Free Republic

Conservatives and leftists alike have quickly embraced the notion that America’s perception of President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, and of its being a never-ending war, would keep the price of gas and diesel high. This, they believed, is the reason for inflation in the full range of goods and services. On its surface, the logic is sound and true. But were these specific economic pressures enough to cause the level of political devastation to Republicans we just saw? The experts are telling us that Republicans not named Donald Trump, at the federal, state, and even...

Both parties agreed on this tumultuous midterm election’s essential point. President Trump wanted voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” With his approval at 38%, Democrats happily agreed. The results were catastrophic for Republicans. They lost almost everywhere, including places where defeat was once unimaginable. Republicans dropped from 53 in the Senate to no more than 46, with losses in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas as well as Georgia, North Carolina and Maine. In the House, Democrats are expected to have around 258 seats, a pickup of at least 43. Many Republicans in supposedly safe districts narrowly escaped...

I have always had mixed feelings about Trump's tariff agenda, and here's why. On economic grounds, tariffs are a terrible idea, but Trump had a point about many of the trade deals in place, which were often built around bribing allies into supporting us politically (or sometimes helping countries that struggle economically). Trump's agenda to renegotiate trade deals had some merit. Exit polling on tariffs. The GOP has opposed global tariffs since WW2 and for good reason. It’s bad economics and bad politics. Article One gave tariff power to Congress and we must reclaim it. I got this from Erick...

Politicians and presidents sometimes make Faustian bargains. They make trade-offs. The stereotypical Faustian bargain is one in which someone sells his or her soul to the devil in exchange for money or fame. But let’s say you’re the president of the United States, and the two options before you are to keep your country safe or to better position you and your party to hold onto power. It all centers on a country that has been chanting “Death to America" since 1979, and that is very close to obtaining nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could wipe out its neighbors,...

Outgoing Florida Governor and former 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis has taken a swipe at Donald Trump after the Republican defeat in the midterm elections. DeSantis called it 'close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country' and singled out the Democratic wins in the Texas governor and Senate races in what he called 'the crown jewel of Republican politics.' 'Let's just be clear, that is going to hurt, not just for the next two years, that's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more,' he said at a press conference in Tallahassee on...

American Revolution 2.0Have you already seen how far the country has been pulled off course?Are You Counting the Days Until the Election?A nation in decline does not correct itself by accident. What you are reading is the product of years of quiet work by people who refused to stay inside the stable of group-think: researchers, memers, prayer warriors, and ordinary citizens who left the old media matrix, compared notes, and kept a watch. Five hundred threads ago many of us were still alone, ranging from half-asleep to already on duty. Small enclaves formed, drops were read for clues, and a...

Patriots discuss the midterm elections. Keri Lake was on earlier. At time of posting, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is speaking. Hosted by Juan O Savin. Featuring Brigadier General Blaine D. Holt, Loy Brunson and others.

Post up what you're seeing out there folks.

The national debt topped the entire gross domestic product (GDP) for fiscal 2026, according to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). From the fourth quarter of 2025 through the third quarter of this year, the country's economic output was more than $32.2 trillion, according to the BEA's non-seasonally adjusted statistics. As of Sept. 30, the final day of the third quarter, debt held by the public was more than $32.4 trillion, per the Treasury Department. Debt held by the public is what the federal government owes to outside entities, including banks, state and local governments and foreign...

The American economy is showing remarkable resilience despite persistent inflation, high interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that the economy grew at a 3.5% annualized rate during the third quarter of 2026, well above what many economists once considered sustainable. Yet there is a growing disconnect between the economy’s impressive performance and the financial reality facing everyday Americans. Economic Growth Continues to Beat ExpectationsEconomists had expected the U.S. economy to slow as higher energy prices, tariffs, and rising borrowing costs weighed on consumers and businesses. Instead, consumer spending has remained resilient, companies have continued...

The Treasury Department released its August statement of receipts and outlays with all the ceremony the occasion deserved: none. No press conference, no address, just a PDF on a government website, the way a man slips a foreclosure notice under the door. Buried in Table 3 sits a number that would have been a scandal in any saner era: of every dollar Washington expects to collect in income taxes this year, forty-three cents will go to interest on the national debt. Not to pay it down. Just to carry it. Run the arithmetic; Treasury prints it in plain sight. The...

The U.S. finished the 2026 fiscal year with a budget deficit of nearly $2 trillion, the latest measurement to underscore the extent of the country’s financial stress. The $1.992 trillion figure was about 12% higher than the $1.775 trillion deficit in the prior fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported Friday. It’s the third-highest annual deficit in U.S. history, behind only 2020 and 2021, when the federal government was doling out trillions of dollars in financial stimulus amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2026 fiscal year saw record sums for both receipts and outlays, according to a Treasury Department official. With Friday’s...

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 1.3 percent in September, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved up 0.5 percent in August and 0.2 percent in July. The September increase is the largest advance since rising 1.7 percent in March 2022. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand climbed 6.3 percent for the 12 months ended in September, the largest 12-month increase since moving up 6.4 percent in December 2022.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in September after rising 0.4 percent in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.7 percent before seasonal adjustment. The index for gasoline rose 9.1 percent in September, accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase. The energy index increased 5.2 percent over the month following a 2.1-percent increase in August. The shelter index rose 0.4 percent in September after rising 0.3 percent in August. The index for food...

September brought little relief to the accelerating cost of living, as consumer prices increased again and kept the inflation rate well above the Federal Reserve’s goal. The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the 12-month rate at 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected respective gains of 0.6% and 3.6%. Stripping out volatile food and energy costs, so-called core CPI rose 0.3% for the month and was up 2.6% on an annual basis, compared to...

That spending increase was primarily driven by entitlement programs, the military, and interest payments on the national debt. The CBO notes that Social Security spending increased by 5 percent last year due to "increases in average benefits and in the number of beneficiaries." There was an 8 percent increase in spending on both Medicare and Medicaid, while military spending increased by 5 percent.

Ten-year interest rates have vaulted from around 4.5 percent in July to nearly 5.3 percent this week. That may not seem like a lot, but in the history of the bond market, such a rapid rise in rates is almost without precedent. The last time it happened was in 1994, when the "bond vigilantes" relentlessly sold bonds in response to Hillary Clinton's vision of "managed competition" in healthcare. The person on the street knows much more about the stock market than the government bond market, but it is the bond market that has the ability to impose fiscal discipline on...

I created this cool app to explain inflation to my kids. I used 1957, the year of my birth. According to the CPI $1 of goods in 1957 cost nearly $12. But look at housing, gold, silver, the Dow, the S&P 500. You will be shocked as I was and this has been my business for 16 years. www.DollarTimeMachine.com

France is on the precipice of a dangerous financial spiral. The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once considered an oasis of relative stability in Europe’s financial markets, as one of the continent’s weakest links. France now pays more to borrow than former crisis hot spots like Greece and Italy. Its government is running a budget deficit surpassed only by the United States among its peers. Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took an alarming turn as it spread across the continent, reviving memories of the eurozone debt crisis last decade. France’s 10-year...

The US debt load crossed $40 trillion in August 2026. The Treasury publishes the number and updates it every business day. $32.4 trillion of it is borrowed from investors, pension funds, and foreign governments. Another $7.7 trillion is owed to the government's trust funds, including the funds that pay Social Security and Medicare. I spent two terms chairing the House Financial Institutions Committee, reading numbers like these, page after page. The pace worried me more than the total ever did. Everyone quotes the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline when they talk about where the debt is headed. CBO is the nonpartisan...