Special Briefing: The New Administration’s First Month

The first Special Briefing of 2025 offers a deep dive into the new President’s first month and the implications of new policies. Featured speakers include former US Representative Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-GA); Jeffrey Holland, Vice President, Research, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Eric Kim, Senior Director, U.S. Public Finance at Fitch Ratings; Vikram Rai, Fixed Income Strategist, Head of Municipal Markets Strategy at Wells Fargo; Torsten Slok, Partner and Chief Economist at Apollo; and Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody’s Economics. 

Notable Quotes: 

“The implications from a macro perspective could become very, very important for interest rates, especially, of course, if the layoffs begin to show up in the form of a high unemployment rate.” - Torsten Slok. 

“State and local governments really need to take this moment to do an assessment of how the federal government, federal spending and federal tax policy, even the economic impacts, will affect their budget." - Carolyn Bourdeaux. 

“So why does that matter? Well, high and rising debts crowd out savings and investment, which could lower future output and income relative to what would otherwise occur." - Jeffrey Holland 

“Midwestern state economies could be particularly vulnerable to the imposition of blanket tariffs on imports from [Canada, Mexico, and China], and natural resource-rich states could face the most direct consequences from retaliatory tariffs by those nations. North Dakota, Louisiana, and Texas are the states with the most in exports to Canada, Mexico, and China as a percentage of their state GDP.” - Eric Kim 

“State and local governments realize that they have to rely on their own sources to meet their projects and financing needs." - Vikram Rai “The risks are decidedly to higher interest rates. The biggest risk is that we see a major sell-off in the bond market. The bond market feels incredibly fragile.” - Mark Zandi

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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.