US National Debt

Military aid, including weapons and ammunition, sent by the United States to Ukraine was overestimated by at least $3 billion owing to an accounting mistake by the Pentagon, Defense Department officials have said. “During our regular oversight process of presidential drawdown packages, the Department discovered inconsistencies in equipment valuation for Ukraine,” said Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh in an...

John Whitehead “There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” — Ludwig von Mises Once again, the police state is up to its old tricks, stoking tensions over whether or not the government is forced to shut down, even partially, due to a default on the national debt. Yet while these...

Commentary Some Senate Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to “use” the 14th Amendment to raise the debt limit by executive decree. For example, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stated: “The 14th Amendment is not anyone’s first choice. The first choice is that the Republicans raise the debt ceiling because the United States government never, ever, ever, ever defaults on its legal...

In the midst of ongoing debates over federal spending, Rep. Steve Womack voiced his opposition to a proposed budget increase for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). During Thursday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing, Womack raised pointed criticisms at FTC Chair Lina Khan. “The FTC, with a cavalier attitude, is weighing in on areas that are outside of its authority and deciding...

With a 5 vote majority in the House, not much will likely change. But it's an opening for 2024. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown down the gauntlet at President Joe Biden and the Democrats over the debt ceiling. McCarthy has said he will extend the debt ceiling through May 2024, to $32.9 trillion, but only if the president and...

Former Obama administration White House stenographer Mike McCormick joins us to discuss then-Vice President Joe Biden. He offers us an insider view into Biden’s alleged kickback schemes. Biden is mandating all federal agencies put “environmental justice” into their missions. But some Republicans call that another attempt to spread what they call woke ideology in the federal government. A new contender in the Republican...

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on April 21 to “revitalize” America’s commitment to “environmental justice for all” according to a White House statement. The statement says the executive order is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s whole-of-government effort to confront “longstanding environmental injustices and inequities.” “For far too long, communities across our country have faced persistent environmental injustice through toxic pollution, underinvestment...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) grilled Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Thursday over the Biden administration’s “liberalization” of the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, warned Granholm at a hearing that the administration’s lax interpretation of the IRA would “bust the budget” while also diverting...

Commentary With the Civil War, America was split by region, north and south. Today it’s worse—the country is divided not just politically but by class, race, and sex, too. Left and right, blue and red, have different values and thus dream differently for themselves and their families and hold competing ideals for the country they share. It hardly comes as...

Commentary Twenty years ago, then-President George W. Bush sidetracked from putting down the Taliban in Afghanistan to launch the unnecessary and inadvisable invasion of Iraq. From a strategic standpoint it served little purpose in the War on Terror. Iraq became a focus of Islamist terrorism that became out of control following the invasion. The war added over $2 trillion to...

Rising living cost pressures have forced many Australian households to dig deep into their credit cards in the past year, sparking concerns about defaults and other negative economic impacts. According to recent data from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the total value of credit card transactions reached around $33.5 billion (US$22.38 billion) in January 2023, up 17 percent from...

Commentary Talk of U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) caving to China by not making a trip to Taiwan, as he said in July he would “love to do,” is a step backward for the United States and its partners in Asia. McCarthy and Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen announced a meeting in the United States, which is good, but it...

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has warned that President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the 2024 fiscal year would send the national debt to a record high within four years. “Debt under the President’s budget would grow to a new record as a share of the economy over the next decade,” the CRFB wrote in the March...

Republicans highlight record national debt while Democrats warn of costs of inaction The Senate Budget Committee on March 1 heard testimony on the costs U.S. coastal communities may be facing because of shifts in the Earth’s climate. “Coastal communities will become harder places to live and work, and real estate values and local tax bases will decline,” predicted Sen. Sheldon...

A government agency wants to find out just how much taxpayer money is lost to fraud at the federal level. The U.S. Government Accountability Office is attempting, for the first time, to estimate the total amount of fraud in the entire federal government. Comptroller General of the United States Gene Dodaro said his agency could have an estimate later this...

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech started with a lighthearted gesture of bipartisan goodwill, but that evaporated as he repeatedly made statements that irked the Republican side of the aisle. His Feb. 7 speech marked the first time that the Democrat president, in office since 2021, faced a Republican-controlled House of Representatives as he gave his annual report...

News Analysis The Chinese economy has rallied since the termination of COVID-19 lockdowns, but the recovery may be short-lived as global demand wanes and systemic domestic economic problems persist. China’s stock markets have regained much of their 2022 losses, and the country’s economic growth forecasts are higher this year than they were last year. However, with the exception of COVID...

Commentary Well, here we go again: For the next few months we’ll be witnessing what I call “the debt ceiling dance”—the same old back-and-forth rhetorical sallies (GOP: “We need to cut some spending”; Democrats: “Raise the limit unconditionally”). The ritual of the debt-ceiling dance is well known because we’ve been through it many times before. There may be some modest...

Commentary Most people don’t lie awake at night worried about the national debt. Unfortunately, that includes President Joe Biden and the spendaholic Democrats in Congress. They should be worried. Frankly, so should you, no matter what your politics. Economics is a science, and numerous studies by world-class economists confirm that when a nation’s debt gets too high, it pushes the...