Free Republic

The federal workforce has contracted by 336,000 employees since President Donald Trump took office, reflecting his administration’s drive to reduce the size of the government bureaucracy. Federal government employment fell by another 5,000 in August to 2.674 million, the Labor Department said Friday. That is down from 3.010 million in January 2025, a decline of 11.2 percent. Over the past year, federal payrolls have shrunk by 242,000 workers. Excluding the U.S. Postal Service, the decline was even larger, at approximately 251,000. Postal Service employment increased by around 9,000 during the same period, partially offsetting the broader reduction. The contraction has...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sarcastically offered to give Sen. Elizabeth Warren a tutorial on “Foreign Exchange for Dummies” in a blistering response to her criticism of the government’s intervention to prop up the Japanese yen, The Post has learned. The lefty Massachusetts senator’s recent attack “unfortunately reveals that you know even less about foreign exchange markets than you do about banking,” Bessent wrote in a letter dated Thursday that was exclusively obtained by The Post. “Terrifyingly, the opening paragraph is wrong about where the money came [from], what the transaction was, and whether there was even a borrower,” he added....

Key Points The Treasury could use its General Account to help fund purchases of government bonds, according to two senior Treasury officials. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has built up the TGA to around $950 billion currently. The Treasury surprised markets last week by doubling the size of bond buybacks, but the impact on yields was short-lived because of skepticism over the firepower available to Bessent. ================================================================= The Treasury could use its near $1 trillion General Account to help fund its recently announced plans to increase purchases of government bonds, according to two senior Treasury officials. Using the TGA would provide...

Vice President Vance said Thursday night that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a “very discreet plan” to shrink the nation’s debt. “He [Bessent] has had a very discreet plan, of course, supported by the president of the United States, to get the United States to a point where our economy is growing faster than our debt,” Vance said on Newsmax’s “Carl Higbie Frontline.” “And if you look, we are on track. So, even though the debt is too high, even though we inherited this debt bomb from the Biden administration, we actually do have a plan to get the economy...

...For 2025, we brought it down by more than a percent. ...

Bond yields climbed Thursday, erasing most of the pullback they saw the previous day after the Treasury Department announced an intervention aimed at easing pressure on longer-dated government debt. The yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond — the primary focus of the accelerated buyback — was up more than 4 basis points at 5.236%. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasurys — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — moved more than 4 basis points higher to 4.696%. The 10- and 30-year yield levels were right around the level they held before the 8:30 a.m. announcement...

The Treasury Department on Wednesday said it will more than double the size of its government debt repurchases, sending yields sharply lower at a time of substantial market stress. With fixed income markets under pressure and yields surging to levels not seen in nearly 20 years, the announcement targets the sensitive longer-duration part of the Treasury market. Under the accelerated buyback, Treasury, led by Secretary Scott Bessent, will target the 10- to 20- year and 20- to 30-year portion of the market, which has seen a buyers’ strike since late June. The government will “at least double” the maximum size...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is cutting illegal immigrants off from getting kickbacks from four major refundable tax credit programs – in a move that could save taxpayers an estimated $3 billion. The Treasury Department and IRS unveiled new rules on Wednesday to tighten the requirements for the adoption, child, American opportunity, and earned income tax credits so that only US citizens, US nationals, and qualified aliens can get them. “Under President Trump, the days of illegal aliens collecting taxpayer-funded benefits are over. The federal law is clear, and Treasury is enforcing it,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a...

Trump's policies are already delivering lower inflation and improving purchasing power for American workers — a recovery he portrayed as remarkable given the damage he said the administration inherited. Bessent's interview came as new federal data showed prescription drug costs saw their biggest decline in 60 years after President Trump made lowering prices a national priority. Bessent said Americans have legitimate reasons to remain frustrated after years of elevated prices. "People should be upset," Bessent said, arguing the Biden years left households facing a substantial loss of purchasing power, with working Americans hit especially hard by higher costs for automobiles,...

Iran knew remarkably specific details about Trump's stay in Ankara during the NATO summit, including where he was staying and even which floor of the building he was on, according to two U.S. officials. U.S. intelligence picked up multiple streams of information on July 8, including a specific threat against whichever aircraft was carrying the president and a report that someone near the summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile. Air Force One departed separately with senior administration officials, government employees, military personnel, and JOURNALISTS aboard.

