Latest news with #Rattner
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Economic analyst sounds the alarm over politician's 'perplexing' national emergency declaration: 'Why do so many people ignore the facts?'
In response to President Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency, economic analyst Steve Rattner shared that the hard facts contradict the story of the country's energy landscape. In a shortened TikTok clip of Steve Rattner's Morning Joe show with MSNBC News (@msnbc), Rattner described how odd it was that Trump had declared a national energy emergency. "It's really perplexing as to why he … called for a national energy emergency given that we are actually producing oil and gas at record amounts," Rattner explained as he pointed to the graph behind him. According to the national energy emergency declaration — posted on the official White House website — the threat to the American people is "high energy prices," which is "exacerbated by our Nation's diminished capacity to insulate itself from hostile foreign actors." The declaration identifies the existence of hostile state and non-state foreign actors that have "targeted our domestic energy infrastructure, weaponized our reliance on foreign energy, and abused their ability to cause dramatic swings within international commodity markets." Essentially, President Trump is seeking energy independence to make the country more immune to foreign energy price volatility. He plans to expand domestic oil and gas exploration ("drill, baby, drill") to support these goals. With the power of this emergency resolution, the administration can skirt environmental and legal regulations, including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, to encourage more drilling for oil and gas. However, as Rattner explained, the country is already producing a record high of oil and gas. On top of that, the United States is experiencing significant and steady increases in renewable energy production, with solar energy and battery storage capacities in 2024 easily surpassing 2023 numbers. The country is not experiencing a shortage of energy production. Quite the contrary — the U.S. has become an annual net total energy exporter since 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That means that the country exports more energy than we import, which contradicts the basis of President Trump's national energy emergency and the need to drill for more oil and gas. Do you think the federal government should give us tax breaks to improve our homes? Definitely Only for certain upgrades Let each state decide instead No way Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "The Inflation Reduction Act, limits on tailpipe emissions, the emphasis on renewable energy had put us on an extraordinary path down," on energy emission targets, Rattner said. Trump's national energy emergency plans will have the opposite effect. "Instead of helping the world's climate problem, we go back to hurting it." "Facts matter. Why do so many people ignore the facts?" one commenter asked. Another commenter joked: "He declared emergency in advance of the emergency he's going to be creating." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Morning Joe' Fact Checks Trump's Congressional Address: ‘Can't Happen. Won't Happen'
Economic analyst Steve Rattner stopped by MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' to fact check President Trump's joint address to congress, and was quick to say it was all 'an empty promise.' 'Morning Joe' spent a good portion of their Thursday episode breaking down Trump's first joint address to Congress of his second term. Rattner used hard data to break down each of Trump's promises including tax cuts, DOGE cuts and his attempts to balance the federal budget. To start, the show cut to a clip from the address where the president talked about upcoming tax cuts. 'We're seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board and to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation,' Trump said during his Tuesday address. 'I'm calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security benefits for our great seniors. And I also want to make interest payments on cars tax deductible, but only if the car is made in America.' Rattner quickly said with the House Republicans' budget proposal that it was nothing short of impossible. 'Yeah, look, Trump hands out tax cuts like they were Halloween candy, but then at some point you got to deal with the reality of what that all adds up to,' the MSNBC analyst said. 'These are billions and billions of dollars of tax cuts. Simply extending his existing tax cuts, the ones he passed in 2017 … would cost over $4.5 trillion.' 'The House Budget Committee has only allocated $4.5 trillion for all the tax cuts,' Rattner continued. 'How the rest of this happens, including a full deduction of the state and local taxes, is impossible. This is almost $8 trillion worth of tax cuts. So, this is an empty promise. Can't happen. Won't happen.' 'Morning Joe' then played another clip from the address where Trump talked about how 'in the near future' he wants to balance the federal budget. 'First term, he planned not only to balance the budget, but to pay off all the national debt. That did not work out so well. He added a ton of national debt,' Rattner said of the president's assertions. 'We are looking at deficits a bit below $2 trillion going all the way up to $3 trillion over the next ten years. The budget, the plan that I just described, would add another two and half roughly trillion of dollars of debt. So instead of balancing the budget and paying down the debt, he is creating more deficits, all these deficits adding $22.5 trillion to the debt.' The MSNBC show then moved onto Trump addressing the tariffs. Trump has spent much of the first few weeks of his term promising to impose a 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico. The move has been pushed forward and stalled several times as both countries have promised retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. 