@bbkogan.bsky.social
Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy for the Center for American Progress doing budget, tax, and econ. Formerly: Biden OMB, Biden Transition Team, Senate Budget Committee (Murray and Sanders). CBO and OMB’s biggest fan! Personal account.
You know what we're not griping about enough? That Donald Trump's face is going to be on U.S. currency—on $1 coins—later this year. This will be the first time a living president has appeared solo on a coin, and one of the very few times a living individual has ever been on U.S. coinage.
Yes! The difference is overstated here because this is just reflecting the federal cost (since it’s about federal choices), with states paying some of the cost of Medicaid. But even accounting for that, Medicaid coverage is cheaper than the average child care cost.
People who think this war can end “quickly” for the U.S. with just a handful of casualties need to ask themselves how we would respond if a foreign country illegally declared war on us and on the first day bombed an American school killing 175 civilians including over 100 children.
$11.3 billion could cover any of the following for a full year:
-1.4 million people on Medicaid
-19 million kids getting free school lunches
-1.4 million people getting affordable housing
-1.1 million hungry seniors fed
-0.8 million children given free child care
Really interesting proposal from Corey, who is deeply knowledgeable on tax policy & worth following.
The problem for housing is the issues stem from state/local, so there’s little we can fix at the federal level. Short of directly building housing, this is probably the most bang for buck we can do.
Yeah!!! And not only in theory! The orange is what they said they plan to do! Normally I would always just use budget authority, but since the OBBBA money was a giant lump sum intended to be obligated over 4.5 years, I think tracking obligations (tho not outlays) is the best apples-to-apples.
That budget authority is usable through 2029. The administration used $1.8 billion last year, and the say their plan is to use all remaining funds this year, which is how I made this graph!
bsky.app/profile/bbko...
Always appreciate someone who digs into the CBO score themself!!!
Fortunately for us, committee jurisdictions make the defense calculation easy for us. So if we go to the tab for Title II, which is Armed Services, and go to the very bottom, you can see $153.405 billion in budget authority :)
$153 billion, much of which is still unused and is available for things we expect will be requested in the supp!
bsky.app/profile/bbko...
Seems hard to justify the need for immediate emergency supplemental war funding then
For sure, but I guess I would also say visible upfront high salience tradeoffs versus tradeoffs that feel invisible mess with incentives.
Acknowledging tradeoffs makes things less popular?????????
Haha I would have mentioned that if he’d also mentioned Vietnam! We used to pay for things, Josh!
This is of course completely incorrect. Revenues were dramatically increased following our entry in World War I, World War II, and Korea explicitly to help finance the wars.
It’s only the recent wars that did not have large accompanying tax increases.
"Financing income tax cuts tilted to the wealthy by cutting programs to help fams afford food & medicine ... is no way to address our fiscal imbalances." - @brendanvduke.bsky.social before the Senate Budget Cmte on how tax cuts increase the nation’s fiscal challenges: www.cbpp.org/research/fed...
In the same bill where Trump and Republicans provided $153 billion of additional dollars for the military and $191 billion for DHS, they cut $187 billion from food assistance for the hungry and more than $1 trillion from health care for the sick
This stuff is always a choice, and they chose poorly
The military budget is $217 billion higher than it was a decade ago (after adjusting for inflation).
A significant chunk of that money comes from OBBBA & is still unused and earmarked for things Trump is likely to ask for in the supp. For the rest, there's flexibility to move some funds around.
The best reason to be against money for war in Iran is morality
I explain budgetary reasons against:
1) There's already funding from OBBBA, much of which is still unused
2) The military budget is huge & has flexibility to move some funds around
Congress should not provide additional funds for war
Few people asked for this and few people like it. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/u...
The best reason to be against a war supp is the war is immoral.
But even just looking at dollars, there's no need for a supp. The military budget has grown a ton in the last decade, & it just got a huge ⬆️ in OBBBA. Those funds, plus existing transfer authority, mean there's no need for more money.
Yes, I said the system as a whole was progressive. The extremely progressive income tax swamps regressive parts to leave a very progressive structure that's much more progressive than Europe, just like I said.
I agree and sorry if I was unclear! I am worried we're slowly moving towards that, and this is part of it. I think viewing this in concert with the Biden 400k current policy pledge, and as part of a broader movement among the No Tax Ons, I am super worried we're slowwalking towards it.
Sure! If you include regressive state and local, you get this:
itep.org/who-pays-tax...
yeah, it absolutely rules. give all of what we need! source here: home.treasury.gov/system/files...
Yeah, there are a lot of elements of our code that need to be fixed particularly to address specific kinds of tax avoidance by the rich, but our tax code is significantly more progressive than most of Europe and that rules. They have far flatter codes.
Households that take the standard deduction write it off, as if they never made the money — this includes households making $800k. This helps at your marginal rate. So relative to paying taxes on it the richest get 37% back, whereas the poorest had no tax liability & typical households get 12% back
Major part of the reason it’s difficult to change DST is where you are in the time zone really affects what’s optimal.
Permanent DST is best for people in the eastern part of the time zone. No DST ever is best for folks in the western part. Folks in the middle benefit from hours changing.
Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.
cannot be said enough that all these people who cosplay Warriors who are ready to Sacrifice for Family and Nation never go to war themselves and instead offer up other people’s lives so they can feel like badasses vicariously through other people’s deaths
They blew up an elementary school Tom
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...