David Ditch
@DavidADitch
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Policy analyst covering the federal fisc with @epicforamerica; opinions are mine. Fan of struggling causes (limited government & Buffalo Bills).
United States
Joined August 2011
The federal government cracked $38 trillion in gross debt yesterday. We're well on the road to $40 trillion - and some in Congress want us to get there faster. My rundown of bad policies on the horizon: https://t.co/uhya3Oavo3
$38,019,813,354,700.26 (+) #NationalDebt
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Good Lord… They found one Social Security number was being used to get subsidized healthcare for SEVENTY-ONE DIFFERENT PEOPLE and when they asked the people in charge about it they just said they didn’t feel like figuring out which person was the real one.
BOMBSHELL: A new watchdog investigation found large-scale systemic failures that allow fake identities, dead people, and massive improper use of Social Security numbers to receive Obamacare subsidies. GAO conducted covert operations which included creating fictitious identities.
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BOMBSHELL: A new watchdog investigation found large-scale systemic failures that allow fake identities, dead people, and massive improper use of Social Security numbers to receive Obamacare subsidies. GAO conducted covert operations which included creating fictitious identities.
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Increasing subsidies to health insurers does not decrease the cost of health care, but would rather increase it. In recent testimony before @SenFinance, I provided more than a dozen ways Congress could make health care more affordable. https://t.co/mlhZKz52XE
paragoninstitute.org
Download My name is Brian Blase, founder and president of Paragon Health Institute. From 2017 through 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House’s...
The ACA tax credits expire in less than 30 days, and Republicans don't have a plan to lower the cost of health care. But we do.
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Many, many, many such examples. Congress should decouple failing mass transit systems from the Highway Trust Fund, which was one of President Reagan's biggest mistakes.
As the city of Chicago hurtles towards bankruptcy, few noticed that the state just handed their transit system a $1.5 billion bailout. Instead of entrenching, the Chicago Transit Authority wants to use it to expand more. My latest @CityJournal.
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A wise Frenchman foresaw this. Bastiat wrote during the tumultuous year 1848, "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
This is probably the scariest chart you'll see today. Let me translate it for you: only one-third of French people have a private-sector job. How are they supposed to feed the remaining two-thirds with their taxes? It’s starting to feel like a failed state.
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🔖You'll want to bookmark this. EPIC's Matt Dickerson has a new report out with all you need to know about rescissions identified by Appropriators. https://t.co/awkXUAa21U
epicforamerica.org
Rescissions Reduce Budget Authority Budget authority that was provided by a previously enacted appropriations bill and has not yet been obligated by an agency can be canceled by a new law passed by...
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The ACA caused premiums for a single 60 year old to reach $27,864. That’s the sign of deep structural flaws in a program that has utterly failed to make insurance more affordable.
A 60 year old in Charleston, WV making $65,000 would see their annual out-of-pocket premium increase from $5,525 to $27,864 if the enhanced ACA tax credits expire. The same 60 year old living in Charlottesville, VA would see their out-of-pocket premium go from $5,525 to $12,616.
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Crony capitalism delenda est.
🩺As healthcare becomes increasingly unaffordable, health insurance companies have raked in revenues.
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"Patients gained nothing from 1,900 VA employees doing 750,000 hours of union time in 2024 . . . Taxpayers also shouldn’t have to pay for 187,000 square feet of VA office space used by the union." @PostOpinions
https://t.co/eHehzsUiUE
washingtonpost.com
President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood the folly of collective bargaining at Veterans Affairs.
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The funding for the food and nutrition programs came almost entirely from the federal government.
.@paulwinfree & @ingramlaw How much of the massive welfare fraud in MN was federal tax dollars versus MN tax dollars? On the Medicaid fraud, it would have been more federal than state. Seems part of the problem is terrible MN management with the federal taxpayer at risk.
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Teachers are getting paid more than ever to do less than ever... and students are doing worse than ever. Public education is a union job racket.
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in 2026 an endless stream of Waymo’s from SF to LA overnight will be plausible. cozy travels watched over by machines of loving grace. the high speed rail project will have laid about ten feet of track at the cost of fifty billion dollars
We're officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State. Next stop: welcoming riders in San Diego in mid-2026! ☀️
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Fair point. But we didn’t get high speed rail for $0. California didn’t get high speed rail for $15 Billion.
@kane Just a reminder @SpencerJCox, Utah also doesn't have high speed rail.
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Another reason to stop accelerating subsidies directly to health insurance companies. These subsidies raise federal deficits and interest payments in addition to making health care less affordable.
At this pace FY26 interest payments alone will top $1 trillion — more than the military budget.
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The abolition of slavery was advanced by Capitalists and industrialization. British MPs who were industrialists or were sons of industrialists were the most supportive of anti-slavery bills. For other elites, there was "no correlation between attitudes towards abolition and
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This is a backdoor way to use tax dollars on the environmentalist agenda. "Green" pension plans get lower returns --> fail to generate enough equity to cover obligations --> general fund / federal bailout.
Public pension funds should be managed to get the best possible risk-adjusted returns, full stop. Politicians should stop politicizing the investment process.
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This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. A portion of the subsidy is captured by insurers as they get more customers and more customers who lack price sensitivity. According to JEC, insurers obtain more benefit than enrollees. https://t.co/zz83MwiOtQ
I'm not sure how to say this any more simply. ACA premium tax credits are for people, not insurer. People receiving a tax credit can use it to buy any plan in the ACA marketplace. As an administrative mechanism, the government then forwards the tax credit to the chosen insurer.
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Need less healthcare regs, not more subsidies to well-off families.
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Blowing off economics because of perceived political expediency leads to poor economic results, and poor economic results reliably lead to poor political results. A lesson for both parties.
To me this is the most important retrospective on Bidenomics — before inflation made them unpopular, the Biden team was sure that blowing off conventional economic analysis was going to be a huge political winner. https://t.co/rcPh8S5YCp
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Because NYC outlawed short-term rentals like Airbnb in the name of helping renters. Except it didn’t help—rents continue to rise quickly. But it gave the hotel industry a chokehold on prices & made it so working-class people can’t visit without real financial strain. Great job.
why is every hotel in nyc so expensive on a random saturday in december 😭
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