At 7pm eastern tonight, @jessicabriedl.bsky.social and I will be debating how we got into a bad debt situation, hosted by Concord Action. Happy fiscal new year 🎉 You can register for the event here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: $40 Trillion in Debt: Who Dropped the Ball?. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: $40 Trillion in Debt: Who Dropped the Ball?. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

us02web.zoom.us

At 7pm eastern on September 30, @jessicabriedl.bsky.social and I will be debating what caused the US debt situation, moderated by Carolyn Bourdeaux of the Concord Coalition. Happy fiscal new year 🎉🎊 You can register to watch the event here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: $40 Trillion in Debt: Who Dropped the Ball?. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: $40 Trillion in Debt: Who Dropped the Ball?. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

us02web.zoom.us

NEW from me @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social - What's been happening with bond auctions & interest rates? - What was Treasury's "Bond buyback" response and did it work? - How does a debt-and-interest-rate spiral work & what are the risks? All addressed here: thedispatch.com/article/bond...

Can the U.S. Avoid a Dangerous Debt Spiral?

The financial markets are sending out warning signals, but no one is listening.

thedispatch.com

NEW from me in @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social. Congress spent two decades designing a web of budget laws & rules to constrain budget deficits - and then quietly & systematically destroyed every one of them so that it could turn surpluses into $1.8 trillion deficits. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/new-...

Why the Budget Process Is Broken

Congress wrote the rules to restrain itself. Then it broke every one.

thedispatch.com

NEW from me in @theatlantic.com. The left and right are both trapped in lazy, false Social Security narratives. For the right, its blaming immigrants & the trust fund raid. For the left, its that lifting the cap painlessly brings solvency. 🧵 www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Elixir of the Payroll-Tax Cap and Other Social Security Myths

Progressives are wrong about how to reform the program. Conservatives are, too.

theatlantic.com

NEW from me. Each year, 100-200 young people message me seeking career advice. So I wrote a guide for younger people seeking a career in the Washington D.C. policy community. It includes 4 main keys to landing your first DC job or internship, & career advice. www.jessicariedl.blog/p/so-you-wan...

So You Want to Work in Washington D.C.?

Advice for Aspiring Policy Analysts

jessicariedl.blog

I now have a Substack page. One place for current & past studies, op-eds, testimonies, videos, speeches, economic policy links, and anything else I decide to post. Open replies too. Best of all - subscribing is 100% free, all-access. www.jessicariedl.blog

Jessica Riedl | Substack

Demystifying federal spending, tax, budget, and economic policy. 100% free. Click to read Jessica Riedl, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

jessicariedl.blog

NEW from me @reason.com. Can AI drastically cut budget deficits and even balance the budget - as Musk & Amodei suggest? I estimate AI budget effects on productivity, revenues, job displacement benefits, Social Security, health, DOD, interest, govt jobs, & govt admin. 🧵 reason.com/2026/06/16/e...

Even an AI-sparked economic miracle will not save the federal budget

Congress cannot sit by and hope for AI to fix the deficit.

reason.com

NEW from me. A short blog post walking through how the CBO's (already scary) budget baseline likely under-estimates the 30-year debt projection by 68% of GDP. That means the federal debt outlook is $62 trillion(!) worse than is commonly-reported. 🧵 www.jessicariedl.blog/p/federal-de...

Federal Debt Outlook is $60 Trillion Worse than Reported

Congress requires CBO to assume unlikely tax hikes & spending cuts

jessicariedl.blog

NEW from me. My cover story in today's @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social steps back and provides a basic primer on why soaring federal debt matters for the economy and the federal budget. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/debt...

Why Surging Federal Debt Matters

It’s an existential threat to the long-term American economy.

thedispatch.com

NEW from me: The 2026 version of my chart book. It is 132 pages of charts that defy liberal & conservative conventional wisdom about spending, taxes, deficits, debt, and even presidential fiscal performance. A career of federal budget expertise in picture form. 🧵 www.brookings.edu/articles/202...

2026 chart book examines spending, taxes, and deficits | Brookings

Jessica Riedl's 2026 chart book provides a standard, non-partisan look at the trends in spending, taxes, and deficits.

brookings.edu

NEW from me in @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social. Voters continue to rate inflation as a top priority & punish inflationary presidents. Yet Biden & now Trump continue to pursue highly inflationary policies and even mock & dismiss voters' concerns. Why don't they care? 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/trum...

Why Presidents Don’t Care About Inflation as Much as You Do

Economic policy is no longer about ensuring broad prosperity but tangible benefits to key constituencies.

thedispatch.com

NEW from me. My new report continues my series on presidential fiscal records with a full, granular accounting of the Biden fiscal record. The main figure: $6.6 trillion in added ten-year deficits due to legislation and executive orders. 🧵 www.brookings.edu/articles/bid...