The two most senior members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Turkey on what was effectively a decoy plane following an Iranian threat, while Trump was secretly moved to a smaller military jet, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. The official, who was briefed on the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details of presidential travel, said Rubio was aware of the switch and details of the threat behind it but could or would not say why he had...

Japan and the US have confirmed that they jointly intervened last week to halt a slide in the yen after it fell to a fresh 40-year low. The joint intervention is the first since 2011, when both countries took coordinated action to weaken the yen after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit eastern Japan. Both Japan's Ministry of Finance and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have said that they will not hesitate to conduct more joint interventions in the future. It highlights both countries' efforts to prevent a sell-off in the yen and Japanese government bonds from having an...

The Treasury Department has blocked nearly $100 million in taxpayer money from going to dead people since implementing a government-wide payment verification process last year, The Post has learned. The department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service discovered the money set to go to ghosts after a review of an eye-popping 885 million payments worth a total of nearly $2.7 trillion. Since March 2025, the screening has identified more than 4,900 disbursements, worth approximately $99 million, associated with deceased payees, according to the Treasury. The payments going to the dead – often indicative of fraud – were returned to the originating...

WASHINGTON (VINnews) – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent disclosed publicly for the first time Thursday that he was the target of an alleged assassination plot just hours after being sworn into office. Speaking at a State Department ministerial on political terrorism, Bessent said he was the subject of an alleged assassination attempt “two hours after being sworn into my job,” adding that the case demonstrates that politically motivated violence remains a real threat. Federal prosecutors have charged Ryan Michael English, 24, of Massachusetts, in connection with the alleged plot. According to the Justice Department, English traveled to the U.S. Capitol on...

California Democratic Congresswoman Judy Chu got into a vicious back-and-forth over the Iran war with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Thursday — but was caught flat-footed when asked who the president was during World War I. At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing to discuss the Trump administration’s fiscal policies, Chu tried to grill Bessent on a past remark by the Republican president, suggesting he wasn’t factoring in the financial situations of US citizens during negotiations to end the war. “Do you agree with President Trump that you also do not care about Americans’ financial situations?” Chu asked, while a...

Illegal Immigrants and Foreign Fraudsters steal BILLIONS every year from the American Taxpayer. As part of my Administration’s Historic effort to end FRAUD and reverse MASS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, I recently signed a powerful new Executive Order, which will be led by the Treasury Department, to stop Banks, Credit Cards, and Financial Institutions from being used to facilitate Human Smuggling, Drug Trafficking, Illegal Immigration, and the Criminal Cartels who orchestrate these activities. Access to our Nation’s Financial Systems must be limited to those who have a Legal Right to be here, and who are engaged in Lawful and Legitimate Commerce. Bank...

VIDEOS AT LINK............... The federal government is moving to follow the money behind Antifa, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the public will start seeing the results soon. Just the News reported on May 28, 2026 that Bessent highlighted IRS reporting-policy changes built to help identify Antifa’s funding sources. He spoke from the White House and pointed to a new requirement that nonprofits identify and know their grant recipients. That is the kind of paperwork rule that sounds dull until you remember how dark money actually moves through the nonprofit world. The briefing exchange showed the administration is treating Antifa...

This is a MASSIVE move by Scott Bessent. The Treasury Department has said the IRS will be revising the Form 990 used by NGOs in an effort to uncover fraud and hidden sources of funding. I’ve gone through hundreds of 990 forms. The way they’re set up right now, they do not have to disclose who their donors are. Perfect example is GLSEN. They have two anonymous donors that give them millions and millions of dollars and they don’t have to disclose who they are. Keep in mind that the people running GLSEN are trans activists. I imagine that if...

Uncle Sam needs you to help crush the billion-dollar financial fraud gangs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is launching a new program on Monday that will reward tipsters with up to 30% of the fines imposed on criminals who are trying to bleed US taxpayers dry, The Post has learned. The program includes tips for Medicaid and Medicare rip-offs — and given that fraud in those two programs tops some $70 billion per year according to one estimate, whistleblowers could be in for some big payouts. Other forms of financial crimes are also included. The move comes after Bessent visited Minnesota...

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Linda McMahon is sending a letter to 43 million Americans with student loans — about 9 million of whom are in default — to notify them that the Treasury Department is taking over debt collection, The Post has learned. The letter describes the transfer of responsibilities as a way to protect taxpayers by improving the efficiency of the collection process — after loan repayments were paused through much of the Biden administration, with borrowers protected from delinquency through September 2024. “For too long, Americans have shouldered the consequences of poor leadership and persistent mismanagement of our...