Joe Kristan

Recovering tax blogger. Views are mine alone. (who else would want them?)

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

From @wcronon’s Nature’s Metropolis:

“…Iowa never developed a regional metropolis of its own… Chicago remains the chief metropolis of Iowa to this day.”

I guess I just moved to a less distant suburb.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

If they don’t have Grover Cleveland Academy as their archrival, with epic trash talk battles, I don’t want to know.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

@GeitnerSimmons I didn’t, but on my list now!

[Stuart Loren @StuLoren]

Just a hunch, but making landlords pay $10k to tenants for increasing rents isn’t going to result in more housing… Ordinarily, rising prices would incentivize more housing construction and bring down rental inflation (eg, Austin). But we have anti-free market Marxists in charge.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

Enjoying the big city from a tourist view today.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

Free ice cream for everyone. Send the bill to that rich guy!

[Jeremy Horpedahl 🥚📉 @jmhorp]

Oh boy, balancing the federal budget is going to be tough. Percent of Americans that want to increase spending on...

Social Security: 71%
Medicare: 66%
Medicaid: 58%
SNAP: 51%

According to: https://t.co/TwrhVMHgV3

[Michael F. Cannon 🇮🇪🇺🇸 @mfcannon]

People, please stop trying to avoid the taxes and game the subsidies that our elites have judiciously crafted.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

Kevin Williamson vs. @scottahodge on tax-exempt hospitals. I find the common ground.

https://t.co/xMC7CUOb0S

[Cady Stanton @cady_stanton]

Cool thing of the day: @TaxNotes' awesome Investigations Editor @LaurenLoricchio partnered with @planetmoney to unpack the anatomy of Malta pension plans (including secret tapes revealing details on high-income tax avoidance). Listen here: https://t.co/HfcAXErqNb

[George Callas @George_A_Callas]

Exciting to see the United States becoming the world’s #1 exporter of bad tax policy ideas.

[Jemin Na @jemin_na]

https://t.co/Sk8K9uWApQ

[Kyle Pomerleau @kpomerleau]

This is not a loophole. Stop lying to your audience.

This guidance gives an immigration officer discretion to deny if someone wants to change their status while in the US.

This has little to do with "migrants" or illegals and is a radical departure from standard practice.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

https://t.co/5n8AKcwWkk

@AlexParkerDC rounds up the latest on the Trump slush fund tax case settlement for @EideBaillyLLP

[Billy Binion @billybinion]

A cop shot a 10-year-old while aiming at a family dog. He got qualified immunity. The boy’s mom was left with nothing.

Trump spent years fighting reforms to that system. Now he wants taxpayer-funded payouts for people convicted of crimes.

I wrote about why that’s indefensible.

[Joe Kristan @joebwan]

@AccountingAsArt Some people say there ain’t no bears at all.

[Ilya Somin @IlyaSomin]

Today, US Court of International Trade rejected motion to stay injunction blocking Trump's illegal Section 122 tariffs until appellate litigation concludes. This could be significant decision, because could prevent repetition of situation where illegal tariffs get collected for many months, as happened in IEEPA case: https://t.co/oHALyogUif

[Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein]

Hard to square Trump's blanket #jan6 clemency with Blanche's emphatic: "It's abhorrent to ever, ever touch a law enforcement officer."

[Mitch Jackson, Esq. @mitchjackson]

Fun fact for the $10 billion lawsuit crowd.

The IRS leak that exposed Donald Trump’s tax returns happened between August 2019 and November 2020.

405,427 other taxpayer returns were also leaked.

Trump was president. His own pick, Charles Rettig, ran the IRS. The contractor who did it, Charles Littlejohn, worked on a Trump-era IRS contract and is now serving five years in federal prison.

On January 29, 2026, Trump sued the IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over a breach that happened on his watch, under his commissioner, by a contractor his administration paid.

He is suing the federal government he ran, for failing to stop a leak that occurred while he was running it.

The taxpayer foots the bill either way.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

The Trump administration’s decision to provide tax immunity to President Trump, his family and his businesses is extraordinary and unprecedented.

Here’s what to know about the arrangement: https://t.co/MqIkBJMakh