Special Briefing: 2023 Outlook for States and Cities

The panel of experts discuss issues including inflation, employment, housing, jobs, and the possibility of a recession, as we look towards the new year. Our panel of experts includes Mayor Kate Gallego, Mayor of the City of Phoenix, Arizona; Emily Brock, director, Federal Liaison Office, Government Finance Officers Association; Natalie Cohen, president and founder, National Municipal Research; Julia Coronado, president, MacroPolicy Perspectives and clinical associate professor of finance, McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin; and Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody’s Analytics.

 Notable Quotes:

 “I've been serving as mayor since 2019, so COVID hit at the tail end of my first year. We then went into a very deep and very short recession and came out when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) made a major announcement, our largest in city history that might be familiar to folks because President Biden was in Phoenix last week to celebrate TSMC.” - Mayor Kate Gallego 

“The inflation numbers we've been getting, particularly one we got for the month of November, a couple of days ago, are pretty, pretty good. It feels like we're moving into the right direction.” - Mark Zandi

 “Historically, when the Fed is raising interest rates, [it is] usually sooner or later in a recession. And so we are on that side of the cycle. The easing of policy, the support from fiscal and monetary policy is behind us now. We are seeing policy tighten on both fronts. It’s a small sample and there's been a lot of unusual elements to this cycle.” - Julia Coronado 

“Now, on the prospect for the 118th Congress, which starts in January, obviously we have a split Congress. What some people negatively characterize is gridlock. We might actually positively characterize gridlock in the form of a calming down.” - Emily Brock 

“The bottom line is in pretty good health across the board. On the revenue side, inflation actually on a nominal basis serves well on the sales tax side. On the property tax side, on the income tax side, and certainly also in the energy sphere on severance taxes. So those areas, again, it's nominal.” - Natalie Cohen 

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Special Briefing is published by the Volcker Alliance, as part of its Public Finance initiatives, and Penn IUR.

 The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.