Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has announced the U.S. debt ceiling is likely to be reached mid-January, while Joe Biden is still in office.  President Trump tells congress to deal with the issue now.

First, here’s Secretary Yellen:

WASHINGTON, Dec 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department may need to take “extraordinary measures” by as early as Jan. 14 to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debt, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers in a letter on Friday.

Yellen urged lawmakers in the U.S. Congress to act “to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

U.S. debt is expected to decrease by about $54 billion on Jan. 2 “due to a scheduled redemption of nonmarketable securities held by a federal trust fund associated with Medicare payments,” she added.

She said: “Treasury currently expects to reach the new limit between January 14 and January 23, at which time it will be necessary for Treasury to start taking extraordinary measures.”

Under a 2023 budget deal, Congress suspended the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025. The U.S. Treasury will be able to pay its bills for several more months, but Congress will have to address the issue at some point next year. (more)

The Biden spending is already baked into the proverbial cake. Congress will have to raise the debt ceiling limit and President Trump is urging them to do it now, before he takes office.

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Many people, perhaps even I at times, debate the granular aspects of President Trump’s administrative agenda. However, there is one component of President Donald J Trump that can never be debated, he is the most consequential U.S President in the past century.

There is not a single intellectually honest person who would doubt the intent and focus of Donald Trump to protect and defend the vital interests of our nation. President Trump’s perspective on the biggest of big pictures can never be denied. He has our total support.

President Trump is directing focus toward the U.S. vital national interest in the Panama Canal with a direct and brutally honest message to the government of the nation who benefitted from the most significant engineering accomplishment in all of the Americas.

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In a set of messages from his Truth Social account, directed toward the government of Panama, President Trump is placing a strong marker to say the control of the Panama Canal will never be allowed to fall into the hands of those who do not have our best interests in mind.

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For those who walk the deep weeds of internecine politics, we notice there is an influential component of the Sea Island group still at work within the GOP.

The same Republican “conservatives” who voted to suspend the debt ceiling issue for Joe Biden (Chip Roy, Thomas Massie, Nancy Mace et al), refused to stop the issue of the debt ceiling from surfacing during the Donald Trump administration.

At a certain point we must accept there are elements within the republican apparatus who intend to disrupt President Trump even though they present a false face.

The short-term spending bill has punted the issues of government funding into March 2025. The package passed 366-34, with the support of 196 Democrats and 170 Republicans.

The good news is that most of the hidden non-spending aspects were removed in the much shorter CR extension. The provisions which shielded the administrative state, approximately 1,000 pages of self-interested regulation, were removed. However, the debt ceiling conflict will rise again and could potentially present a problem because they will be attached to future legislative negotiations on Trump policy.

The House “Freedom Caucus” is essentially the voice and mechanism for the Sea Island group to disrupt MAGA plans and President Trump’s economic priorities. The Debt Ceiling is their legislative weapon, a false front technical issue to hide the Freedom Caucus intent. They justify standing against Trump by saying “fiscal conservatism”; but in reality, their history shows their vitriol only extends outwardly when Trump is in office.

The Sea Island multinational and banking group (traditional GOP control elements) are the financial backers of these anti-Trump schemes. The origin of their corporate opposition comes from the way they make money, which is not in alignment with the policy of President Trump.

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If the government “shuts down” but nobody notices, is it really a shutdown?

After a group of 38 republicans aligned with almost all democrats in the house, the effort to raise the debt ceiling and fund government failed.

Unbeknownst to most, the debt ceiling was suspended in Jun of 2023. As a result, Joe Biden and congress could spend on Ukraine without worry about the debt ceiling being a hurdle. The UniParty suspended the debt ceiling with a purpose.

Starting Jan 1st, 2025, the debt ceiling issue is scheduled to return. National debt will be whatever it was when the debt ceiling was suspended plus whatever spending Biden and the UniParty did since June of 2023. A new debt ceiling is estimated to be hit by June of 2025 or earlier.

President Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson -using the CR as a vehicle- to push the restart of the debt ceiling back for 2 years. This would allow for continuance of the tax cuts that President Trump wants to make; plus, economic drivers like no tax on tips, no tax on social security, no tax on overtime, a 15% tax bracket for companies who build, invest and manufacture in the USA.  Expanding the economy is the goal.

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Simultaneous to Washington DC debating how to fund government with an undertext of self-preservation and defense against Donald Trump’s arrival, we see a flock of tech CEOs rushing to talk to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

The latest arrival to the southern White House is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (AWS), who hedged his bets too long and was late in supporting President Trump before the election.  This has put Bezos in a position of riding his bicycle in slow circles at the end of the driveway while Musk (xAI), Ellison (Oracle) and Thiel (Palantir) have full access ‘insider’ passes along with their ally Vice-President Elect JD Vance.

NEW YORK POST – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was seen sauntering into Mar-a-Lago late Wednesday night to have dinner with President-elect Donald Trump.  Bezos walked in with his fiancée Lauren Sanchez for their first dinner with Trump since the soon-to-be 47th president won re-election.  Trump had said last week that Bezos would visit him at his Florida mansion.

