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Opinion

Democratic President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, left, and a supporter of Bernie Sanders, right, at the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia. (Photos: AP)

Democratic President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, left, and a supporter of Bernie Sanders, right, at the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia. (Photos: AP)

The hard left can be an unforgiving crowd, not always mindful of the give-and-take required to get things done. Donald Trump’s fascist-lite ravings are anathema to them, but with moderate Republicans migrating to Hillary Clinton, some on the left worry that a President Clinton might feel less obliged to push a vigorous liberal program.

Or perhaps not. The political media thrives on a boiling pot. Clinton’s widening lead in the polls drains some drama from the big story. The political punditry needs to drum up conflict, so why not revisit the alleged schism between Clinton and archliberals? The result is a largely fictional trend resting on a cherry-picked quote or two, but there you have it.

If the alliance between Clinton and moderate conservatives means finding common ground with reasonable Republicans, that would be a positive development, would it not? It would be a throwback to the era when the two parties made war but also made legislation.

Some of our friends on the right are saying, “Don’t get your hopes up too high. This support for Clinton is a one-time deal.” Once we bury the candidacy of the appalling Trump, it’s back to the races.

That’s one possibility. Another is that Trump spreads his collapse down the ballot and a party (Republican or a new one) emerges from the rubble creating a right-of-center coalition able to work with the left-of-center one.

It’s hard to imagine sophisticated liberals doubting Clinton’s devotion to the cause after her recent speech on economic policy. Unless it’s been forgotten. (Clinton gave it a whole week ago.)

So let’s refresh memories. Clinton called for raising taxes on the rich and adding new taxes on high-frequency traders and companies moving overseas. She would gradually raise the federal minimum wage from today’s paltry $7.25 an hour to $12 an hour.

Clinton would also hike spending on roads, airports and other infrastructure — and on green energy — by nearly $300 billion, creating some 7 million jobs. She’d make state and community colleges tuition-free for middle-class families.

These are core progressive proposals, some inspired or pushed along by Bernie Sanders’ campaign. The Democratic Party platform, meanwhile, is being called the most progressive in history.

So what would liberals complain about? It can’t be that she welcomes the support of officials from the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations. The “we can’t shake hands with the other party” is vulgar tea party militarism. (The Trump team would be doing backflips if prominent Democrats were defecting to its side.)
We get it. Some liberals would prefer that the race center more on their good proposals and less on what’s so horrifying about Trump.

That could explain why Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee framed Clinton’s desire to do big-tent politics as a “double-edged sword.” Green also noted that revulsion toward Trump could bring more progressives into Washington, and that would be a good thing.

By the way, “moderate” is not a dirty word,” but “mandate” may be becoming one. Some on the right are already saying, in the words of a former Ted Cruz aide, “Clinton is not likely to emerge with a legislative mandate.”

Let us recall that in the election of 2000, George W. won by 537 votes in Florida while losing the popular vote by a half-million. Nonetheless, he claimed a mandate, pushing through deep tax cuts for the rich, among other radical policies.

The mandate is whatever the winner decides it is. And if you want to win the presidency in this highly divided country of ours, two blades are better than one.

The hard left can be an unforgiving

Opinion

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in Warren, Michigan. August 11, 2016. (Photo: AP)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in Warren, Michigan. August 11, 2016. (Photo: AP)

Hillary Clinton recently laid out her plan for the economy, which boils down to more government, more spending, more taxes, more regulations and more red tape. It translates into more debt and less growth. Some of the most outrageous provisions of her plan are those that target U.S. corporations abroad.

To be fair, Clinton’s policies are very similar to those of President Barack Obama. They both want to prevent U.S. companies from leaving the country through a process called inversion. They both also fundamentally misunderstand the reasons behind inversions and try to fix the perceived problem by treating the symptoms rather than the causes.

The reason companies engage in inversions (usually by merging with a foreign firm to pay taxes abroad instead of at home) is obvious to most economists: U.S. companies doing business overseas are put at a terrible disadvantage because of our punishing corporate income tax system. The United States has the highest rate of all the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (35 percent at the top federal level and close to 40 percent when you add state taxes), including all the big welfare states in Europe.

