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2 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
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2 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia |Dominik Lett
On Saturday, the Senate approved a modified budget framework, which is a betrayal of the House’s more responsible fiscal stance. The Senate’s strategy is clear. They want to jam House Republicans with a massive debt-financed tax package with zero substantive offsets.
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2 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia |Ivane Nachkebia
Here are this week’s reading links and fiscal facts:How persistent deficits harm everyday Americans. In a new study, Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale, analyzes the impact of a permanent 1 percent of GDP increase in primary deficits—roughly the cost of extending the expiring Trump tax cuts—on inflation and interest rates.
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3 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
Yesterday, the Senate unveiled a new budget blueprint, a crucial step in using reconciliation to enact President Trump’s agenda. This budget isn’t just a missed opportunity; it actively worsens our nation’s debt trajectory.
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3 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
Stepping into a New Role at Cato (by Dominik Lett)I’m excited to share that I’ve been promoted to policy analyst at Cato. Huge thanks to Romina Boccia, Alex Nowrasteh, and others who’ve helped me grow as a scholar. My research has tackled entitlement reform, disaster policy, and fiscal dominance, including co-authoring three Cato studies with Romina on the fiscal costs of emergency designations, stagflation’s threat to Social Security, and how Congress should respond to the 2025 fiscal cliff.
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4 weeks ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
The debt limit could bite by early fall (CBO). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the United States will likely run out of extraordinary borrowing authority and be constrained by the statutory debt limit by August or September 2025, though it could come as early as May or June if revenues fall short of expectations.
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1 month ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has encountered repeated legal setbacks as a result of its efforts to shrink the federal workforce, cut costs, and reshape the executive branch. Part of the challenge that the administration faces is a constitutional one—Congress, not the executive or judicial branches, is vested with the power of the purse. This means that congressional action is unavoidable if the administration wants to deliver substantial, lasting savings.
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1 month ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
The Republican section of the 2025 Joint Economic Committee (JEC) report presents a crucial analysis of America’s fiscal trajectory—at a time when Congress is contemplating making the budget situation even worse. The report evaluates President Biden’s 2025 Economic Report and offers an alternative vision for fiscal policy, focused on reining in spending rather than tax increases.
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1 month ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
Here are this week’s reading links and fiscal facts:Proposed Medicaid savings are not cuts. David Ditch, senior analyst in fiscal policy at the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), explains that the House’s $880 billion Medicaid savings target won’t reduce spending on the program but simply slow its growth.
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1 month ago | 
debtdispatch.substack.com | Romina Boccia
The Brookings Institution recently released its Social Security plan, which would address the program’s unsustainable finances through a mix of tax increases, benefit reductions, and expanded coverage. The authors of the plan—Wendell Primus, Tara Watson, and Jack A.