The billionaire is just one of the tech executives hoping to get in Trump’s good graces before inauguration. Bezos had informed Trump’s team that he would donate $1 million to his inaugural fund, according to the Wall Street Journal.  (read more)

Apple CEO Tim Cook and META CEO Mark Zuckerberg were previous guests at Mar-a-Lago for tech meetings before Bezos.  Heck, all that’s needed now is for Bill Gates to show up and a wormhole revealing a parallel universe is likely to open.   However, all kidding aside, what we are witnessing is something extraordinarily unique, a timeline and confluence of events with great consequence.

♦ It’s all about money.

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As noted yesterday, President Trump has announced his full support for the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) trade union position in defense of their members. [SEE HERE]

Today, ILA Executive Vice-President Dennis Daggett releases a statement following his meeting with President Donald Trump.

To many people this confrontation over foreign ownership of critical port infrastructure seems detached and complicated when contrast against efficiency, lower prices for transportation and, essentially, a vital national interest. However, in the bigger picture President Trump has been consistent with a position that U.S. companies and labor organizations must look out for American interests first and foremost.

The chase for price, cost and Total Cost of Production (TCP) has led to our nation losing jobs, losing wealth, losing manufacturing capability and ultimately losing control over our own vital interests. The prior chase for less costly goods was a road paved with intentions that ultimately created negative outcomes for the American people (ex. The Rustbelt).

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President Trump pokes Jim Cramer a little bit in the middle of this interview as questions are asked about predictable investments and the stock market.   After signing the guest registry at the NYSE, CNBC pundit Jim Cramer gets the opportunity to interview President Trump about the economic and banking policy to be expected in the second term.

Those who follow the specific outcomes of MAGAnomic policy are very optimistic about the future.  The economic forecast for stockholders, banks and even cryptocurrency balance sheets are going to be very strong for the next several years.  It is only through an intense growth period that the USA can expand the economy enough to begin reducing the deficit and getting out of the debt spiral.  WATCH: 

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Nice to see JD Vance in the picture.  If MAGAnomics is going to survive as policy beyond Trump, it is going to take JD Vance to believe in it and reject all the other voices in his ear.   Donald J Trump investing time, a lot of time, in JD Vance is an investment in our future.

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With an introduction from NYSE owner Jeffrey Sprecher, husband of Kelly Loeffler, President Trump gives remarks at the New York Stock Exchange prior to the opening bell. President-elect Trump, surrounded by his family and his proposed Cabinet, was speaking after being named TIME’s “Person of the Year.” WATCH:

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I have been waiting for someone to outline what the Dept of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is all about.  Unfortunately, perhaps due to the history of the matter, it appears few understand. So, with that in mind, and accepting the operators of DOGE may not have a fulsome comprehension of the dynamic, here is what it means.

The last Federal Budget that passed through “regular order” was for Fiscal Year 2008, signed by President George W Bush in September of 2007.  Every budget since has been outside regular order; a series of continuing resolutions, omnibus spending packages and short-term funding mechanisms.  {CITATION}

That is correct.  In the past 17 years, all federal spending has been ‘short-term’ or ‘stop-gap’ spending measures, generally known as “Continuing Resolutions,” where the govt (House and Senate) continue to perpetually resolve to fund the government.  The CRs as they are known, punt the spending debate by accepting a baseline of prior spending and tweaking around the edges.

The key takeaway to begin thinking about DOGE is to understand that REGULAR ORDER has not been used since Fiscal Year 2008.

Title III of the Congressional Budget Act outlines a legal timeline that each President and Congress must follow {SEE HERE}.  Prior to 2007, Continuing Resolutions were only used to resolve short term arguments about spending priorities.

♦ BACKGROUND – The President is required by law to submit his budget by the first Monday in February.  Yes, even when an election takes place and a President doesn’t assume office until January 20th, the first Monday in February is still the legal requirement for the new White House budget proposal.

The Presidents’ budget is then submitted to The House of Representatives, where two weeks later the Congressional Budget Office, reviews the budget and issues an opinion as to the cost of the budget.   No later than six weeks after the President submits his budget all House committees send the House Appropriations Committee their spending proposals [April 15].

Through May and June, each budgetary appropriations bill from the House is sent to the Senate.  The Senate receives the House appropriations bills, then reviews through the Senate Appropriations Committee (Thune just picked Susan Collins as Chair).  The Senate proposes their spending priorities based on the House bill because the House has constitutional authority to originate all spending [June 15].  The House and Senate budgets are “reconciled” using parliamentary procedures [June 30] and then sent to the President for signature.

The fiscal year begins October 1st.

That’s the regular order process.

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Eh, I’m not going to dwell on it.  Kelly is paying for the inauguration, and hubs Jeff is likely selling Bakkt to Nunes, so whatever.  But there is a remarkable irony with billionaire Kelly Loeffler, wife of NYSE owning billionaire Jeffrey Sprecher, being nominated for Administrator of the Small Business administration.

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I’m sure she will do fine.  If her presence on the sidelines helps the team, then cool.

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