The United States also taxes income on a worldwide basis. This means that a U.S. company operating in Ireland pays the Irish rate first on its Irish income and then will pay the U.S. rate minus the tax paid in Ireland when it brings the income back to the United States. Contrast that with a French competitor doing business in Ireland. The French company pays the low Irish rate of 12.5 percent, period. To cope with the penalty or to try to remain competitive, U.S. companies are either not bringing their income back to the United States (there’s supposedly $2 trillion of earned U.S. income abroad) or performing inversions.

As it happens, there is wide bipartisan support to reform the corporate income tax. But it wouldn’t happen under a President Clinton. Her plan would change a key rule to make it more difficult to invert. Another portion of her plan would limit the deductibility of interest when it is supposedly used as a tool to avoid American taxes. Never mind that it would be up to the government to decide when the use of such a deduction would be appropriate or not.

Another provision is an “exit tax” on companies that relocate outside the United States without first repatriating earnings kept abroad. This one is particularly awful because it amounts to demanding a ransom from companies when they decide that enough is enough and that the survival of their business requires them to effectively change their citizenship.

Interestingly, Clinton may have gotten this authoritarian idea from her husband, who enacted a law in 1996 that imposes an exit tax on people who decide to move abroad and change their citizenship to avoid the same punishing tax system. It’s worth noting that the United States is one of the very few countries taxing individuals on worldwide income.

What’s stunning is that Clinton’s refusal to reform the corporate income tax doesn’t fit well with her claim that she wants to help American workers and that she cares about rejuvenating left-behind communities, such as Detroit. The economic literature shows that workers are shouldering the burden of the corporate income tax.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur note, “Our empirical analysis, which used data we gathered on international tax rates and manufacturing wages in 72 countries over 22 years, confirmed that the corporate tax is for the most part paid by workers.” In a piece appropriately called “The Cure for Wage Stagnation,” they also cite works by the University of Michigan and Harvard University, among others. For instance, they write, “In (a) 2009 paper, (Kansas City Fed economist Alison) Felix and co-author James R. Hines of the University of Michigan discovered that the effects of lower tax rates are especially strong for union workers.”

You would think that Clinton would be more favorable to helping low-income Americans and union workers in particular. If she were, the way to go would be to reform the corporate income tax, not to arbitrarily prohibit companies from moving to where tax laws are less punitive.

Hillary Clinton recently laid out her plan

Politics

As a journalist and writer I have spent a great deal of time in Kiev, Ukraine.

Last fall, I was introduced to Artem Sytnyk, the head of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Mr. Sytnyk is the former chief investigator of the Kiev Oblast. I spent an hour in person with his team as the organization was being organized and was hiring its first 70 detectives.

I found the group to be professional, dedicated, brave and somewhat idealistic. I was invited back at some point in the future to do a follow-up visit that is yet to be scheduled. I also met with the new detective training team in Kiev that is responsible for working with NABU to prosecute officials found to be corrupt.

It is with this background that I read yesterday The New York Times story on Paul Manafort, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign manager, being “named” in a corruption probe in Kiev by Mr. Sytnyk’s office. I contacted several people there, including press secretary Svitlana Olivera, and what I found out was shocking to say the least.

Officials did confirm they are investigating documents provided to them in May of this year which concerned millions of dollars in illegal cash payments made by the regime of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, a Manafort client. These documents were provided to detectives of NABU from a Ukrainian member of parliament who acquired them from a “source.”

Shockingly, the document published by the New York Times, which showed the page of a ledger allegedly detailing black payments, were not part of these original documents provided. The document used by the Times to validate the story was apparently provided to NABU at the same time it was ‘provided’ to the newspaper.

NABU confirmed they could not verify the authenticity of the document published by The New York Times. In other words, it is possible this document was manufactured to support the story.

The bureau is investigating this document, as well.

The timing and the circumstances of this document release is suspect, coming just months before the U.S. president election. With the history of The New York Times in publishing unsubstantiated hit stories against Mr. Trump, this document should be subject to scrutiny and held in suspicion.

The agenda of the paper and its feud with the Trump campaign are well documented.

