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    Here’s What the Fed Chair Said This Week, and Why It Matters

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    Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, opened the door to a more aggressive policy path — but emphasized that it depended on incoming data.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, used his testimony before lawmakers this week to lay out a more aggressive path ahead for American monetary policy as the central bank tries to combat stubbornly rapid inflation.Mr. Powell, who spoke before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, explained that the economy had been more resilient — and inflation had shown more staying power — than expected.He signaled that he and his colleagues were prepared to respond by raising rates, and doing so more quickly if needed, though he emphasized on Wednesday that no decision had been made ahead of the central bank’s meeting on March 22. Mr. Powell made clear the next move would hinge on a series of job market and inflation data points set for release over the next week.Stocks initially swooned and a common recession indicator flashed red on Tuesday as investors marked up their expectations for how high Fed rates would rise in 2023 and increasingly bet on a larger March move. But they recovered on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 ending the day slightly up.Here are the key points that emerged over the two-day testimony.Rates may climb faster.Mr. Powell surprised many investors when he suggested that the pace of rate increases could pick back up.“If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes,” Mr. Powell told lawmakers in both chambers. He was careful on Wednesday to underscore that “no decision has been made on this.”While Mr. Powell avoided promising anything, his comments suggested that the Fed could lift rates by a half-point in March if data reports over the coming days remained hot — which would signify a reversal.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Debt Default Would Cripple U.S. Economy, New Analysis Warns

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    As President Biden prepares to release his latest budget proposal, a top economist warned lawmakers that Republicans’ refusal to raise the nation’s borrowing cap could put millions out of work.WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy could quickly shed a million jobs and fall into recession if lawmakers fail to raise the nation’s borrowing limit before the federal government exhausts its ability to pay its bills on time, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, warned a Senate panel on Tuesday.The damage could spiral to seven million jobs lost and a 2008-style financial crisis in the event of a prolonged breach of the debt limit, in which House Republicans refuse for months to join Democrats in voting to raise the cap, Mr. Zandi and his colleagues Cristian deRitis and Bernard Yaros wrote in an analysis prepared for the Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Policy.Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, held the subcommittee hearing on the debt limit, and its economic and financial consequences, at a moment of fiscal brinkmanship. House Republicans are demanding deep spending cuts from President Biden in exchange for voting to raise the debt limit, which caps how much money the government can borrow.That debate is likely to escalate when Mr. Biden releases his latest budget proposal on Thursday. The president is expected to propose reducing America’s reliance on borrowed money by raising taxes on high earners and corporations. But he almost certainly will not match the level of spending cuts that will satisfy Republican demands to balance the budget in a decade.The report also warns of stark economic damage if Mr. Biden, in an attempt to avert a default, agrees to those demands. In that scenario, the “dramatic” spending cuts that would be needed to balance the budget would push the economy into recession in 2024, cost the economy 2.6 million jobs and effectively destroy a year’s worth of economic growth over the next decade, Mr. Zandi and his colleagues wrote.The U.S. economy could quickly shed a million jobs and fall into recession if lawmakers fail to raise the nation’s borrowing limit.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“The only real option,” Mr. Zandi said in an interview before his testimony, “is for lawmakers to come to terms and increase the debt limit in a timely way. Any other scenario results in significant economic damage.”Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

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    Republican Votes Helped Washington Pile Up Debt

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    As they escalate a debt-limit standoff, House Republicans blame President Biden’s spending bills for an increase in deficits. Voting records show otherwise.WASHINGTON — President Biden will submit his latest budget request to Congress on Thursday, offering what his administration says will be $2 trillion in plans to reduce deficits and future growth of the national debt.Republicans, who are demanding deep spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s borrowing cap, will almost certainly greet that proposal with a familiar refrain: Mr. Biden and his party are to blame for ballooning the debt.But an analysis of House and Senate voting records, and of fiscal estimates of legislation prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows that Republicans bear at least equal blame as Democrats for the biggest drivers of federal debt growth that passed Congress over the last two presidential administrations.The national debt has grown to $31.4 trillion from just under $6 trillion in 2000, bumping against the statutory limit on federal borrowing. That increase, which spanned the presidential administrations of two Republicans and two Democrats, has been fueled by tax cuts, wars, economic stimulus and the growing costs of retirement and health programs. Since 2017, when Donald J. Trump took the White House, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have joined together to pass a series of spending increases and tax cuts that the budget office projects will add trillions to the debt.The analysis is based on the forecasts that the C.B.O. regularly issues for the federal budget. They include descriptions of newly passed legislation that affects spending, revenues and deficits, tallying the costs of those new laws over the course of a decade. Going back to the start of Mr. Trump’s tenure, those reports highlight 13 new laws that, by the C.B.O.’s projections, will combine to add more than $11.5 trillion to the debt.Nearly three-quarters of that new debt was approved in bills that gained the support of a majority of Republicans in at least one chamber of Congress. Three-fifths of it was signed into law by Mr. Trump.Some of those bills were in response to emergencies, like the early rounds of stimulus payments to people and businesses during the pandemic. Others were routine appropriations bills, which increased spending on the military and on domestic issues like research and education.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

