Kaloti Precious Metals-Morning Market Report- Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Market Daily & Weekly

Note: Indications only, open and closing prices are bids; Data source: Bloomberg; Times as per Dubai

Fundamentals and News

Trump's Budget Bites Deeply Into Programs Benefiting His Voters

President Donald Trump made an impassioned plea for support from minority voters during his election campaign by asking them, “What do you have to lose?”

On Tuesday, they got an answer, as did many of the rural, poor and working-class voters who propelled him into office. In his fiscal 2018 budget proposal, Trump asked Congress for $3.6 trillion in spending cuts that would mean steep reductions in food stamps, Medicaid health insurance payments, disability benefits, low-income housing assistance and block grants that fund meals-on-wheels for the elderly.

The plan found little favor in Congress, even among Republican lawmakers from districts and states that gave Trump wide margins in the November election, and it had Democrats talking about a deal on spending that would exclude the White House.

The administration was undeterred. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the spending proposal released Tuesday a rethinking of government to place greater weight on the interests of the people who pay taxes rather than those who turn to it for help.

“It’s a taxpayer-first budget,” Mulvaney said. “We are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs and the amount spent on those programs.”

But Congress has its own plans and, as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview last week with Bloomberg News, Trump’s priorities “aren’t necessarily ours.”

“We know the president’s budget is not going to be passed as proposed,” RepublicanSenator John Cornyn said on Tuesday. Even so, Senate Republicans are working to implement some of Trump’s proposed Medicaid cuts as part of an Obamacare repeal bill and plan to take up his proposed tax rate cuts later this year.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called Trump’s budget “the latest example of the president breaking his promises to working Americans.” But he also highlighted the bipartisan agreement on 2017 spending that cut the White House out of negotiations. He held out hope for a repeat of that deal, saying “our Republican colleagues dislike this budget almost as much as we do.”

Data Forthcoming Releases

Courtesy: http://kalotipm.com.sg/kaloti-market-report-24th-may-2017