Bloomberg Washington’s most powerful trade associations spent more than $30 million on lobbying in the third quarter as Congress ramped up efforts to overhaul of the US tax code. Real estate groups were among those spending heavily, according to lobbying disclosures released for three months. The National Association of Realtors, among Washington’s biggest spenders, doled out $11.1 million during the …

Bloomberg Technology companies including Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. spent more than $10 million on federal lobbying in the third quarter, as Washington ratcheted up pressure on issues ranging from child trafficking to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election. Amazon spent $3.41 million—its biggest quarter in at least nine years—on tax policy, cloud security and computing, and others, according …

Bloomberg Economists are coming full circle on their view of the US economy’s performance last quarter. After cutting growth estimates in early September in anticipation of extensive damage from hurricanes Harvey and Irma, they’ve turned more optimistic as recent data have been fairly decent. Michael Gapen, chief US economist at Barclays Plc, raised his forecast to 2.5 percent, returning it …