I am not saying corruption is not rampant in Ukraine, I am saying the evidence supposedly implicating Mr. Manafort is extremely suspect and to date not remotely persuasive.

(Watch L. Todd Wood break this side of the story on Newsmax: around 4:40 seconds in)

(This story first appeared in The Washington Times)

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Documents published by The New York Times,

Politics

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in West Bend, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016. (PHOTO: AP/Gerald Herbert)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in West Bend, Wis., Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016. (PHOTO: AP/Gerald Herbert)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump expanded his “law and order” pitch to black voters at a rally in West Bend, Wisconsin on Tuesday. Mr. Trump, who is attempting to refocus and reshuffle his campaign, made the appeal amid the unrest in Milwaukee, which was sparked on Saturday after a police officer fatally shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith, whom officials say was armed and had an extensive criminal record.

“The violence, riots and destruction that have taken place in Milwaukee is an assault on the right of citizens to live in security and to live in peace,” Mr. Trump said at the rally, held at the Ziegler Building at the Washington County Fair Park & Conference Center in West Bend. “Law and order must be restored. It must be restored for the sake of all but most especially for the sake of those living in the affected communities, of which there are many.”

Asking for “the vote of every single African-American” who is fed up and wants a better future for themselves and their children, the GOP presidential candidate said “law-abiding African-American” are suffering as a result of decades-long Democratic rule in the inner cities. He promised to bring opportunity and reform in education, the economy and policing. Prior to his slide in the polls, Mr. Trump had enjoyed significantly higher support among black voters than previous Republican nominees, particularly in battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

“The main victims of these riots are law-abiding African-American citizens living in these neighborhoods,” he added. “It’s their job, it’s their homes, it’s their schools and communities which will suffer the most as a result. There is no compassion in tolerating lawless conduct for anyone. Crime and violence is an attack on the poor and will never be accepted in a Trump administration.”

Trump slammed the more false than not leftwing media narrative over race relations and policing incidents, which Democrats have rushed to take advantage of in the wake of a series of shootings beginning in Ferguson, Missouri. The refusal to indict Officer Darren Wilson, who was the victim of a false “hands up, don’t shoot” media narrative in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, sparked riots and widespread destruction. It also resulted in less pro-active policing and subsequent increased crime rates in the majority black neighborhood.

“Every time we rush to judgment with false facts and narratives, whether in Ferguson or in Baltimore and foment further unrest, we do a direct disservice to poor African-American residents hurt by the high crime in their community, a big, big unfair problem. During the last 72 hours protesters have raged against the police here in Milwaukee.”

He noted that it’s “a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent shared directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee and many other places within our country. They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America and all throughout America.”

Mr. Trump’s speech came as the campaign has undergone yet another shakeup. Pollster and senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was promoted to campaign manager and Breitbart co-founder Stephen Bannon was named campaign chief executive. Mr. Bannon was once referred to as “the most dangerous man in politics” and Mr. Trump told the Associated Press that Paul Manafort will maintain his current role.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump expanded his

Opinion

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the 2016 Republican vice presidential nominee.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the 2016 Republican vice presidential nominee.

We’ve heard nonstop criticism of both the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates — for good reasons. So are their running mates any better?

Yes.

Trump’s vice presidential pick, Mike Pence, has some good points. He supported a guest worker program. He opposed reckless spending, including Republican bills, like No Child Left Behind, George W. Bush’s Medicare expansion and the Wall Street bailout.

Then he became one of only four governors to get an A rating from the Cato Institute for keeping government spending under control.

As a result, Indiana has a budget surplus and a good credit rating. Of course, that was easier for Pence because the very responsible Mitch Daniels was the previous governor.

On the other hand, Pence is a consistent supporter of bad wars, like the Iraq War and the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi.

He’s also a social conservative who wants to force his beliefs on others.

The Indianapolis Star reported that Pence says he believes in “building a zone around your marriage” for avoiding temptation. That means never attending an event where alcohol is served or dining alone with a woman who is not his wife.

Fine. If he’s worried about temptation, let him impose whatever rule he wants on himself.

