12/01/2017: What happens when you pump gas into a healthy economy?
Dec 1, 2017

12/01/2017: What happens when you pump gas into a healthy economy?

HTML EMBED:
COPY

You risk overheating it. If these cuts pass, and if they do, in fact, stimulate the already-growing economy, the Fed would inevitably have to pump the brakes and raise interest rates. We get into that scenario and hear listeners' ideas about what America would look like with this tax bill in place. Plus, who the Children's Health Insurance Program left stranded when Congress failed to extend its funding, a dispatch from coal country and the tale of how Charles Dickens wrote his hit Christmas story and ended up with almost no money.

Segments From this episode

There's no giving up on coal in Greene County, Pennsylvania

Dec 1, 2017
While there's plenty of money for free job training in health care and trucking, local workers pack coal classes instead.
Students sit in a miner training class at a career center in Greene County, Pennsylvania.
Erika Beras/Marketplace

Is this the right time for a tax cut?

Dec 1, 2017
The GOP tax cuts may add about 0.8 percent to GDP growth during the next 10 years, according to several budget models. But that’s economic growth for an economy that’s already heating up. And you know who you call when the economy gets too hot? The Federal Reserve. It’s the Fed’s job to come in […]

States warning families they may lose CHIP medical coverage

Dec 1, 2017
Funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program ran out at the end of September, meaning millions of kids and pregnant women won’t have coverage in the new year. There are bills in Congress that would fund the program, but nobody can agree where to get to money to do it. The $15 billion program funnels […]

Don’t forget ... a federal government shutdown looms

Dec 1, 2017
Some groups use their leverage on the Hill to avert a closure.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Circa 1954, English novelist and magazine columnist Monica Dickens reads to her children from "A Christmas Carol" by her grandfather Charles Dickens.  
Photo by Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images

The GOP's tax reform bill could pass the Senate tonight

Dec 1, 2017
What could final legislation look like?
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, walks from the Senate chamber to his office today at the Capitol.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

You risk overheating it. If these cuts pass, and if they do, in fact, stimulate the already-growing economy, the Fed would inevitably have to pump the brakes and raise interest rates. We get into that scenario and hear listeners’ ideas about what America would look like with this tax bill in place. Plus, who the Children’s Health Insurance Program left stranded when Congress failed to extend its funding, a dispatch from coal country and the tale of how Charles Dickens wrote his hit Christmas story and ended up with almost no money.

Music from the episode

Drop It Like It's Hot Snoop Dogg, Pharrell Williams