Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
-Lyndon B Johnson
TAKING PRECEDENTS : In what may be a sign of things to come, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee agreed to a change in the Committee’s standing rule, which normally requires one member of each party to be in attendance for votes to take place. Without any Democrats present, Finance Committee Republicans proceeded to advance Treasury Secretary-designate Steve Mnuchin and HHS Secretary-designate Tom Price to a full floor vote. Secretary of Education-designate Betsy DeVos does not have quite the same support as Mnuchin and Price as Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will vote against her - leaving the current vote count at 50/50 which could make her the first Cabinet nominee in history that needs the Veep to break the tie.
I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP..: Now that the SCOTUS process is proceeding full steam ahead, President Trump and his team feel as if they may have a little wiggle room as seven Democratic Senators have said they won’t filibuster SCOTUS nominees. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (IL) is joined by Richard Blumenthal (CT), Chris Coons (DE), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO) and Jon Tester (MT). Republicans need eight Dems to support the nominee and of these seven, four represent states Trump won fairly handily in 2016.
EXERTING INFLUENCE: Republicans who are trying to overturn the Chevron Doctrine just made an important friend in a high place with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. Gorsuch is a strong opponent of the doctrine that allows executive agencies to exert massive influence over the rulemaking process. Speaker Ryan has made it a priority of the 115th Congress and if Chevron gets overturned, his legislative branch will be the beneficiary of considerably more power.
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: During their meeting last week President Trump and British PM May made a bilateral trade agreement a key agenda item. To get the trade deal done though may take a while - the U.K. cannot start negotiating deals until it has exited the European Union which will take at least two years once the break starts in March. There are also a number of hot button topics that will have to be worked around - particularly food safety rules and investor-state settlement disputes - and some Brits even feel these issues could lead to a breakdown of government healthcare.
THE FED IS BEHIND THE CURVE: Yellen & Co. missed an obvious opportunity to raise interest rates at yesterday’s Fed meeting, writes Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough. The U.S. economy is back. After U.S. manufacturing spent nearly two years in recession, the ISM Manufacturing survey hit a 27-month high yesterday. U.S. GDP came in at 1.9% (year-over-year growth) in Q4, up from 1.7% in Q3. On inflation, the Consumer Price Index finally ended a 30-month streak below the Fed's 2% inflation target. To make matters worse, our proprietary leading indicator suggests year-over-year inflation to hit 3, even 4% in the first quarter of 2017. That would definitely get the Fed’s attention. They are officially behind the curve now, McCullough writes. We may need 4-6 rate hikes with inflation data like this.
FCC ON NET NEUTRALITY: NEVERMIND: Our Senior Media & Telecom Analyst writes The FCC could advise federal courts it's dropping support for common carrier regulation of broadband, a boost for cable ops and telcos. You can find the full piece here.
