Free Republic

The federal deficit will be $2.1 trillion when fiscal year 2026 ends on Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office projected in its monthly budget review.The deficit - the gap between what the government spends and what it collects from taxes and other revenue - has never surpassed $1.8 trillion, except during the Covid-19 pandemic.Key facts: Federal revenues are up 3% in 2026 compared to last year. Even though corporate income tax revenue has declined, income and payroll tax collections increased.But federal spending is up 5%, according to the CBO. Interest on the national debt increased 14% compared to last year....

The Washington Post editorial board has apparently recently discovered that Social Security and Medicare are in trouble, and they are shocked, shocked, I tell you! That part is true, and there is no reason to pretend otherwise. This is a fact that anyone not living under a rock has known for a very long time. According to the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is projected to exhaust its reserves in late 2032. At that point, incoming revenue would cover only about 78 percent of scheduled benefits. Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is projected...

Total federal debt reached approximately $40.047 trillion on August 18, 2026, according to the Treasury Department’s Debt to the Penny database. That included roughly $32.27 trillion held by the public and $7.78 trillion in obligations held within the federal government.The milestone is difficult to comprehend in isolation. But the speed of the increase makes it more alarming.A decade ago, total federal debt stood near $19.4 trillion. America has therefore added more than $20 trillion to its debt burden in approximately ten years. It took the country more than two centuries to accumulate its first $20 trillion—and roughly a decade to...

For years, Americans have heard warnings about the national debt climbing into the tens of trillions of dollars. The numbers have become so large that they barely register anymore. Thirty trillion. Thirty-five trillion. Nearly forty trillion. But the real danger may no longer be simply how much America owes. It is how much America must now pay to keep borrowing. The U.S. Treasury is selling 30-year government bonds at yields around 5.2%, potentially the highest borrowing cost for that maturity in roughly a quarter century. That may sound like something only Wall Street investors should care about. It isn't. Because...

Health care represents a major share of consumer spending in America, but the amount spent per resident varies considerably by location.New data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis highlights the differences in per-capita health care spending across the country in 2024.The map below, via Visual Capitalist's Srijaa Chatterjee, ranks every state using the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures by State data from the BEA. Figures are reported in current dollars and allocated according to residents’ state of residence.Which States Spend the Most on Health Care?Below is a ranking of states based on per-person health care spending:RankStatePer-Capita Health Care Spending1Alaska$14,0442District of...

A Georgia city’s youngest-ever mayor was temporarily stripped of his duties and privileges amid an investigation over his alleged spending – less than a year after being elected on a campaign premised around accountability and transparency. Jayden Williams, the 22-year-old mayor of Stockbridge, Ga., was ordered to hand over his city-issued credit cards by Monday at noon due to his spending, but failed to meet the deadline, Atlanta News First reported. Stockbridge city council officials launched a probe into Williams after “information” was presented to finance officials and the city attorney, without divulging further. Lawmakers backed a resolution on a...

The tech industry faces a paradoxical crisis: companies are shedding human jobs to invest in AI tools that are currently more costly than the workers they replace. Major players like Uber and Microsoft report exorbitant AI spending, with budgets exhausted rapidly and little correlation to tangible value. This "tokenmaxxing" culture, where AI usage is incentivized over actual productivity, fuels massive waste. Despite widespread layoffs justified by AI reallocation, studies indicate AI is economically viable in only a fraction of roles. The unsustainable model of subsidized AI pricing is unwinding, forcing a market correction. The industry must now shift from indiscriminate...

America’s largest cities are increasing their spending at almost unprecedented rates.A RealClearInvestigations (RCI) analysis of cities with at least 500,000 residents found they cumulatively raised their per-person spending by 18 percent over the last 10 budget cycles, accounting for inflation. The only equivalents on record are the spending surges ignited by the Great Society programs of the 1960s and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s.But unlike those past eras, today’s cities do not have the revenue to support their heavy spending. State and federal funding have dropped off from their record highs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and local...

The U.S. national debt has crossed an ominous threshold, rising above 100 percent of national gross domestic product, or GDP. This is the first time since World War II that debt has been so high a percentage of national economic output.AdvertisementThat is a big problem because the federal debt undermines the value of the U.S. dollar and diverts investment from the wealth-creating private sector. The rising debt and its pressure on the nation’s economy will force the federal government and Federal Reserve, the latter led by newly confirmed chair Kevin Warsh, to make hard decisions they have put off for...

