SC

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

Its a common and effective talking point, but not true. Below is a comparison of the 2000 vs. 2026 federal budget. Tax cuts have totalled 2% of GDP (unrelated economic factors also reduced revenues). But spending has jumped 5.7% of GDP since 2000. Lots of blame to go around.

[Paul @WomanDefiner]

Romney is the only presidential candidate I've seen in my lifetime that got dragged for politely pointing out that 53% of Americans have a net negative tax rate.

He was right and they dragged him for pointing it out. In fact they acted like it was some crazy conspiracy he would even say that.

[tae kim @firstadopter]

All he had to do was nothing. Maybe a little deregulation. Let the AI capex supercycle do its thing. Instead we got tariffs hurting everyday Americans, energy inflation from a needless war, a bond crisis from rising deficits and increased trillion dollar military spending, and trade wars with our closest allies.

FT: "Almost two years since Donald Trump won election pledging to slash prices and fix the US’s public finances, his Iran war and tax cuts have delivered a different outcome: record-high debt, soaring fuel costs and punishing mortgage rates."

[SC @skcLIC]

@MorosKostas If Trump were in any way patriotic he would do it after the midterms, but he’s not…

[David Doney @David_Charts2]

Since 1965, there have been 6 fiscal years when federal spending fell relative to the preceding year:

🔵1965 - LBJ
🔵2010 - Obama
🔵2012 - Obama
🔵2013 - Obama
🔵2022 - Biden
🔵2023 - Biden

No Republican president in the last 60 years has cut spending vs. prior year.

[SC @skcLIC]

@UnimpressedTX We did not actually.

[Bobby Kogan @BBKogan]

Paul Ryan took debt so seriously he voted for trillions and trillions of unpaid for tax cuts

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Amazing.

A parish in Louisiana tied teacher bonuses to local sales taxes, so when Meta built a data center in the area, the teacher bonuses skyrocketed so much that they more than doubled their paychecks:

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

What is it with these senators who clutch their pearls about debt… after voting for debt?

Why aren’t they being replaced? Publicly mocked, tarred, and feathered?

[SC @skcLIC]

@RepDonBacon @RepScottPeters @RepHuizenga OBBA and TCJA were cowardly bills that did big tax cuts without spending cuts.

[SC @skcLIC]

@RandeeM5 @dandinohill @WontStopMeNow … because these are all NPV calculations in my chart, it’s not actual $ contributions and benefits.

[SC @skcLIC]

@RandeeM5 @dandinohill @WontStopMeNow Meaning, you’d come out much more ahead if your money was invested in the market. But like it’s 2 totally different concepts that you and others conflate.

[SC @skcLIC]

@RandeeM5 @dandinohill @WontStopMeNow If you’re arguing for privatization or partial privatization, I don’t disagree. But the public rejected in early 2000s. The idea that social security is “your money” is false - most beneficiaries come out ahead. I would prefer to take all my contributions and put in s&p50.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

If you voted for the Big Beautiful Bill, please don’t get on here and express righteous indignation that the debt is now $40 trillion. Anyone with a room temperature IQ knew that cutting taxes and increasing spending was going to balloon the deficit.

[SC @skcLIC]

@gillibrandny https://t.co/6N0XyanPhf

[SC @skcLIC]

@pennyelizabeths Any use case that’s not AI training related requires latency, meaning the cloud needs to be physically near the Waymo you’re in or the operating room using a cloud application in a major city. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[SC @skcLIC]

@bryanrbeal https://t.co/6N0XyanPhf

[SC @skcLIC]

@dandinohill @WontStopMeNow

[SC @skcLIC]

@dandinohill NO. We should NOT use nearly all of our incremental capacity to raise taxes to solely benefit already wealthy boomers. Curtail max benefits along with numerous other fixes. This is worth a read. @JessicaBRiedl

https://t.co/6N0XyanPhf

[SC @skcLIC]

@ewarren Then reset the required rates of returns for public pensions and make it so they can’t invest anymore.