The federal government continues paying its biggest bills during a shutdown, and hundreds of thousands of federal employees get a belatedly paid vacation.
Plus: Beachy vignettes, Smithsonian scrutiny, Gavin Newsom might not be the Democrats' great new hope, and more...
It's time to ask what level of spending Americans truly want with the money we actually have.
To keep Social Security solvent without cutting benefits would require a massive hike in payroll taxes, which would fall entirely on working Americans.
This is what Washington calls compromise: The House proposes $1, the Senate proposes $2, and somehow, the government ends up spending $3.
Vance cast the tie-breaking vote for a bill that will add $4 trillion to the debt. Meanwhile, immigrants are helping to keep the federal government's fiscal house of cards propped up.
Republicans are creating a budgetary loophole that will allow Democrats to pass Medicare for All and pretend it costs almost nothing.
The House-passed version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was fiscally irresponsible. The Senate has made the bill worse.
The Federal Reserve is unwilling to lower interest rates because "there will be some inflation from tariffs coming," Jerome Powell told a Senate committee.
Even if the president was joking in both cases, he already has used his powers to punish people whose views offend him.
House members who discovered objectionable elements only after voting for the package nevertheless underline the unseemly haste of the legislative process.
DOGE says regulatory changes will save $29.4 billion, but that does not amount to a reduction in government outlays, the initiative's ostensible target.
Reagan's budget chief warns that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could balloon the national debt to $60 trillion, risking a catastrophic bond market crisis.
Giving the Defense Department even more taxpayer money is a recipe for waste, not security.
Higher debt means lower wages, higher interest rates, and fewer opportunities, says Romina Boccia of the Cato Institute.
The lesson from the Moody's credit downgrade is that the U.S. cannot borrow its way to prosperity.
As he shifts his focus away from DOGE, he acknowledges the need for hard choices and congressional action.
The president wants to develop the F-47 fighter jet 60 years before the F-35 is scheduled to retire.
The cost cutter's current projection of annual "savings" is 85 percent lower than the goal he set two months ago—and even that number can't be trusted.
Lower-income families who spend the largest shares of their income on goods—and who have been badly hurt from the recent inflation—will likely suffer the most.
Taxes on imports cannot possibly deliver all the benefits the president is promising.
Despite efforts to rein in government debt, gold prices keep rising—suggesting investors aren’t buying the promises of fiscal responsibility.
The cost-cutting initiative's calculation of "estimated savings" is mostly mysterious, and the parts we know about are riddled with errors.
The president's assertion is divorced from reality, and so are the "estimated savings" touted by Elon Musk.
The presidential adviser's lack of formal authority complicates his cost-cutting mission.
If Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is serious about reducing military spending, he will need to embrace a narrower understanding of national security.
It tries to offset as much as $4.8 trillion—mostly for tax cut extensions—with only $1.5 trillion in supposed spending reductions.
Elon Musk, the president's cost-cutting czar, has a habit of overpromising and underdelivering.
The DOGE director wildly exaggerates what can be accomplished by tackling "waste, fraud, and abuse" in government spending without new legislation.
The pretend department’s downgraded mission reflects the gap between Trump’s promise of "smaller government" and the reality of what can be achieved without new legislation.
Plus: A listener asks the editors if there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of freedom in the United States.
"Personnel is policy" has shaped past administrations. Kevin Hassett, who has been tapped to lead the National Economic Council, will have a hand in tax reform, debt reduction, and more.
But at least he restored respect for a tariff-loving predecessor by renaming a mountain.
For all the excitement about the incoming administration and a return to the 2019 economy, market stability rests on the precarious assumption that the government will eventually put its fiscal house in order.
Plus: a listener asks the editors about fluoride in the water supply.
The nominee for attorney general passes the Trump loyalty test, but he lacks relevant experience and has repeatedly demonstrated poor judgment.
Even before the pandemic spending increase, the budget deficit was approaching $1 trillion. The GOP has the chance to embrace fiscal sanity this time if they can find the political will.
Narrowly understood, the president-elect's familiar-sounding plan to tackle "massive waste and fraud" may not give us "smaller government" in any meaningful sense.
The president-elect’s record and campaign positions belie Elon Musk’s talk of spending cuts.
The former president says the government should be funded like it was in 1890. So where's the plan to reset spending to 1890s levels?
The former president's increasingly lopsided economic policy proposals have the feel of throwing spaghetti at the wall.
The candidate’s protectionism offsets some otherwise positive tax ideas.
The budget could be balanced by cutting just six pennies from every dollar the government spends. It used to require even less.
Lower taxes are better taxes, but they should be part of well-considered plans.
Plus: The Federal Reserve cut interest rates, Congress still isn't cutting spending, and more....
Neither Harris nor Trump has a plan to address national debt, but they dramatically differ on taxation.
