Fred Birnbaum

Idaho Freedom Foundation

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@RubenGallego Why do you allow Biden to flood the country with unaccompanied minors.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@SenBillCassidy Are you for raising taxes, cutting benefits or more debt financing. Be specific please.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@brianalmon Rod Gramer lists points of disagreement Republicans and Independents have with Trump and Republicans in Congress. But he can’t bring himself to talk about what the Democrats and Progressives advocate for. Just compare the performance of Red states to Blues states to get an idea.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@brianalmon It’s light on details and it suggests that this will be an opportunity to get more resources; e.g. more money.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@BernieSanders Did you vote for the Affordable Care Act? If so, why should anyone trust your solutions? Medicare has premiums and coverage limits, are you going to include those?

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@HeatherScottID Sadly it seems that many of these types brought their resentment against the British to America and generalize that resentment to all whites of European origin.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@SpeakerPelosi Too bad you are so bad at https://t.co/7lhumBiBbL revenues for 1946-2016 average 17.2% of GDP, in 2025 they were 17.3% of GDP. Spending averaged 19.3% for the same period. Spending in 2025 was 23.1% of GDP. It’s spending problem.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@tonyannett Nonsense federal revenues at 17.3% of GDP are at historical norms. The average from 1946 to 2000, before Bush and Trump was 17.4% of GDP. During that long period spending averaged 19% of GDP. For 2025 it was 23.1% of GDP. It’s a spending problem.

[Handre @Handre]

Rome didn't fall because of barbarians. It fell because emperors couldn't stop spending money they didn't have.

The process was mechanical. Roman armies were expensive. The legions demanded pay, the frontiers demanded fortification, and the grain dole demanded perpetual subsidy. When tax revenue fell short, emperors did what every desperate government does: they debased the currency. The denarius, once nearly pure silver under Augustus, contained just 5% silver by the reign of Gallienus in the 260s AD. They shaved the coins, mixed in base metals, and still called it money. Prices responded accordingly. Monetary inflation causes price inflation, whether it happens in Rome 2000 years ago or in 2026.

You'd have watched this in real time as a Roman merchant. The goods sitting in your warehouse cost you the same labor and transport to acquire. But the coins arriving in payment bought less each month. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices in 301 AD attempted to cap inflation by law, threatening death for anyone charging above the mandated rates. Sellers simply withdrew their goods from market rather than sell at a loss. Price controls produced shortages. Shortages produced famine.

The spiral tightened. As trade collapsed, tax revenue fell further. Soldiers went unpaid or received debased coin they couldn't spend. Loyalty evaporated. Provincial generals raised their own armies and declared themselves emperor (there were over 50 claimants in the 3rd century alone).

Free market thinkers have always pointed to this sequence as the purest historical case study in monetary destruction. When government substitutes political will for sound money, it doesn't bend economic law. It cannot bend. The Roman state inflated its way into insolvency, controlled its way into scarcity, and taxed its way into abandonment. Rome liquidated itself.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@JohnWake The reason that the reduction in federal employees didn’t reduce spending is because most of what the government spends is for “payments on behalf of individuals.” Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
However nobody is missing those federal employees anyway.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@SenJeffMerkley Look you can oppose the war, but the cuts to federal spending related to health care are necessitated by the failure of Obamacare/ACA to bend the cost curve. Dems own that. Food assistance costs have likewise ballooned.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@RepSpartz @SecScottBessent Only if fixing health care means cutting federal spending on healthcare.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@SpoonForIdaho Did you see the video of the IBM CEO, from India originally, state that bonus payments to managers would be tied to promotions of non-whites?

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@SenWarren Nonsense. The ACA was supposed to bend the cost curve and it failed to do so. You own that as Democrats.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@ChrisVanHollen Only Rand Paul is credible on this issue. Not you for sure.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@RealTheoWold Spot on.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@PattyMurray Wrong. Federal revenue this year will exceed $5 trillion, more than enough to operate the federal government. We have a spending problem.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@RepTimKennedy Nonsense on stilts. Healthcare spending is not an investment like CAPEX. You should not be borrowing $2 trillion per year. It’s a spending problem because federal revenues are over $5 trillion annually. And spending before COVID was just over $4 trillion.

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@RogueLou18 @brian_lenney Just curious as to how you know that in Wyoming they lost because they were perceived as Libertarians and not Conservatives? And how would you define in latter in a two-three sentences?

[Fred Birnbaum @FredBirnbaum]

@TrueMattEdwards @randy_westlund A better path would be for cities to request that the state reduce mandates that are unfunded, then get of the spending associated with unnecessary programs that exist because of mandates.