to surpass annual economic output this year for the first time since World War II, and is likely to break records in the coming years.
The deficit in the first eight months of the 2020 fiscal year hit a record $1.9 trillion, surpassing the largest annual deficit on record, $1.4 trillion in 2009.
Treasury Department data released Wednesday found that the deficit for May hit $399 billion, the second highest monthly level after April's record-shattering $738 billion figure.
The huge rise in borrowing in recent months has come in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted Congress to approve some $3.6 trillion in emergency aid, relief, stimulus and public health funding. The House has passed another $3 trillion bill, but the Senate is likely to settle on a significantly smaller version, closer to $1 trillion, in July.
Economists say that borrowing money to prevent economic collapse is a good investment, and if done right can lead to both better economic outcomes and lower debt levels than austerity measures in a crisis. For example, nearly a fifth of the spending in the 2020 fiscal year, which began in October, went toward income security.
But budget hawks have also been quick to note that aid should be targeted and that once that crisis is over, the government will face serious challenges in managing its debt burden.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that based on bills currently signed into law, the deficit for the year is likely to approach $4 trillion, several times the previous record.
The overall level of debt the government owes is set to surpass annual economic output this year for the first time since World War II, and is likely to break records in the coming years.
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Joel
- Level 34 Illuminated
- Posts: 7043
Re: TRUMP.
Trump's Bump Stock Ban Is Under Fire From His Own Judicial Appointees
This unilateral executive action has been scrutinized by both Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr.
After 2017's mass shooting in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump vowed to ban bump stocks, a type of firearm accessory that the shooter reportedly used. "We can do that with an executive order," Trump declared. "They're working on it right now, the lawyers."
The lawyers at the Department of Justice (DOJ) came up with a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulation "to clarify that [bump stocks] are 'machineguns' as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968" because "such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger." The federal ban on machine guns, in other words, would be interpreted by the Trump administration to ban bump stocks too.
That unilateral executive action has now come under fire from two federal judges appointed by Trump himself.
On March 2, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a statement respecting the denial of certiorari in Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The executive branch "used to tell everyone that bump stocks don't qualify as 'machineguns.' Now it says the opposite." Yet "the law hasn't changed, only an agency's interpretation of it," Gorsuch complained. "How, in all of this, can ordinary citizens be expected to keep up….And why should courts, charged with the independent and neutral interpretation of the laws Congress has enacted, defer to such bureaucratic pirouetting?"
Gorsuch wasn't alone. On March 30, Judge Brantley Starr, a Trump appointee who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, issued a blistering opinion in Lane v. United States that basically accused the DOJ of ignoring foundational constitutional principles in its defense of Trump's bump stock ban.
The Justice Department justified the ban as a lawful exercise of the "federal police power," Starr observed. But "the federal government forgot the Tenth Amendment and the structure of the Constitution itself," which grants no such power to the feds. "It is concerning that the federal government believes it swallowed the states whole. Assuming the federal government didn't abolish the states to take their police power," Starr wrote, he had no choice but to deny the government's motion to dismiss the case. He then tartly added: "The Court will allow the government to try again and explain which enumerated power justifies the federal regulation."
This unilateral executive action has been scrutinized by both Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr.
After 2017's mass shooting in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump vowed to ban bump stocks, a type of firearm accessory that the shooter reportedly used. "We can do that with an executive order," Trump declared. "They're working on it right now, the lawyers."
The lawyers at the Department of Justice (DOJ) came up with a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulation "to clarify that [bump stocks] are 'machineguns' as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968" because "such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger." The federal ban on machine guns, in other words, would be interpreted by the Trump administration to ban bump stocks too.
That unilateral executive action has now come under fire from two federal judges appointed by Trump himself.
On March 2, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a statement respecting the denial of certiorari in Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The executive branch "used to tell everyone that bump stocks don't qualify as 'machineguns.' Now it says the opposite." Yet "the law hasn't changed, only an agency's interpretation of it," Gorsuch complained. "How, in all of this, can ordinary citizens be expected to keep up….And why should courts, charged with the independent and neutral interpretation of the laws Congress has enacted, defer to such bureaucratic pirouetting?"
Gorsuch wasn't alone. On March 30, Judge Brantley Starr, a Trump appointee who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, issued a blistering opinion in Lane v. United States that basically accused the DOJ of ignoring foundational constitutional principles in its defense of Trump's bump stock ban.
The Justice Department justified the ban as a lawful exercise of the "federal police power," Starr observed. But "the federal government forgot the Tenth Amendment and the structure of the Constitution itself," which grants no such power to the feds. "It is concerning that the federal government believes it swallowed the states whole. Assuming the federal government didn't abolish the states to take their police power," Starr wrote, he had no choice but to deny the government's motion to dismiss the case. He then tartly added: "The Court will allow the government to try again and explain which enumerated power justifies the federal regulation."
