TIME (ET) REPORT PERIOD ACTUAL MEDIAN
FORECAST
PREVIOUS
MONDAY, MAY 20
8:30 am Chicago Fed national activity index April -0.45 0.05
8:50 am Raphael Bostic interview
9:30 am Patrick Harker speaks
1:05 pm Richard Clarida speaks
7 pm Jerome Powell speaks
TUESDAY, MAY 21
7:50am Raphael Bostic speaks
10 am Existing home sales April 5.35mln 5.21 mln
10:45am Charles Evans speaks
12:10pm Eric Rosengren speaks
11 pm James Bullard speaks
WEDNESDAY, MAY 22
10:10am Raphael Bostic speaks
2 pm FOMC minutes
THURSDAY, MAY 23
8:30 am Weekly jobless claims 5/18 217,000 212,000
9:45 am Markit manufacturing PMI (flash) May 52.6
9:45 am Markit services PMI (flash) May 53.0
10 am New home sales April 670,000 692,000
1 pm Rob Kaplan, Tom Barkin,
Mary Daly speak
FRIDAY, MAY 24
8:30 am Durable goods orders April -2.3% 2.6%
8:30 am Core capital goods orders April -0.3% 1.4%
TIME (ET) REPORT PERIOD ACTUAL FORECAST PREVIOUS
MONDAY, MAY 13
11 am Survey of consumer expectations April
TUESDAY, MAY 14
6 am NFIB small-business index April 101.8
8:30 am Import price index April 0.6%
WEDNESDAY, MAY 15
8:30 am Retail sales April 0.2% 1.6%
8:30 am Retail sales ex-autos April 0.7% 1.2%
8:30 am Empire state index May 10.1
9:15 am Industrial production April -0.1% -0.1%
9.15 am Capacity utilization April 78.6% 78.8%
10 am Business inventories March 0.3%
10 am NAHB home builders’ index May 63
THURSDAY, MAY 16
8:30 am Weekly jobless claims 5/11 215,000 228,000
8:30 am Housing starts April 1.205mln 1.139mln
8:30 am Building permits April 1.296mln 1.288mln
8:30 am Philly Fed manufacturing index May 10.1 8.5
FRIDAY, MAY 17
10 am Consumer sentiment index May 97.0 97.2

No, it hasn’t:

Tax Policy Center argues federal revenue declined.

Other skeptics cite surging government deficits and debt.

The brief economic spurt in 2018 was evidence of the law’s failure to help long-term growth.

Yes, it has:

None of the above arguments concludes whether the tax cut was worth its cost.

Comparing expected growth in gross domestic product with growth in publicly held federal debt — before and after the tax cut — is a better measure, according to Edward Conard, an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar and former Bain Capital partner, writing in The Wall Street Journal. His comparison includes the long-term effect of tax reform on the economy and the federal budget.

The Congressional Budget Office last week published a 10-year forecast.

Unlike a pre-reform projection, the CBO now expects annual GDP that’s $750 billion higher by 2027, the last year of its prior forecast.

“A strong case can be made that tax reform played a predominant role in accelerating GDP growth. While most large economies stagnated last year, a sharp rise in business investment in the U.S. helped drive the economy forward,” Conard writes. “On the other side of the ledger, the CBO predicts the tax cuts will add $1.9 trillion of additional debt in the coming decade, and that the government will pay about $60 billion more in interest each year as a result. So the bottom line says an extra $60 billion a year buys the U.S. $750 billion in annual GDP. That’s a great deal for taxpayers.”

The government may collect more than $120 billion a year in taxes from that extra $750 billion of GDP, more than enough to cover additional interest payments.

Tax reform increases real, inflation-adjusted GDP by $300 billion to $450 billion a year in the coming decade compared with the CBO’s 2017 projection.
The higher GDP is much bigger than the debt the government borrowed to pay for the tax cuts (assuming a real growth rate of 1.8 percent and a real long-term U.S. government interest rate of about 1.2 percent).