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    IRS Decision Not to Tax Certain Payments Carries Fiscal Cost

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    The Biden administration has opted not to tax state payments to residents, a decision that could add to the nation’s fiscal woes.WASHINGTON — More than 20 state governments, flush with cash from federal stimulus funds and a rebounding economy, shared their windfalls last year by sending residents one-time payments.This year, the Biden administration added a sweetener, telling tens of millions taxpayers they did not need to pay federal taxes on those payments.That decision by the Internal Revenue Service, while applauded by some tax experts and lawmakers, could cost the federal government as much $4 billion in revenue at a time when Washington is struggling with a ballooning federal deficit and entering a protracted fight over the nation’s debt limit.The I.R.S.’s ruling came after bipartisan pressure from lawmakers and was the latest move by the agency to forgo revenue this tax season.In December, the I.R.S. delayed by a year a new requirement that users of digital wallets like Venmo and Cash App report income on 1099-K forms if they had more than $600 of transactions. That requirement, which was part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, was projected to raise nearly $1 billion in tax revenue per year over a decade. The last-minute decision to delay it followed intense lobbying from business groups and political backlash directed at the Biden administration, which was accused of breaking its pledge not to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000.Taken together, the moves by the I.R.S. run counter to two big economic issues bedeviling Washington — rapid inflation and concerns about the government’s ability to avoid defaulting on its debt.Allowing residents to avoid paying taxes on their state rebates means more money in their pockets to spend at a moment when the Federal Reserve is trying to rein in consumer and business spending to cool rising prices. A report released on Friday showed that, despite the Fed’s efforts to slow the economy, personal spending sped up in January.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

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    U.S. Could Default on Debt as Early as Summer, New Estimate Says

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    The Bipartisan Policy Center said the nation could run out of cash this summer or early fall if Congress did not raise the debt limit.WASHINGTON — The United States faces a default sometime this summer or early fall if Congress does not raise or suspend the debt ceiling, a Washington think tank warned on Wednesday.The projection from the Bipartisan Policy Center is the latest estimate of when the government could run out of cash to pay its bills. The nation, which borrows huge sums to help pay for everything from military salaries to Social Security benefits, hit its $31.4 trillion borrowing cap on Jan. 19. Since then, the Treasury Department has been employing what are known as extraordinary measures to ensure that the government has enough to pay what it owes, including payments to bondholders.“We anticipate that those emergency measures, as well as the cash that Treasury has on hand, will most likely be exhausted at some point during the summer or early fall,” Shai Akabas, the center’s director of economic policy, said during a briefing on Wednesday morning.Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the department’s ability to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt could be exhausted between July and September. That estimate was slightly more favorable than what Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen suggested when she told Congress last month that her department’s ability to keep financing the country’s obligations could be exhausted in June.The day when the United States runs out of cash — known as the X date — depends largely on how much the Treasury Department collects in 2022 tax revenue, the Bipartisan Policy Center said. The group warned that moment could be “too close for comfort” given the vagaries around tax receipts.“There is a possibility that the cash balance in early to mid-June will be so low that it will necessitate action,” Mr. Akabas said. He added that given “the considerable uncertainty in our nation’s current economic outlook,” it was impossible to know for certain when the X date might happen.“Policymakers have an opportunity now to inject certainty into the U.S. and global economy by beginning, in earnest, bipartisan negotiations around our nation’s fiscal health and taking action to uphold the full faith and credit of the United States well before the X date,” he said.Ms. Yellen’s extraordinary measures to keep the government running have included redeeming some existing investments and suspending new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. Once those measures are exhausted, the United States will need to borrow more money or face default. She has urged Congress to raise or suspend the debt limit.It remains unclear how quick or easy it would be to do that. Republican lawmakers have insisted that President Biden agree to undefined spending cuts to win their votes to raise the cap, arguing that the borrowing binge is putting the United States on a path to fiscal disaster. Mr. Biden has insisted that he will not negotiate spending cuts as part of any debt limit legislation, saying that the cap has to be raised to fund obligations that Congress — including Republicans — have already approved. More

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    U.S. Could Default on Its Debt Between July and September, C.B.O. Says