For decades, politicians in Washington have paid lip service to “fiscal responsibility” as they practice fiscal irresponsibility on a scale unprecedented in American history. The national debt of the United States has now climbed beyond $35 trillion, a number so large that it has ceased to register emotionally with most citizens. Yet numbers do not lose their consequences simply because they become difficult to imagine. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars. Thirty-five trillion dollars represents obligations so enormous that future generations may spend much of their lives paying for promises made long before they were old enough to...

The Biden administration may have failed to convince Congress to double Medicaid spending on home healthcare in 2021, but the funding increase occurred anyway. An RCI analysis of federal data has found that spending on the program, which pays health aides and family members to act as caregivers for elderly and disabled adults, nearly doubled between 2019 and 2024, to $46.4 billion a year – an amount nearly identical to the $50 billion per year Biden wanted. As a result, American taxpayers paid more than $217 billion for home-based care under the program during that five-year span. Lacking congressional approval,...

On March 18, 2026, the House of Representatives voted on H.J. Res. 139, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget. The roll call was 211-207. Every Republican voted yes. Every Democrat voted no, save one — a defection that will presumably not be celebrated at the next caucus retreat. Under suspension of the rules, passage required 291 votes. The final count was 80 votes short. This is not a near miss. It is a structural diagnosis rendered as a procedural vote.AdvertisementThe same week, gross national debt crossed $39 trillion — $39,016,762,910,245.14 on March 17. That milestone arrived five months...

OH CANADA: Canada just met its NATO 2% defense obligation for the first time since the 1980s. Carney celebrated. He did not mention that Canada's GDP shrank in Q4 2025 and that is the only reason they hit the target. Canada did not build up its military. It contracted its economy.

Gov. Hochul was fittingly ridiculed last week for urging wealthy New Yorkers who fled the state for Florida to return and bring their rich friends with them. “We need your money” was the gist of her plea. She has zero chance of success. The rich didn’t get rich by being so easily duped, but Hochul had to know that. So why did she decide to make a fool of herself? It’s not because she’s dumb, but because she thinks voters are — and that they have short memories. After all, this is the same Hochul who, during her 2022 campaign,...

North Carolina’s state website claims that about 30% of the revenue from lottery tickets helps fund public schools. Yet despite record-breaking sales, that has not been true in years, according to a new state audit. Just 16% of lottery revenue from fiscal year 2025 will go toward education, auditors claim. North Carolina legalised lottery tickets in 2005 with a requirement that 35% of all revenue would be invested in public education. The money is used for school construction, college scholarships, teacher salaries and more. The requirement was changed to a “guideline” in 2007, and the percentage of lottery revenue that...

President Donald Trump’s budget office this week ordered most government agencies to compile data on the federal money that is sent to 14 mostly Democratic-controlled states and the District of Columbia in what it describes as a tool to “reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.” The order comes a week after Trump said he intended to cut off federal funding that goes to states that are home to so-called sanctuary cities that resist his immigration policies. The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, directs federal agencies to submit information by Jan. 28 to the president’s budget office....

@RandPaul The Senate just passed a bloated $176.4 billion “minibus” spending bill by a vote of 82–15. 46 Republicans joined Democrats after promising voters they’d rein in Washington’s reckless spending. See if your senators voted for this disaster....

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have unveiled a new spending bill totaling at least $174 billion that could get a vote in the House of Representatives as early as this week. It’s a significant step toward avoiding another government shutdown come Jan. 30, the deadline congressional leaders set after ending the recent 43-day shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — in November. The legislation released on Monday is a package of three of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress is charged with passing: commerce, justice, science and related agencies; energy and water development and related agencies; and interior, environment...

As national education spending per pupil rises, student enrollment is dropping and test scores across the United States are falling, which raises concern over how effectively taxpayer dollars are being used in public schools. Since 2002, K-12 public school spending has increased by more than 35%, yet enrollment has dropped 2.1%, which is over a million students over the past five years. Student achievement has also declined, with only one-third of students nationwide scoring at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, according to the National Assessment Governing Board. Currently, 40% of fourth...

Almost 100 Minnesota mayors banded together to tell Gov. Tim Walz and state lawmakers that they object to citizens suffering from higher taxes and reduced services—problems they blame on state spending and rampant government program fraud.The Minnesota capitol building in St. Paul, Minn., on Dec. 8, 2025.Jenn Ackerman for The Epoch TimesThe message, conveyed in a two-page letter, can best be summed up by saying, “Clean up your act,” Diane Cash, mayor of Crosby, a small city in north-central Minnesota, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 23, a day after the letter was sent.The mayors are urging state leaders, “Put...