But I object when Pence tells others how to live. He says “societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage.” He gives that as a reason for wanting to ban gay marriage, even civil unions. But gay marriage doesn’t threaten heterosexual marriage; it makes marriage a bigger deal.
Pence also opposes legalizing marijuana, even medicinal.

This is not a politician who wants government limited.

Neither is Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine. When he was governor of Virginia, he made it the first southern state to ban smoking in bars.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, left, and Hillary Clinton, right, appear at an event together ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, left, and Hillary Clinton, right, appear at an event together ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

He’s also a typical political opportunist. For most of his career, he supported free trade. He backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement — as did Clinton until she realized that it was unpopular with the economically ignorant majority of her party.

See Kaine’s opportunism in this 2016 chronology:

–July 11: Kaine says, “I see much in the (Trans-Pacific Partnership) draft … that I like.”
–July 12: Kaine reportedly tells Clinton campaign he’d oppose TPP if he is picked to be her VP.
–July 23: Clinton chooses Kaine. Kaine now says he opposes TPP.

But at least Kaine respects the Constitution more than Clinton and Pence. He joined Senators Jeff Flake and Rand Paul in arguing that President Obama should not go to war against ISIS without getting authorization from Congress.

Overall, the major parties’ vice presidential candidates are less scary than than the presidential candidates. But my favorite vice presidential candidate is running on the Libertarian ticket, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld.

When he was a Republican, Weld praised F. A. Hayek and individual freedom. He said, “Democrats’ taxing and spending habits remind me of that old definition of a baby: a huge appetite on one end and no sense of responsibility on the other.”

Weld is not totally libertarian, but he’s a good example of a “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” politician at a time when people seem to be desperate for alternatives to Trump and Clinton.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson says Weld “makes me better.” And from what I could see when I interviewed them, that’s true. They collaborate. When Weld is present, Johnson is clearer and crisper.

Sadly, most Americans don’t pay attention to third parties. They also don’t pay much attention to vice presidents. After all, most don’t do much. One of Franklin Roosevelt’s vice presidents said the job “wasn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.”

But vice presidents sometimes become presidents — 15 percent of them over the course of our history — and 25 percent eventually became presidential nominees.
So vice presidents matter.

I respect Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, but Bill Weld (with Gary Johnson) would be better than either. And, of course, he’d be much better than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

We've heard nonstop criticism of both the

Politics

Political talk show legend John McLaughlin hosts The McLaughlin Group on January 23, 2016 with Eleanor Clift, Mortimer Zuckerman, Tom Rogan and Pat Buchanan.

Political talk show legend John McLaughlin hosts The McLaughlin Group on January 23, 2016 with Eleanor Clift, Mortimer Zuckerman, Tom Rogan and Pat Buchanan.

John McLaughlin, the former jesuit priest who went on to host the weekly political talk show “The McLaughlin Group” for 34 years, died at 89. The show announced on its Facebook page that the talk show legend and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon had passed, though no specific reason was given.

“For 34 years, The McLaughlin Group informed millions of Americans,” the statement read. “Now he has said bye bye for the last time, to rejoin his beloved dog, Oliver, in heaven.”

“The McLaughlin Group” entertained weekly viewers for more than 3 decades by featuring the host moderating a panel of mediates and pundits. Unlike the blatantly bias charade panels that mire modern political talk shows, most of which air on Sunday, Mr. McLaughlin truly pioneered the idea of fair and balanced journalism. Guests were typically two liberals and two conservatives, who often fought and insulted each other with the moderator in the middle of it all.

The show was born in 1982 when he sold his wealthy friend Robert Moore, a former aide in the Nixon White House, on the idea to fund a new form of public affairs television. The pilot featured syndicated columnists Jack Germond and Robert Novak as well as Chuck Stone of the Philadelphia Daily News and Judith Miller of The New York Times. Stone and Miller were quickly replaced by Patrick Buchanan and Morton Kondracke. The early episodes exposed the faux outrage of its critics, who characterized the talk show as barbaric and its host as an insult thrower with no class.

