Analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that, despite averaging profit rates of 8.5 percent since 2007, the business investment rate has been substantially lower than in previous eras. At 2.1 percent, business investment growth since 2007 has been less than half the pace of the post-war era.

The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a report estimating that cutting the corporate tax rate, as proposed in the Republican tax framework, would increase average household earnings by at least $4,000. The report has been widely criticized, for its methodology and conclusions, by a broad range of economists, academics, and policy experts.

Earlier this month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its final rule on small-dollar and payday loans establishing much needed borrower safeguards and protections to help families break out of the payday debt cycle. For far too long, the payday loan lenders—who have more branches nationwide than Starbucks—operated with little oversight, depleting consumers’ bank accounts along the way. New consumer protections take commonsense steps to prevent predatory lenders from targeting vulnerable working Americans.

Despite the President’s and Republican Congress’s failure so far to deliver on their agenda, expectations of policy changes and big tax cuts for top earners and big business have pushed the U.S. stock market to highs now verging into bubble territory. The price-to-earnings ratio, or PE, provides a measure of investors’ expectations of future corporate profits. Stock valuations relative to corporate earnings in S&P 500 companies have never risen above 28 without a sharp and severe stock market correction lurking around the corner. Only three times in U.S. history has the PE risen above 28: (1) on the eve of the Great Depression, (2) on the eve of the Dot-Com bubble bursting, and most recently (3) when Donald Trump took office.