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Joint Economic Committee Democrats Chairman - Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM)

U.S. Trade Deficit with Russia Worsened

July 24, 2017

Weekly Economic Snapshot 7/24 - 7/28

Economic Facts for this Week

  • Since the U.S. trade balance with Russia began deteriorating in November 2016, U.S. exports to Russia fell $203 million on an annualized basis after inflation, or 3 percent; imports from Russia, larger in volume than exports, increased $1.8 billion dollars, or 13 percent. In all, the U.S. trade deficit with Russia worsened by 24 percent in the seven months through May, the most recent available data.
  • The proposed House GOP budget would balance our finances on the backs of America’s working families, putting nondefense discretionary spending on a path downward to 1.7 percent of GDP by 2027, which would be the lowest in modern history.
  • Each dollar invested in the National Parks Service earns a $10 return on investment for state and local economies; personal incomes are $4,360 higher on average in rural counties with an abundance of protected public lands relative to rural counties without protected lands.

 

Chart of the Week: Trump Tax Principles Fail Mnuchin Rule

Although Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin vowed that tax reform would not deliver tax cuts for “the upper class,” analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds the average person in the top 1 percent of income would enjoy $145,400 in tax cuts under the Trump tax principles, or nearly 200 times the tax cut offered to middle income Americans and 1,118 times that of the poorest income earners. ITEP’s report also provides state-by-state analysis of tax cut winners and losers: Maine, New Mexico, and West Virginia would be among the states receiving the disproportionately smallest shares of tax cuts, while Wyoming, the District of Columbia, and Connecticut would gain proportionately the most from tax cuts.

 

ICYMI

  • Declining competition in U.S. markets, as more power is concentrated in fewer firms, explains a significant share of the slowdown in U.S. business investment growth and new business starts, according to New York University economists.
  • University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales finds that more market power is concentrated in big firms, “the more they have both the ability and the need to gain political power.”
  • Conventional measures of family income that do not incorporate the contributions of unpaid “non-market” household work misstate the true extent of U.S. income inequality.

                                                                                                              

Coming This Week

Permalink: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/2017/7/weekly-economic-snapshot-7-24-7-28

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