April 28, 2012: John McLaughlin arrives at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

April 28, 2012: John McLaughlin arrives at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

It was great television and even greater political debate because it was honest and raw. In its heyday, it was frequently mocked by Saturday Night Live, with Dana Carvey playing Mr. McLaughlin. He nailed it.

On Sunday, Mr. McLaughlin missed the edition of “The McLaughlin Group,” marking the first time since the syndicated show debuted in April 1982. A note from McLaughlin informed viewers, “I am under the weather … Yet my spirit is strong and my dedication to this show remains absolute!”

John McLaughlin was born on March 29, 1927,and grew up in a working class neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island, where his father was a furniture salesman. He trained for the priesthood at Shadowbrook, a small Jesuit seminary in western Massachusetts, earned master’s degrees in philosophy and English at Boston College and a doctorate in communications at Columbia University.

After his education, he worked as an editor at a Jesuit weekly and lectured on sex. In 1970, he would surprise everyone, including his friends by switching parties to run unsuccessfully as an anti-war Republican against Rhode Island’s hawkish incumbent Democratic U.S. senator. In 1975, he retired his Roman Catholic collar to marry longtime friend and former Labor Secretary Ann Dore. They were married for 16 years. In 1997, at age 70, Mr. McLaughlin married 36-year-old Cristina Vidal, the vice president of his production company. But they divorced in 2010.

[brid playlist=”384″ player=”2077″ title=”McLaughlin Group”]

John McLaughlin, the former jesuit priest who

Economy

ObamaCare, Barack Obama's signature healthcare law overhaul, reflected in graphic image.

ObamaCare, Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law overhaul, represented in graphic image.

Aetna (NYSE:AET), the nation’s third largest insurer, announced Monday night the most significant withdrawal from the marketplaces set up by ObamaCare. In 2014, the company had a market value of $38.4 billion and $58 billion in net sales. Now, citing heavy losses since January of 2014, the chairman and chief executive officer said Aetna will severely reduce its participation from 15 states to just 4 in 2017.

“Following a thorough business review and in light of a second-quarter pretax loss of $200 million and total pretax losses of more than $430 million since January 2014 in our individual products, we have decided to reduce our individual public exchange presence in 2017, which will limit our financial exposure moving forward,” Chairman and CEO Mark T. Bertolini said in a statement. “More than 40 payers of various sizes have similarly chosen to stop selling plans in one or more rating areas in the individual public exchanges over the 2015 and 2016 plan years, collectively exiting hundreds of rating areas in more than 30 states.”

Mr. Bertolini, who characterized the company as “a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured,” said in a statement that there are simply not enough healthy people purchasing the pricey insurance to offset the cost of free insurance to cover the major health problems of the older, sicker and poorer. In essence, one of the biggest advocates chose their bottom line over the utopian public welfare, something Republicans and wonks warned would ultimately happen.

“Providing affordable, high-quality health care options to consumers is not possible without a balanced risk pool. Fifty-five percent of our individual on-exchange membership is new in 2016, and in the second quarter we saw individuals in need of high-cost care represent an even larger share of our on-exchange population,” Mr. Bertolini also said in a statement. “This population dynamic, coupled with the current inadequate risk adjustment mechanism, results in substantial upward pressure on premiums and creates significant sustainability concerns.”

The decision by Aetna follows a series of other announcements by large insurers citing heavy losses from selling their plans in the marketplaces. The nation’s largest insurer UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) also said publicly it has decided to leave the major exchanges nationwide, raising doubts about the financial and political stability of the president’s signature and unpopular health care law. UnitedHealth, with a 2014 market value of $112.7 billion and $130 billion in sales, said it will participate in “three or fewer exchange markets” the year after the presidential election.

“As a strong supporter of public exchanges as a means to meet the needs of the uninsured, we regret having to make this decision,” Mr. Bertolini added. “The vast majority of payers have experienced continued financial stress within their individual public exchange business due to these forces.”

Anthem (NYSE:ANTM) also recently announced it is projecting mid-single digit losses on the individual plans it sells on the exchanges for 2016. Humana said it would also reduce its participation on the exchanges from 15 states to 11 earlier this month. On the flip side, Cigna (NYSE:CI) further announced that it is losing money on the exchanges, but the insurer said it hopes to expand its marketplace presence to three new states in 2017.