'Morning Joe' looked specifically at Trump's promises to the automotive and farming industries. The stock market has taken a big hit since the announcement of the impending tariffs, with prices of Ford and General Motors going 'off a cliff.' Ford is down 10% and GM is down 7.5% respectively. Trump asserted in his address that all of the automakers were very happy. However, Ford CEO Jim Farley said at an investor conference last month that the tariffs would 'blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen.' Rattner echoed the sentiment and said that the stock prices and continued backlash from auto experts clearly show that the move will lead to major turmoil for the car industry and Americans alike. The president also addressed U.S. farmers and said the new trade policy will help them since they will 'now be selling into our home market.' Farmers already sell into the home market but will likely now be faced by tariffs on exported goods. Rattner used an example from Trump's first term about how the tariffs that were imposed affected farmers so badly that the government had to compensate them $24.5 billion for their lost exports. 'I don't really see how this is great for American farmers,' Rattner said as he broke down Trump's second-term plan. 'How this sort of allows them to 'sell things at home' when we are already selling everything we can at home and sending the rest of it overseas as one of our major exports.' Rattner also dissected Trump's view on the aid the U.S. has given to Ukraine. During his address, the president said the government has spent 'perhaps $350 billion' on aid and that it was 'like taking candy from a baby.' The U.S. as of Wednesday paused intel sharing with Ukraine which has immediately led to increased bombardment from Russian forces. 'He's used those figures over and over and over again,' Rattner lamented. 'He's been corrected by me and 100 other people … and still he keeps using it. So, we'll try one more time. Maybe he's watching. Maybe someone will finally get him to say what is actually true.' 'He claims $350 billion spent by the U.S. in Ukraine. The real number is $120 billion,' the economic analyst continued. 'Europe is at $138 billion more than us, not $100 billion as he claimed. And by the way, Europe at the moment is putting together a massive amount of additional aid … We are cutting back on what we are doing for the Ukrainians.' Lastly, 'Morning Joe' wrapped up its Thursday segment by looking at the supposed DOGE budget findings. For weeks, Trump and Elon Musk have been gutting federal agencies and have been touting major savings in the process, though the move has sparked major backlash from workers, the Democrats and federal judges who continue to question the legality of the process. The controversial topic was another big point in his joint address. Rattner said 'when you actually add up everything DOGE has claimed and also the DOGE reality you get a very different picture.' The MSNBC analyst added that suspiciously a bunch of numbers have just disappeared from their website. He said now, all that DOGE is claiming is that $2.3 billion has been saved by cutting contracts of workers that have been terminated in the mass firings. Rattner reiterated that Trump flat out lied about finding hundreds of billions in wasteful spending. 'Just like the tiniest little fraction of what Trump claims they have found.' You can watch the full 'Morning Joe' segment in the clip above. The post 'Morning Joe' Fact Checks Trump's Congressional Address: 'Can't Happen. Won't Happen' appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Morning Joe' Fact Checks Trump's ‘Mind-Numbing' DOGE Claims
'Morning Joe' pored over DOGE's latest 'mind-numbing' math that had data analyst Steven Rattner scratching his head over $3.7 billion in missing cash. The panel were reacting to claims made by President Donald Trump during his Tuesday address to Congress that DOGE had identified 'hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud,' as Elon Musk nodded his head in the crowd and the audience erupted in applause. Co-host Jonathan Lemire then set Rattner loose on the numbers Thursday morning, asking: 'All right, Steve, has DOGE found anywhere near as much fraud as Trump claims?' Rattner, a qualified economist, was unequivocal in his response. 'Well, it was kind of mind-numbing the other night to listen to Trump list those programs one by one by one that he's found and make fun of them and so forth,' he said. He added that they 'were only in the millions of dollars.' Rattner continued: 'And when you actually add up everything DOGE has claimed and also the DOGE reality, you get a very different picture.' He turned to his graph, that showed that despite an initial boast of the discovery of $8.5 billion in so-called fraud on Feb. 17, the total now stands at just $2.3 billion from contracts that have been terminated and $2.5 billion in contracts that are in the process of being annulled. Rattner pointed out that this amounts to just $4.8 billion of total 'fraud,' not $8.5 billion and certainly not the 'hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud' touted by Trump in his address Tuesday. Concerning the discrepancy, Rattner said 'a bunch of that stuff just disappeared from their website.' '[It's] less than what they said at the beginning. And obviously, just like the tiniest little fraction of what Trump claims they have found,' he concluded. DOGE has played fast and loose with math in the past. Just last Sunday, the body claimed to have saved U.S. taxpayers an 'estimated' $105 billion—yet, its own website tallied a much smaller number: $19 billion. This left $86 billion unaccounted for. Last month, the department claimed to have recouped $8 billion in savings by nixing a DEI contract actually worth just $8 million.
