In January 1918, some ten months before the end of World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson had written a list of proposed war aims which he called the Fourteen Points..
Today, discretionary spending makes up less than 40 percent of the entire budget. Net Interest-Net interest is the only part of future spending that cannot be reduced by legislative action because it is money that must be paid to service the U.S. debt.
The prime rate tracks fairly closely with other short-term interest rates, such as the overnight federal funds rate; this relationship is illustrated in Chart I. As of June 2005, the bank prime rate reported on the Federal Reserve Boardâs monthly H.15 Release, Selected Interest Rates, was 6.01 percent.