Meanwhile, critics claim the Obama administration has sought to punish the four major insurers by instructing the Justice Department to block two proposed mergers between Aetna and Humana and Anthem and Cigna;. The companies are fighting back against the decisions. Anthem, the second largest insurer with a market value of $41 billion and $74 billion in sales, said if its deal with Cigna is allowed to go forward, it will increase its exchange offerings to nine additional states.

Aetna (NYSE:AET), the nation's third largest insurer,

Polls, Sports

answers a reporters question during a news conference at the U.S. Olympic team swimming trials in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, June 25, 2016. (PHOTO: AP)

answers a reporters question during a news conference at the U.S. Olympic team swimming trials in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, June 25, 2016. (PHOTO: AP)

A Gallup survey released Tuesday shows less interest in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and ratings posted last week seem to validate public opinion. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Americans say they plan to watch a “great deal” or “fair amount” of the Olympics.

“This is a sharp drop from 59% in 2012 and easily the lowest percentage planning to watch compared with the past four Summer Games,” Art Swift of Gallup wrote. “Thirty percent (30%) say they plan to watch ‘not much’ of the Olympics, and 21% say ‘none at all’ — the highest percentage saying so since Gallup began asking this question in 2000.”

After the Olympics in Rio ended its first full week of competition Friday night, which saw Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky kick off primetime, fast-affiliate ratings reported NBC’s ratings between 8:00 p.m. EST and 11:00 p.m. boasted 23.9 million viewers and a 6.3 rating among adults 18-49. That’s still a significant number, but down from the night before and the lowest showing for a competitive night to date. While Friday is typically a lower-viewed day for the games, four years ago in London averaged 26.9 million viewers and an 8.1 rating in the same key demo.

Coverage also scored an overnight rating of a 15.9 among households, with a 28 share placing it in more than a quarter of all TV-viewing homes.

Going into Friday night, the coverage of the Rio Olympics on NBC alone averaged 28.7 million viewers and clocked a 15.9 household rating, down from London four years ago. However, perhaps technology has a hand in the drop. NBC Sports saw record returns from live streaming, with minutes of the Rio Games reaching 1.5 billion.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 13-17, 2016, with a random sample of 1,023 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular.

A Gallup survey released Tuesday shows less

Economy

consumer prices gas

Consumer Price Index (CPI) reporting on gas prices from the Labor Department.

The Labor Department said Tuesday its Consumer Price Index (CPI) was unchanged in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, meeting the median forecast. The energy component declined 1.6% after rising in each of the last four months, due largely to decreases in gasoline prices.

Other energy indexes were mixed. The shelter index rose just 0.2%, its smallest increase since March. Prices for medical care, new vehicles, and motor vehicle insurance also rose.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components–the so-called core CPI–consumer prices were 0.1% higher, compared to expectations for another 0.2% gain as in June. The Federal Reserve, though using a separate measurement to gauge inflation, will not likely increase its benchmark interest rate until inflation picks back up to the target 2% level.

The Labor Department said Tuesday its Consumer

Economy

housing-starts-new-home-construction

New home construction workers. (Photo: Reuters)

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday housing starts came in at an annual rate of 1.211 million in July, topping the estimate for 1.180 million. The 2.1% increase in groundbreaking was the highest level since February.

However, building permits, which are a sign of future activity, came in at 1.152 million, missing the median forecast for 1.160 million. Further, investment in residential construction contracted in the second quarter for the first time in more than two years.

Nevertheless, new housing starts for single-family homes, which is the largest contributor in the housing market, rose 0.5% to a 770,000-unit pace in July. That’s also the highest level since February, though they tumbled 23.9% in the Northeast and declined 2.6% in the Midwest.

Building permits for single-family homes fell 3.7% last month to a 711,000-unit rate, the lowest level since September 2015, while multi-family building permits rose 6.3 percent to a 441,000-unit pace.

Meanwhile, new housing starts for the multi-family component gained 5.0% to a 441,000-unit pace. Groundbreaking on multi-family housing projects with five units or more jumped to the highest level since September 2015, though it is the more volatile segment.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday housing

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