The Trump administration has begun to toss around proposals for increasing America’s birthrate, such as by giving the parents of every new child a $5,000 tax credit. Vice President JD Vance famously attacked “childless cat ladies.” Rhetoric aside, that’s an admirable goal but not one that is likely to be achieved by these kinds […]

Elon Musk has been off the front pages of late but he continues to put out social media posts bragging about at least some of his successes in business as well as his purported accomplishments cutting government “waste, fraud and abuse” through his Department of Government Efficiency. Chart 1: But he hasn’t had much to […]

On Thursday, the House passed the Senate’s version of the overall budget framework that will help determine the outcome of the efforts by President Trump and Republican legislators to implement their plans for tax and spending reductions. It is a radical agenda that at the least, will add trillions of dollars to the national debt […]

The U.S. stock market reeled on Thursday in the wake of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented new tariffs on more than 60 countries around the world. Economists and investors spent the day trying to figure out what the impact of Trump’s plan is likely to be. While much uncertainty remains, the clear conclusion is that this […]

Steve Rattner joined Patrick Healy on the New York Times’  “The Opinions” podcast this week to weigh in on where US economy is headed under Trump’s tariffs.  The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion. And this is The First 100 […]