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    The nonpartisan budget office also said that if tax receipts fall short of projections, and Congress fails to act on the debt limit, the U.S. could run out of cash before July.WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department’s ability to continue paying its bills and prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt could be exhausted sometime between July and September if Congress does not raise or suspend the cap on how much the nation can borrow, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.The estimate suggests that lawmakers could have slightly more leeway than Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen estimated last month, when she told Congress that her department’s ability to keep financing America’s obligations could be exhausted in June.The United States borrows huge sums of money by selling Treasury securities to investors across the globe. That funding helps pay for military salaries, retiree benefits and interest payments to bondholders who own U.S. debt. The nation hit its statutory $31.4 trillion borrowing cap last month, forcing the Treasury Department to employ a series of accounting maneuvers to help ensure the government can continue paying its bills without breaching the debt limit.“If the debt limit is not raised or suspended before the extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government would be unable to pay its obligations,” the C.B.O. said in the report on Wednesday. “As a result, the government would have to delay making payments for some activities, default on its debt obligations or both.”However, the budget office noted that the timing of the so-called X-date is uncertain because it depends on how much tax revenue comes into the federal government over the coming months. The office said that if receipts fall short of its estimates, the Treasury could run out of funds before July.Ms. Yellen has been employing extraordinary measures since January to keep the government running. Those have included redeeming some existing investments and suspending new investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.In a speech on Tuesday, Ms. Yellen warned that a default would be catastrophic.“In my assessment — and that of economists across the board — a default on our debt would produce an economic and financial catastrophe,” Ms. Yellen said at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. “Household payments on mortgages, auto loans and credit cards would rise, and American businesses would see credit markets deteriorate.”Calling on Congress to act, she added: “This economic catastrophe is preventable.”It remains unclear how quick or easy it will be to raise or suspend the debt cap. Republican lawmakers have insisted that President Biden agree to undefined spending cuts in order to win their vote to raise the cap. Mr. Biden has insisted he will not negotiate spending cuts as part of any debt limit legislation, arguing that the cap has to be raised to fund obligations that Congress — including Republicans — already approved.A separate C.B.O. report out on Wednesday showing the federal government will add $19 trillion in debt over the next decade and run $2 trillion annual deficits is likely to inflame those tensions.In a tweet on Wednesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy once again called for pairing discussions about spending cuts to raising the borrowing cap. More

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    Biden and McCarthy Are Set to Discuss Debt Limit as Both Sides Trade Barbs

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    The hours leading up to the meeting have highlighted the differences between the White House and the Republicans who now control the House.WASHINGTON — President Biden will meet with Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the White House on Wednesday afternoon for a discussion that carries high stakes: the need to raise the nation’s borrowing limit in order to avoid a financial crisis.The meeting will be the first between the two leaders since Republicans assumed control of the House and conveyed the speaker title on Mr. McCarthy after a protracted fight.Republicans have refused to raise the statutory debt limit unless Mr. Biden accepts deep cuts in federal spending. The president has said repeatedly that he expects Congress to raise the borrowing cap with no strings attached — and that he will not negotiate conditions for an increase.Wednesday’s meeting will take place behind closed doors, but the hours leading up to it have highlighted the differences between the White House and the Republicans who now control the House. On Tuesday, Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy blamed each other for the impasse in raising the debt ceiling. The president called the speaker a “decent man” who had caved to extremists in his party to take power.He made “commitments that are just absolutely off the wall for a speaker of the House to make,” Mr. Biden told reporters on Tuesday.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More

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    Biden Demands Details on Budget Cuts From McCarthy

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    Ahead of a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, administration officials demanded that Republicans commit to avoiding a default on federal debt.WASHINGTON — President Biden will ask Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, on Wednesday for details on what budget cuts his party is demanding in order to raise the federal debt limit and for assurances that Mr. McCarthy will not accept an economically debilitating government default, White House officials said.The demands, outlined in a memo that the White House released on Tuesday, are an attempt by Mr. Biden to force Republicans to engage in a debate over taxes, spending and debt on terms that are more favorable to the president than to newly empowered conservatives on Capitol Hill.Mr. Biden is seeking to force Mr. McCarthy to specify which programs he would cut — a list that most likely includes some spending that is popular with the public — and to calculate how much Republicans would add to the debt with additional tax cuts.In the memo, Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the president would release his annual budget on March 9 and asked when Mr. McCarthy would do the same.“It is essential that Speaker McCarthy likewise commit to releasing a budget, so that the American people can see how House Republicans plan to reduce the deficit — whether through Social Security cuts; cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act health coverage; and/or cuts to research, education and public safety — as well as how much their budget will add to the deficit with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations,” Ms. Young and Mr. Deese wrote.Understand the U.S. Debt CeilingCard 1 of 5What is the debt ceiling? More