Economy

Legislation intended to make it easier for small businesses to comply with federal regulations passed the House with bipartisan support last week. Introduced by freshman Representative Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., the bill requires the Small Business Administration to create a centralized... Read More

WASHINGTON - Newsroom employment continues to decline across the United States, driven primarily by job losses at newspapers, a new study says. For a report released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center analyzed 10 years of occupational employment data compiled by... Read More

WASHINGTON - International investment in residential real estate in the United States plunged 36% in the past year as Chinese buyers fled the market, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. The sobering analysis comes via the Realtors' annual survey... Read More

New legislation passed the House last week to help small businesses gain access to capital, expand, and hire workers.  H.R. 3050, the Expanding Investment in Small Businesses Act of 2019, was introduced by Freshman GOP Representative Bryan Steil, R-Wis., and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. budget deficit increased by $140 billion during the first nine months of the current fiscal year, rising to $747.1 billion, the Treasury Department said Thursday. The department said the deficit for the current fiscal year through... Read More

WASHINGTON - The nonprofit community tried to warn Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the 2017 tax bill would hurt charitable giving. Now, nearly 20 months after President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law on... Read More

WASHINGTON - Six members of the New Democrat Coalition wrote the U.S. Trade Representative on Monday urging him to respond to congressional concerns regarding the new North American Free Trade agreement, known as USMCA, to ensure its successful bipartisan passage.... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. employers dramatically ramped up their hiring in June, adding 224,000 jobs and far surpassing economists' expectations that were closer to 165,000 jobs would be added, the Labor Department reported Friday. The new numbers are particularly good news... Read More

Last week, U.S. Senators Todd Young, R-Ind., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, introduced the Investing in Main Street Act to increase investment in small businesses by permitting banks to invest up to 15 percent of their capital in... Read More

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy cut $444 million from the state’s operating budget  last week, a move he said was critical to moving closer to a balanced budget without raising taxes or reducing the annual Permanent Fund dividend paid to every... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy broke a record for its longest expansion ever on Monday, but a poll released the same day suggests the solid economy is doing little to bolster support for President Donald Trump. On Monday, the United... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats are trying to block a Trump administration effort to expand uranium mining in the United States. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is considering a new bill that would severely restrict uranium mining. Democrats... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Department, responding to an explosion in the sale of wine in cans and single-serve bottles, is seeking public comment of eliminating all but the minimum "stand of fill" for wine containers. In a Federal Register notice... Read More

WASHINGTON - The federal debt is on track to reach unprecedented levels in the next 30 years and will rise to 144 percent of the nation's gross domestic product by 2049 if current laws are maintained, the Congressional Budget Office... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the media and general public are not entitled to every bit of information a government body collects about private businesses. The underlying case came to the high court from South Dakota... Read More

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump welcomed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the White House Thursday, to talk trade and their respective issues with China on a day otherwise dominated by concerns over an escalation in hostilities between the U.S.... Read More

WASHINGTON - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in the nation's capital Wednesday evening to begin a busy 24 hours lobbying for U.S. passage of the USMCA trade deal. The prime minister will attend a reception hosted by David MacNaughton,... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representatives of America's seaports are telling the U.S. Trade Representative this week that the Trump administration's current tariffs on Chinese goods, and threat to impose more, are weakening the nation's competitiveness and stymieing much needed infrastructure projects. The... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld Virginia's decades-old ban on mining radioactive uranium, holding "Congress conspicuously chose to leave untouched the States' historic authority over the regulation of mining activities on private lands within their borders." The... Read More

WASHINGTON - State officials told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Tuesday that questionable practices by the servicers of student loans are saddling a generation with enormous debt that if left unchecked could stifle economic growth across the nation.... Read More

WASHINGTON - Negotiations between House Democrats, the GOP-controlled Senate and the White House over a 2020 budget plan "are not going very well" and could very well extend to the September 30 deadline to avoid automatic spending caps, the chairman... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representative Ben McAdams wants to block a salary increase for members of Congress that is automatically set to take effect in January. Toward that end he's introduced an amendment to the roughly $1 trillion package of spending bills... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tried to make a joke of the string of questions she was being asked about impeachment and President Trump's recent disparaging of her during an appearance at a fiscal policy summit Tuesday morning.... Read More

WASHINGTON – Whether they describe themselves as Republicans, Democrats, or supporters of a third party, America’s voters believe the nation’s ability to address important issues is inextricably tied to the national debt, a new poll finds. The poll, released Tuesday... Read More

A federal appeals court in Portland, Oregon heard arguments this week in a lawsuit that accuses the Trump administration of endangering the future of children by its environmental policies that do little to avoid climate change. The lawsuit was filed... Read More

WASHINGTON - Representatives Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Rick Larsen, D-Wash., chairman of that body's Aviation Subcommittee, want to know when Boeing and others first learned of a serious defect in the... Read More

WASHINGTON - Employers added just 75,000 new jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday, a stunning development that took many economists by surprise. In a recent survey by Dow Jones, the consensus among economists was that the job gain... Read More

Rising home prices in some of the country's largest urban centers have put the America Dream of owning a home out of reach for many middle- to low-income families. While the nation’s capital and its surrounding suburbs are regularly ranked... Read More

WASHINGTON - NASA announced Friday it plans to open the International Space Station to businesses and even tourists in a bid to "accelerate a thriving commercial economy in low-Earth orbit." The space agency is not selling trips to the space... Read More

The United States' trade deficit with China widened in April, despite Trump administration tariffs on thousands of Chinese goods, and even as the gap between the U.S. and other countries narrowed. Since taking office in 2017, President Donald Trump has... Read More