Debt
February 10, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He holds that when interest payments on the national debt eclipse defense spending, great powers struggle to maintain military strength and global influence. As US debt service surpasses defense outlays for the first time since the 1930s, Ferguson’s Law offers a stark warning about the fiscal foundations of American national power. Hoover has posted the video below expounding
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May 19, 2025 — Bill Glahn
“S&P 500 ekes out sixth winning day as investors look past U.S. credit downgrade,” reads the CNBC headline after today’s stock market close. In my opinion, this is not something investors should look past. Late Friday, Moody’s announced a downgrade in America’s credit rating from triple-A to double-A (Aa1, in their nomenclature). And with good reason, America is $37 trillion (with a “t”) in debt, with an annual deficit running
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January 11, 2024 — John Hinderaker
When I was young, there was a lot of concern and debate about the federal deficit and the national debt. Legitimate budget hawks ran for office, and often won. Even Democrats, like William Proxmire, ran as guardians of the public treasury. But at some point, as deficits continued to mount and the feared crisis failed to materialize, politicians unapologetically began to print money. Thus, the entire federal debt at the
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May 29, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We don’t have many of the fine details of the debt ceiling deal Kevin McCarthy has struck with (P)resident Joe Biden yet, but my first proposition is that the exact details don’t matter, and my conclusion is that the outcome is a modest but potentially significant win for Republicans. I think McCarthy played a weak hand—the political equivalent of a pair of deuces—extremely well. The political outcome of this deal
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May 17, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Last week on the podcast I predicted that the chief sticking point on a deal to raise the debt ceiling wouldn’t be any of the GOP demands for spending restraint, but rather the demand for new work requirements of able bodied welfare recipients. Because the left views welfare and other income support programs as means of entitled redistribution without reciprocal obligation rather than relief from unfortunate circumstances, Democrats would resist.
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February 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long. Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I note that Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. As does the old man’s budget arithmetic, in its own way. Drawing on the CBO budget outlook released last week, the editors
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February 14, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Growth of the national debt has accelerated to proportions that would have been unthinkable not many years ago. And yet, liberals keep telling us not to worry, and that raising the debt limit is the only “responsible” course. Debt apologists like Barry Eichengreen. A very smart friend takes Mr. Eichengreen to task. What follows is by him, I have left it in plain rather than italic type for the sake
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September 27, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Joe Biden has made the absurd claim that his $3.5 trillion socialist boondoggle is free: That’s not what “costs zero dollars” means. https://t.co/ynULisP4CH — Brad Polumbo 🇺🇸⚽️ 🏳️🌈 (@brad_polumbo) September 26, 2021 The idea that a $3.5 trillion (or whatever the true price tag turns out to be) boondoggle “costs zero dollars” is ridiculous. It costs $3.5 trillion, and the cost has to be paid for through a combination of
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December 29, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I suggested that President Trump gained nothing by delaying the implementation of the relief in the stimulus bill passed by Congress. However, I did allow that, as a result of his criticism of the bill, it’s possible that Congress will up the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. In that case, of course, Trump will have gained something. On reflection (and this should have been obvious to me without
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April 22, 2020 — Scott Johnson
In yesterday’s Best of the Web column — “Waiting for Good Dough” — James Freeman quoted from Elliott Management’s most recent newsletter to investors. Elliott Management is the hedge fund run by Paul Singer. Freeman obtained a copy of Singer’s otherwise private newsletter. He quotes Singer on the epic bouts of debt financing and modern money manufacture undertaken by the federal government over the past 10 years. This is Singer
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February 12, 2019 — Steven Hayward
One of the genius effects of Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s was that he turned Democrats into deficit hawks, which was an unfamiliar place for the Keynes-drunk party that exists to spend more. It was an existential crisis for Democrats. Reagan’s tax cuts and unprecedented (at that time) budget deficits not only forced Democrats into becoming tax increase advocates, but put the brakes on any extravagant new spending programs.
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December 6, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The press is starting to beat the usual drums about the horror of a possible “government shutdown” Friday night if Congress can’t pass a budget or a stopgap spending bill. This does seems slightly unusual in that Republicans control both Congress and the executive branch, so what is there to fight about, unlike previous showdowns that pitted a Republican Congress against a Democratic president. I guess the Senate needs some
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December 2, 2017 — John Hinderaker
It is comical to see Democrats feigning outrage over the claim (likely false) that the GOP tax reform plan will add to the national debt. Talk about a head-snapping about face! Where was the Dems’ concern about debt when the Obama administration ran up $10 trillion of it? The fertile mind of Michael Ramirez has spawned not one, but two cartoons on the subject: First (click to enlarge): And second:
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November 2, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Yes, I know, pointing out that Bernie Sanders is an economic ignoramus is not a heavy lift; economic ignorance is the whole point of socialism. (As Hayek reminded us, “If socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialists.”) But just as we have too many kinds of deodorant (said Sanders), we may as well have too many observations of Sanders’s abyss. The market demands it! Thanks to a tip from a
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October 31, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Michael Ramirez on Halloween and the debt. It’s a good reminder that all of that “free stuff” isn’t actually free. Click to enlarge:
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October 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
The Republican House conference held its Speaker election this afternoon and resoundingly selected Paul Ryan for the job. According to this report, Ryan received 200 votes to 43 for Daniel Webster. Marsha Blackman and Kevin McCarthy each received one vote. In other news, the Speaker-to-be has endorsed the awful budget deal that John Boehner secretly negotiated (along with Mitch McConnell) with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The deal passed the
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October 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
In recent days, as John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Harry Reid negotiated a budget deal behind closed doors, the prospect for mischief has been acute. Today this latest “gang” presented its handiwork to members of Congress. It is, indeed, mischievous. According to this report, the deal would increase federal spending by $80 billion over two years. The spending increase would be shared evenly between domestic and military spending,
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