Financial Services Report (4/19)

Looking Ahead Near Term The House and Senate are poised to approve the tax reform bill and if everything goes according to plan, it will be on the President’s desk by mid-week. Funding for the government expires on Friday.  A continuing resolution to punt the hard choices of what to include in a long-term spending […]

Our Take While not known as a prescient sage, back in 2006 John Mayer may have seen the future when wrote   "And when you trust your television What you get is what you got Cause when they own the information, oh They can bend it all they want"   Much has been written about […]

Our Take It is interesting to view the recent votes on Tax Reform through the historical prism of the last time we had comprehensive tax reform in 1986.   While a review of all the roll call votes show some party line votes, it seems like most of the votes were more strong bipartisan totals.   While […]

Looking Ahead Near Term The Tax bill comes to the full House on Thursday (at Rules on Wednesday) Senate Finance starts its mark-up of the tax reform bill on Monday. The House Rules Committee is schedule d to meet on Monday to try again at bringing the Flood Insurance bill to the Floor. The House […]

Our Take Short Termism.   A term usually associated with concerns about the perspective of corporate executives willing to sacrifice long term growths for short term gains.   Whether the capital markets suffer from excessive short termism is open for debate.  However, it appears that this phenomenon is not confined to the business world, and it may […]

Our Take With just under a month of scheduled legislative days remaining before funding for the Federal Government runs out, we are now fully ensconced in the high drama of the calendar.  Loyal readers may recall that we initially encouraged people to look at this year as a play in four parts.   Perhaps a soap […]

Looking Ahead Near Term The Senate is in recess this week while the House will have an abbreviated week for the Columbus Day holiday.  The House will be in recess next week. The House Financial Services Committee will hold a marathon mark-up of 23 bills starting on Wednesday and likely concluding with votes on Friday.  […]

Our Take This past week the President appeared to cut a deal with Democrats on DACA, walk back his commitment to pull-out of the Paris Climate Agreement and announced his intention to wade into a nasty election in Alabama.   Whether this is part of some calculated political agenda, or just because he “really likes” Senator […]

Our Take This past week the President Trump that all Democrats had hoped for – the one who favors the art of the deal over ideology – finally made an appearance.  Depending on your media consumption this was either the greatest thing or the end of days.   As is often the case, the media hype […]

Our Take Loyal readers may recall that we had said the best way to view Washington this year was to consider it is a play in four acts.   Perhaps we chose the wrong medium.  Regardless of form, with the House gone for the August recess, and the Senate left in disarray following the dramatic demise […]

Looking Ahead Near Term The House is expected to take up a Congressional Review Act measure that would overturn the arbitration rule that the CFPB announced two weeks ago.   Also on the agenda for the floor is a “minibus” appropriations bill that includes the Defense, Legislative Branch, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Energy and Water Development […]

Our Take While it would be too easy to write that Members of Congress fled town this week like rats off a sinking ship, the reality is that the dysfunction and gridlock of Washington only continues to grow and it is highly likely that all 535 members of Congress and the Senate were incredibly grateful […]