00:00This is a speech largely being billed as supposedly about affordability and the economy,
00:05two hot-button issues, of course, that are going to sort of have a big factor in the elections
00:09coming up. I am curious if you've heard about any of the potential proposals that might be floated
00:15by the president, including additional tax cuts, not only for corporations, but also
00:19for individuals that could, if at all, have any real impact on the economic situation.
00:26I mean, well, he's talking a little bit, or at least some Republicans are talking a little bit
00:31about ways to make permanent things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social
00:38Security. So you're starting to hear some of that, whether that will make its way into the speech
00:44tonight, I don't know. There's also been some speculation about possibly hearing the president
00:51talk about expanding on this idea of the Trump accounts, the accounts that were so far set up
00:59on a temporary basis for newborn children, but expanding them to be sort of Trump accounts for
01:07adults, maybe resuscitating an old idea, the sort of MyRA that we heard about many years ago when
01:16Barack Obama was president. So yeah, I think you're going to hear a teasing of some new ideas
01:21on the tax side for sure. With regards to these ideas, and obviously with the caveat that a lot
01:26of these State of the Union speeches, they're long on promises. And of course, once you get to the
01:30substance of it in the days that follow, they tend to wane a little bit for any president, not just
01:34Trump. But I am curious as to whether any of these ideas would have any real material economic
01:40tailwind for us. Well, I mean, sure, I think they could. You know, you start talking about doing
01:51things on the regulatory side, on tax cut side. There's no reason why if Republicans weren't able
01:59to push further in those directions, you wouldn't see benefits at least short term and maybe even beyond
02:07in the real economy. So yeah, I think that's a reasonable to expect that if the speech turns
02:16into something more than just rhetoric, and it actually becomes part of a future piece of
02:21legislation, then short would have material implications for the economy. You know, we played
02:28a little bit of a clip from Austin Goolsbee. There has been obviously a big focus on the Fed, partly
02:32because of Trump's insistence on the Fed cutting rates sometime soon. When you look at the job
02:38market, and for that matter, when you look at inflation, is there a case to be made for
02:43any sort of material easing in Fed policy? This is the great Rorschach test of 2026, isn't
02:50it? You know, I did not catch Lisa Cook's, Governor Cook's recent speech, but I did see some headlines
02:59after her remarks. And, you know, what did she say something like if the productivity growth boom is
03:08really there, maybe neutral rates are higher. And if inequality continues to increase, maybe neutral
03:15rate is is lower. So it's the kids say what, what are the kids like to say these days? Six,
03:22seven?
03:22I don't know. I guess it's something like that. Yeah, that's a good one. Well, yes. And to that
03:30point, though, it also gets to the idea here, Stephanie, of kind of just the complexion of an
03:36economy heading into an election year and the idea of the difference between what the economy
03:40actually is and the perception that voters have, because we've seen many candidates tripped up
03:46in years past, not by the reality, but by the perception. Yep, that's a place where I think
03:54policymakers in general need to be very careful. And I imagine folks have talked with the president
04:00about the need to not be dismissive of the, you know, affordability crisis. If people tell you
04:08that everything is not OK, we've learned that it's not a very good idea to tell them that they don't
04:14really understand their lived experience. They don't understand how great the economy actually
04:20is for everyone. I think, you know, a lot of folks are looking at this economy and seeing an economy
04:26that continues to work really well for some portion of the population, especially, let's say, those at
04:33the top of the income distribution, let's say the top 10 percent or so. Things are good, but people
04:39really are struggling. They're struggling with affordability when it comes to health care, when it
04:44comes to housing, food, energy. Those are real hardships for a lot of people in this country. And I think
04:53it would be a mistake for anybody to dismiss those kinds of concerns. So, you know, perception, what's
05:01the saying? 90 percent of reality is perception. So you have to acknowledge that.
05:06So,
05:06so
05:07so
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