Biden’s fiscal legacy | Brookings

Jessica Riedl offers a comprehensive retrospective on the fiscal impact of policies enacted during the Biden presidency.

brookings.edu

NEW from me @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social. Congressional GOPers are proposing Reconciliation 2.0 to finally achieve all the big spending cuts they could not get in the OBBBA. In reality, it would surely become yet another panderfest of tax cuts & spending hikes. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/repu...

Reconciliation 2.0 Would Likely Bust the Budget

Can we really expect the GOP to make politically risky spending cuts ahead of the midterms?

thedispatch.com

how did this guy run an investment bank?

NEW from me in @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social. DOGE's most successful program elimination was itself, as it has reportedly closed down. I explain why its failure to deeply slash spending was so predictable, and what that means for deficits. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/why-...

Why DOGE Failed to Slash Spending

There are no shortcuts to trimming the federal budget.

thedispatch.com

Professional news: After 8 years and 300 publications at the Manhattan Institute … … I’m excited to join the Brookings Institution as a budget & tax fellow in its Tax Policy Center. New home, but same, center-right, fiscal hawk, free market economic analysis.

Let's say you take out a $400,000 mortgage loan at 6.25% - and choose a 50-year mortgage instead of 30 years. In return for saving $283 monthly, you will pay an extra $421,302 in interest over the life of the loan. Or if you sell at 15 years, will have paid down just $29,000 in equity. Not good.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 11mo ago

INGRAHAM: Is a 50 year mortgage really a good idea? TRUMP: It's not even a big deal. You go from 40 to 50 years. All it means is you pay less per month

As always, it's appalling at the same time it's so cheap, tawdry, and embarrassing. What a pathetic, shabby little gangster.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 11mo ago

Trump on Mamdani: "He should be very nice to me. He's off to a bad start. I think it's a very dangerous statement for him to make."

NEW from me @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social. Secretary Bessent has proclaimed that monthly budget figures show a rapidly declining budget deficit. But he is confusing small timing shifts for major policy changes. Deficits are set to continue rising. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/defi...

Scott Bessent Is Wrong About Deficit Reduction

There are no quick fixes or easy solutions for trillion-dollar deficits.

thedispatch.com

I'm trying to figure out how sending $7 billion to Africa to save 20 million lives from HIV (many of whom are kids) is an outrage (America First! We can't afford it) ... yet somehow sending $20 billion to Argentina is affordable, wise, and responsible.

this shit would be a bit much for news anchors in Pyongyang

NEW from me. Trump wants to take over the Federal Reserve and lower interest rates in part because he believes it will cut federal budget interest costs by "$1 Trillion per year." In @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social, I show that fiscal dominance would NOT reduce interest costs very much. 🧵

Trump Can’t Fix the Deficit by Attacking the Federal Reserve

The president claims lower interest rates would save us $1 trillion annually. He’s wrong.

thedispatch.com

Trump campaigned on a trade war and immigration crackdown. And farm-heavy counties still gave him 78% of the vote. Sorry guys, you voted for this. Enjoy the consequences!

NEW from me. In the @washingtonpost.com. I examine the emerging debt crises that are destabilizing the British and French governments - and how America faces similar economic & fiscal challenges on an even deeper level. 🧵 www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | Britain and France’s debt crises are bad. America’s will be worse.

Washington’s fiscal failings mirror Europe’s economic mess.

washingtonpost.com

MAGA Twitter is really a sight to behold right now. One cis white male tragically murdered another, and somehow the *transgender community* is responsible and must be stripped of their constitutional rights. It is just dangerous ugliness from unhinged, fanatical bigots.

This political era is all about vengeance & escalation. Impose maximum suffering on the other side. They started the war, and they are evil, sick, and must be destroyed. Civility & grace is for losers & wimps. Real leaders fight - no apologies, no mercy. We desperately need de-escalators.

NEW from me. My new video for @reason.com says fine, tax the rich, but recognize that it cannot eliminate more than a small fraction of the soaring budget deficits. And no, those old 91% tax rates and the European tax systems do not prove otherwise. www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0x1...

The Uselessness of Taxing the Rich

YouTube video by ReasonTV

youtube.com

senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, former chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) & director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign👇🏽

NEW from me at The Dispatch. Imagine if a president could just eliminate border spending on a whim. Or gut defense, Medicaid or veterans spending. Even defund SCOTUS after a decision, or end SocSec in blue districts. This is the power Trump seeks with impoundment. 🧵 thedispatch.com/article/trum...

Shattering the Separation of Powers

Presidential impoundment Is dangerous and unconstitutional.

thedispatch.com