White House
featured
CNBC's Tyler Mathisen looks back at the week's top business and financial stories. Bernanke's comments concerned investors. There was good housing news and Apple's Tim Cook faced the Senate's music. Also, Jamie Dimon held on to his dual titles.
» Read More
More
-
Now that Fred Thompson has made clear he'll enter the 2008 race next week, the debate can begin over whether he really is Ronald Reagan's heir--at least on tax cuts. Yesterday, conservative tax cut mavens Grover Norquist and Dan Mitchell told me they consider Thompson suspect on taxes
-
After initially dismissed questions surrounding donor Norman Hsu, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential race has moved to limit the fallout. The campaign has said it will give away Hsu's donations, and Hsu himself has said he will no longer give money to candidates now that reports have surfaced that he's a fugitive from California authorities in a 1990s grand theft case.
-
The 2008 presidential race will produce a sharp debate over tax policy–-on individuals, estates, investments and corporations. But voters will have to wait for the general election to hear it. That’s because there’s substantial agreement on the biggest policy questions within each party’s field of primary candidates. And for now, those broad areas of consensus have left primary rivals to bicker at the margins.
-
In addition to campaign finance, Sen. Barack Obama has found a new issue to use in pushing his campaign for changing business as usual--the subprime mess. In a piece in the Financial Times today, Obama blames the problem partly on the mortgage industry's lobbying clout. It's a nifty attempt to add to voters' growing list of complaints against Washington...
-
I blogged yesterday about the possibility that the campaign finance questions kindled by the Wall Street Journal yesterday--which involved a top fund-raiser named Norman Hsu--could get any worse for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. That is precisely what happened today.
-
The political world is buzzing over the salacious news surrounding Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, the conservative Republican caught up in a police sting that targeted sexual activity in a men's restroom. The news endangers Craig's career, at minimum, and might conceivably threaten the GOP's grip on his Senate seat should he be ultimately be forced aside. At a time when Republican social conservatives are already dispirited by the woes of President Bush...
-
A Republican source on Capitol Hill points out for me today another potential replacement for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales--Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a one-time presidential candidate and longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Whatever his other qualifications, Hatch would bring this unequivocal benefit: the ability to be readily confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate.
-
White House sources confirm that U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting Attorney General once Alberto Gonazles leaves the Justice Department in mid-September. And to judge from initial soundings across Washington, no one will be surprised if Clement eventually becomes President Bush's choice to fill the job for the remainder of his term.
-
We are creeping closer to the point of full engagement in the 2008 presidential race--but not there yet. On the Democratic side, John Edwards and Barack Obama are gingerly ramping up their criticism of front-runner Hilllary Rodham Clinton. With the Iowa caucuses just four months away--and Clinton leading polls nationally and in early states alike--they need to.
-
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNBC he asked the Bush administration to lift the portfolio caps on housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expressed reluctance to do so.
-
Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNBC he believes the Federal Reserve was lax in its responsibilities by not preventing the surge of subprime mortgage loans. Dodd also said he will meet with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday morning.
-
Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined CNBC's Larry Kudlow on "Kudlow & Co." to discuss the economic strategy he would pursue if he were elected America's commander-in-chief in 2008.
-
One question about market turbulence that I'll be watching is its effect on the 2008 presidential race. It's not clear the disruptions will prove long lasting, much less lead to an economic recession. If it proves a short-term blip, the effects will be negligible.
-
It's been easy over the last few months to feel a bit sorry for Hank Paulson. He left Goldman Sachs, reluctantly, to lead President Bush's second-term Treasury in the belief that his skills might help solve two thorny problems: deteriorating political sentiment toward China's rising economic might, and the long-term insolvency of the U.S. entitlement programs as the Baby Boom generation heads toward retirement.
-
Even on vacation in Alaska last week, I couldn't avoid the news about politics and money fom back in Washington. After taking my kids to see the sea lions and seals at the splendid Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, I looked in the local newspaper box and saw a headline declaring that the investigations of Sen. Ted Stevens and his son have extended to the SeaLife Center itself.
-
Karl Rove, close political adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and a lightning rod for anger among Democrats, has said he will leave the White House at the end of this month.
-
Just like President Bush and Congress, I'm going away on vacation. But I will surely return to work before they will--on Aug. 15. I'll talk to you then--about the issues affecting your wallet in Washington, and the accelerating pace of the 2008 presidential race.
-
As Congress scrambled to finish up before summer vacation, I talked to House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri. Like all minorities in the House of recent vintage, the House GOP is getting steamrolled on vote after vote. But Blunt says he's happy with his party's positioning.
-
I sat down in Rochester, New Hampshire earlier this week with Rudy Giuliani, the national front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. In between town hall meetings, where he's trying to erase Mitt Romney's lead in the first primary state, we discussed a wide range of issues--from his new health care plan designed to counter Democrats' "socialized medicine," to his opposition to private equity tax increases that he says could damage capital markets, to his support for free trade with China despite protectionist pressures.
-
I had an interesting lunch in Washington yesterday with Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, thankfully on the mend after his horrendous auto accident earlier this year. It was all the more interesting for the fact that I had interviewed his sort-of political neighbor, Rudy Giuliani, two days before. Corzine sharply disputed Giuliani's assessment of several economic issues. That's not surprising, since Corzine is a liberal Democrat who supports Hillary Clinton for president and Giuliani is seeking the Republican nomination.