Install
Debt and Deficits blog
Read a CBO cost estimate yourself before you believe the headline Seven numbered steps for reading a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate, with a worked example, so spin from either party stops working on you. No Money Shall Be Drawn but by Appropriation, Congress's Power of the Purse How the Appropriations Clause makes Congress the gatekeeper of every federal dollar, and how much spending now slips past the annual gate. Japan's debt is far larger than ours, so why has it not collapsed yet Japan owes more than twice its yearly output and no crisis has come. The honest reason is a set of conditions America does not share. A falling birth rate is a conservative problem, not a culture-war slogan Fertility has sat below replacement for years, straining entitlements and signaling that families are harder to start. Where conservatives split, and why. The Medicaid Match That Pays States More for Adults Than for Disabled Kids The Affordable Care Act paid states a richer Medicaid match for able-bodied adults than for the disabled, and the arithmetic shows how that bends priorities. Seven myths about the national debt that Washington finds convenient Both parties tell comfortable stories about the debt. Tested against Treasury and CBO data, the problem is spending growth, not a revenue shortage. Medicare's Two Trust Funds and the 45 Percent Warning Congress Keeps Ignoring Medicare is two funds with two different bills, and a 2003 alarm bell that was written into law has been ringing for years without an answer. Earmarks came back, and the conservative argument over pork never ended Earmarks are a small share of spending and a large symbol. Conservatives split on whether banning them restrained spending or just empowered agencies. A balanced budget amendment, the case for it and the conservative doubts A constitutional rule may be the only restraint that can stop permanent deficits. Conservatives disagree over whether it would work. From Gramm-Rudman to PAYGO, a timeline of fiscal rules that bent Congress keeps writing rules to force itself to stop borrowing, and keeps waiving them when they bite. Here are the dates. Modern Monetary Theory says deficits do not matter, and 2022 answered it MMT holds that a country borrowing in its own currency need only watch inflation. The inflation of 2021 and 2022 showed how fast that limit arrives. Baseline budgeting, where a smaller increase gets reported as a cut Washington measures spending against a baseline that assumes automatic growth, so a program that gets more money can be reported as cut. How to read it. Hamilton's 1790 Report on Public Credit and what honest borrowing requires Hamilton built American credit by paying the Revolution's debts in full and planning to retire them. Read the 1790 report, then judge today's deficits. The debt ceiling began in 1917 to make borrowing easier, not harder The debt limit was created so Treasury could borrow without asking Congress for each bond issue. How it became a leverage point, and whether it is a real brake. Do the arithmetic on $40 trillion and the interest bill it carries The debt rose $2.51 trillion in a year to $40.56 trillion. The math on that jump, on each point of interest, and on why interest crowds out everything else. Eisenhower's Farewell Warned About More Than the Military-Industrial Complex Everyone quotes three words from the January 1961 farewell address. Read the whole speech: balance, debt, and an elite of experts were warnings too.